Drachenwald Laurels' Arts Challenge: Heraldic textiles for your camp, Part I

 

Anyone who's spent any time with me knows my...intense dislike, shall we say...of art as a competition. Having said that, deadlines are useful, so when a handful of Drachenwald Laurels offered up a challenge, which is definitely not a competition, to complete at least one of a variety of tasks by the end of October, I thought I'd take the opportunity to do something with the supplies that have been ageing nicely in my stash.

I have long intended to make myself a banner, and have amassed nearly everything I need to do that very thing, so Mistress Lia de Thornegge's challenge was quite appealing:

Produce camp textiles incorporating your heraldry

     To beautify and make our SCA camping comfortable and colourful, produce some sort of textile to enhance your encampment incorporating your heraldry, or heraldic colours. Bonus points (there are no points) if the item is made in a way that you can document within the timeframe of the SCA.

The inspiration

Right around the time this whole thing got started was right around the time the Barony of Madrone in An Tir was having it's Athenæum event, wherein my friend Baroness Iuliana had a splendid entry of a painted banner. Proper inspiration, that. She based much of her entry on our good friend Cennino Cennini's well-loved treatise Il Libero dell'Arte, of which I have two copies! So far, so good.

Cennino Cennini, Il Libro dell'Arte, c. 1390 (detail)

My inspiration is the banner in the image above. It's currently in the Metropolitan Museum of Art, although not currently on display. Somewhat delightfully, its dimensions are completely manageable at a mere 54.6 x 71.1 cm (21.5 x 28 in), so definitely good for packing and hanging in camps. 

The Met tells me that it's silk and polychrome. When you zoom in, it looks like thickish paint that has cracked, which, to me, indicates that it's actual paint on fabric, rather than the dye we see a lot of on many SCA banners. This lines up with the instruction our good friend Cennini gives for painting on silk:

HOW TO WORK ON SILK, ON BOTH SIDES

     If you have to do palls or other jobs on silk, first spread them out on a stretcher as I taught you for the cloth. And, according to what the ground is, take crayons, either black or white. Do your drawing, and fix it either with ink or with tempered colour...(a bunch of instruction on transferring the drawing to the other side)...   

     Then size with the usual size wherever you have to paint or gild; and mix a little white of egg with this size, say one white of egg to four goblets or glasses of size. And when you have got it sized, if you want to lay any diadem or ground in burnished gold, to bring you great honour and reputation, take gesso sottile and a little Armenian bole, ground very fine together, and a little bit of sugar. Then, with the usual size and a very little white of egg, mixed with a small amount of white lead, you put on two coats of it thinly wherever you wish to gild. Then apply your bole just as you apply it on a panel. Then lay your gold with clear water, mixing it with a little of the tempera for the bole; and burnish it over a good smooth slab or a good sound, smooth board. And stamp and punch it likewise over this board.

     Furthermore, you may paint any subject in the usual way, tempering the colours with yolk of egg, laying the colours in six or eight times, or ten, out of regard for the varnishing; and then you may gild the diadems or grounds with oil mordants; and the embellishments with garlic mordants, varnishing afterward, but preferably with oil mordants. And let this serve for ensigns, banners and all.

Next steps

So. I am now in a place where I can truly start planning this whole thing out, for realsies. I know I'll need to get a frame to stretch the fabric. I already have white silk and green dye that I picked up when I did another banner, but I'm considering getting some already green silk so I can be better convinced of its colourfastness. I also already have fringe, because obviously.

Cennini has recipes for all of that nonsense he lists, above, so I'll need to give those and anything he has on paints a review (and I'll talk about them more thoroughly as I work my way through the project, so it's all in context). I'll also need to have a think, based on what I learn there, about whether I want to go full period pigments or modern equivalents.

Finally, I'll need to decide on whether I'll use my full Coat of Arms, or run with one of the badges I have worked up, and whether I want to gild anything. I do loves me some gilding.

And that, my friends, is that. Stay tuned for the next instalment, where I am quite likely to spill something on myself and swear a lot...

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The Craftsman's Handbook "Il Libro dell'Arte"; Cennino d'Andrea Cennini, trans. Daniel V. Thompson, Jr. (1060)