Serafina's Laurel Scroll

Serafina's Scroll was a collaboration between Duchess Caryn von Katzenberg, Mistress Bethany of Windermere, and myself, at the request of Serafina. Bethany was Serafina's Laurel, and Caryn was Bethany's Laurel, so it was sort of a family affair... except I'm just a crazy fangirl, not family. Needless to say I was surprised and thrilled to be asked to be a part of this process.

The three of us conversed via e-mail, and I uploaded some very poor quality images of inspiration ideas for us to consider. We then met to discuss things in person at Quest and decided on this beauty.


Biblia di Borso d'Este c. 1455-1461
Codices Illustres, page 333

Duchess Caryn did the calligraphy and Mistress Bethany sketched the basic layout and her section of acanthus and passed it on to me. I sketched in my portions of acanthus and spent what seems like forever mixing the perfect shade of lavender to replace the pink from the original piece. Purple/lavender is one of Serafina's favorite colors, which is why we decided to do this. I then began to lay paint.



I quickly discovered that to get the soft shading needed to replicate the look of the original piece, a lot of blending was needed. This became a time-consuming process of laying more and more paint, and I began to worry about the time-frame for completion. I knew that Bethany had a ton of work to do after I was done, so I needed to finish my portion as quickly as possible to give her the time she would need.

Below you can see the scroll as it progresses over the course of one week.






More images can be seen over here in my album:

From Serafina's Scroll

Once my portions were complete, I passed it on to Bethany who did all the miniatures, gold leaf (the gold you see on my portions are a fabulous gold gouache), and the rest of the acanthus. I do not have closeups of the final "done" version, but you can see a picture over at Serafina's Blog (scroll down to the bottom to see the award scroll, but pause to look at the other parts of her vigil and ceremony stuff).

I am deeply honored to have been able to be a part of this process - to have my work on the same paper as these two phenomenal women, to award yet another amazing woman.