What's the SCA you ask? The Society of Creative Anachronism is a worldwide collection of people who have an affinity for one of more historical eras between 600 and 1600 BCE. This includes reenactment, costuming, cooking, fighting, the sciences and of course…the arts. A Scribe creates artwork and text (calligraphy) for scrolls, chargers and manuscripts. As someone who is a watercolorist for their day job, my husband twisted my rubber arm and now I'm going to hyper obsess over the process of becoming a Scribe.
My first foray was at Ursalwyk Medieval faire in Monroe February 2026. There were gonna doing painting demonstrations and had paints and bookmarks to practice on. I know it was intended for kids but I had a blast and my husband had to pull me away.
Painted bookmarks from Ursalwyck.
We went to May crown in the Yakima area but I had a stomach thing and we mostly just say around in costume and watching the fighting.
Then we attended the May business meeting for our local SCA Barony and I was have 4 charters (photocopied scrolls) to paint. I was given no instruction or guidance other than to use gouache. I still had my gouache paints from college. Working on the scrolls they seemed really flat and now that I look at other examples, I realize I could've done a much better job. I handed the 2 finished charters to the Chatelaine at a new members event and the last 2 at Banner War in September.
A charter before adding paint
My first painted charter before adding gold paint.
Starting another one at the new members event.
Starting to add blue. I kept making up a narrative in my head. Is this guy a guest of a royal lady and her ladies in waiting, or is a royal lady trying to find a match for her daughters. It was fun to joke as the painting progressed.
Almost complete. Maybe he’s giving a concert for his mom with the gray hair who’s friend t find him a wife.Looking at it now, with what I’ve learned from reading books and the internet, I wish I had done more (any) shading.
Another in the process. Why did I feel like every brick and shingle had to be a different color?
Also I don’t have any photos of the finished pieces… that’s dumb.
Banner War was a lot of fun and I got to experience a lot more of the pageantry and social culture of our local SCA group. I'm still finding it difficult to know how to begin my Scribal journey, so I've checked out a few library books on illuminated manuscripts and after recommendations from a few scribes of Facebook, bought some other books not from Amazon.
STAY TUNED!
