A Learning Experience

In the official scroll post, I mentioned I had mixed feelings about the scroll. Rather than letting it slip to the way side, let's take a closer look at what went wrong and, believe it or not, what went right.

I love the calligraphy in the original. It is closer to the inspiration fencing manual. Always check your sentence structure before you put ink to paper. The original switches from Their to Our. It's subtle, but it drove me crazy. When I was done with the scroll and putting things away, I was trying to be cute/thorough and put a period in gold at the end of "...Nikolai & Tsarina Serena" and somehow managed to stick it one line above. I had to try to cover my coppery-gold ink blot and it really bothered me. I pulled the original OKC text from the Middle Kingdom Scribes Handbook, but it felt stilted and I was having trouble getting a good sentence structure feel using Hear or Heed the words.

The calligraphy is alright, but I grabbed the wrong nib and had to commit after "Jao"... I changed the color of the two men's fencing outfits. The original was too Blue vs. Green which is sensitive in this region. I increased the size of the Cavendish Knot which I feel fills the space a little better. I added the ground (grass) which was in the original fencing manual. It was something which I felt was lacking in the original iteration of the scroll and am glad I put in the second. It proves an anchor and a bit of closure. I went back to my scroll assignment and pulled the reason for the scroll ("joyful expertise on the rapier field") and used that to personalize the scroll.

(Exhibit A) The original Cavendish Knot.

(Exhibit B) The final Cavendish Knot.

There is a lot more nit picking back and forth between the two scrolls in my opinion, but the recipient was pleased with the scroll they received and the ink is dry, so to speak. This was definitely a learning experience. I'm glad I had built in a little extra off time around the event to allow for a total remake of the scroll.