These scrolls were blanks created by other people and passed to me to do the calligraphy. I decided it was time to try something new with the text, but still wasn’t brave enough to learn a new hand, so I settled on embellishing the name with a simple gold paint border.

Materials: Pergamenata, ruler, pencil, eraser, Ames lettering guide, cartridge ink fountain pen, gold paint

Another idea was more fancy embellishment on first letters only. I also added the award badge in the middle.

Materials: Bristol, ruler, pencil, eraser, Ames lettering guide, cartridge ink fountain pen, gold paint, micron pen, gouache

I added an accent line of swooshes to the last to hide the fact that I missed a row while writing and started the third line lower than planned. More importantly, though, I added the medieval rats parading the badge through the arches when I found out that the recipient loved rats.

Materials: Bristol, ruler, pencil, eraser, Ames lettering guide, cartridge ink fountain pen, gold paint, micron pen, gouache