The recipient of this scroll had a Korean persona and was known for their research into its culture, clothing, and food. Art museums are quickly becoming an excellent source of inspiration for me and I found this beautiful Ogival tray at The Met that I thought would make a beautiful scroll.

I set to work with ruler and pencil, and drew out some base curves.

And then I realized how much work it would be to paint the black around all the vine work. So I painted over it in black and then painted the curves again in a base coat of white followed by moon gold paint. Midway through this project I had a conversation with another scribe who suggested trying yellow as the base coat, so I switched to that for the floral details to see if it would make a visible difference in the end result.

It’s very subtle, but I do think it does change the tone of the gold a bit.

I’ve been noticing an improvement in my ability to make the calligraphy fit into the space I want and this text landed perfectly. Adding a thin line of black around the inner and outer borders was the final touch and made a big difference in the finished appearance overall.

Materials: Pergamenata, ruler, Ames lettering guide, pencil, eraser, 01 micron pen, metal scraper, Finetec gold paint, Winsor & Newton gouache, Princeton heritage 2/0 round paint brush, Speedball Super Black ink, dip pen