S is a 5 with a migraine

The April meeting was on English Church Text with Chris Bowen. And if you have ever seen this particular hand you will understand why some scribes immediately wanted to do a runner. It is a complicated mixture of Gothic letters with elaborate flourishes and very scary. However, Chris had worked out a plan to subdue it and told us to start by concentrating on the main part of the letter and to write our chosen words first before adding embellishments.

Above he demonstrates how to break a letter down into its component parts. It was also very reassuring to hear that he works out his embellishments in pencil first so that they do not have to be added freehand. In fact quite a lot of the design can be preplanned so that you know exactly where to place the strokes.

Part way through the workshop there was a visit from a local from Jarrow, seen above. Judi donned a spare helmet and became an Anglo-Saxon for this part of the meeting but no actual fighting took place.

At the end of this session Chris Bowen showed us how he had been mounting some of his work into a large bound book.