The Albion that wasn't.

When I was asked to do this Albion for Kragen I had NO idea how controversial it would be. I had no idea  who he was but that's not unusual for me especially at the time when we were sort of stuck in south Switzerland behind the Alps and didn't travel to events much.  It turned out that the award was given to a person, a wonderful person I am told, who no longer lived in the Kingdom and this was a BIG no no.

It's too bad it was done this way for several reasons . One, the recipient felt bad about it because it caused a big ruckus, Two every time the award got mentioned it was with the tag line "that should never have happened ...." and I felt like shit for doing the scroll. Three is was, according to our Kingdom law illegal and of course due to this caused no end of headaches depending on who you speak to about it.

I find it sad that some Royalty see fit to often just do their own thing, completely ignoring the rules or even the wishes of the majority of the populace and in the end it leads to a lot of unhappiness all around. But as someone once told me Royalty can do what they like and it's the people left behind who have to pick up the pieces so best to try and get through it all and hope they don't win crown again. Also kind of a sad statement when one thinks about it since Royalty should inspire its people not piss them off.  Occasionally I think that some people forget when they wear the pointy hat it's still a hobby and they are not actually a king or queen in real life. For me it meant I was the scribe that penned an illegal scroll that no one talks much about. If the recipient liked it he never said anything to me and later I learned that he was just embarrassed by the whole thing.

Still it's part of my portfolio and a lot of work went into it. I wrote out the entire Albion story on half a full sheet of Pergamenata, oak-gall ink. W&N blue and red calligraphy ink. The capital letter is a great example, for me at least, of what not to do. It looks like a dog's dinner and it's not well done at all.  Too busy and poorly laid out and I knew this about half way into it but couldn't undo it so I finished it but that wasn't an improvement.

The actual scroll was a4 size perg with Schminke gouache, gold and red / blue with my usual inks. I was happier with this bit than the whole story thing so in the end that was okay since really it was the signed bit that actually matters the other part was just a nice add on.

I never knew what became of this scroll and the award is mostly locked away in the we don't want to discuss it category so it's the Albion that never was.