Text needed a fill in order to be seen
When testing this example no text was coming through, adding a fill setting seems to fix it
@@ -15,6 +15,7 @@ text.pointsize = 28
text.font_weight = BoldWeight
text.font_style = ItalicStyle
text.gravity = CenterGravity
+text.fill = 'black'
# Let's make it interesting. Composite the
# rotated text over a gradient fill background.
