Calligraphy & more — the studio of Beth Lee, Redmond, WA
Even though it’s been on the Internet for 2 years, I’ve not seen this video of Hermann Zapf until today.
The Art of Hermann Zapf from Johnny Dib on Vimeo.
It must have been filmed 40+ years ago. That paper is luscious, probably handmade. And his pen renditions of type are amazing.
Seen on It’s Nice That.
Here’s something I’ve finished this morning. Since it won’t be presented for a couple of weeks, I’m only showing a sliver of it, and redacting identifying parts.
So I got it completed — on the second time time around, never mind what I did wrong on the first time around — but the names under the signature line ran a little long. No problem, I thought. I can just extend the signature lines. Then I realized that the extension ran into the space for the gold seal. This is the third time around.
Such are the minor idiocies of working under the influence of a major head cold. I’m assuming it’s a cold. After all, I had a flu shot this year, so it can’t be the flu. Right?
Yesterday I started a new journal for the new year. For many people, that means popping down to Borders for a $10 ready-made journal with ruled lines, and interesting cover, and a useful magnetic closure. (I love those magnetic closures.)
Evidently that would be too easy for me.
Instead I built my own, basing the page proportion on the golden ratio (1:0.6180339887), and the page layout on Rosarivo’s “divine proportion” and the van de Graaf canon of page construction, in turn based on medieval manuscript page design.
I’m using a pad of short-grain sketch paper, and I’ll bind it at the end of the year. Assuming I’m still writing in it by then. But of course I will be, right? It’s my new year’s resolution.
… my blog, that is. After years on Blogger — checking the archives, I see that it’s been a little over 5 years — I’ve moved this calligraphy blog to my calligraphy website. It may be a few days before I get the sidebar back in order, but the posts are all here. The old site was here but it now redirects to this blog, and you should be able to see all the old posts here.
Just a little thing, but fun to do. It’s a private little song the client sings to her grandchildren, so I haven’t reproduced that here, but I can show the little pink and purple flowers I added in the left margin.
Using Adirondack alcohol inks and Martha’s blog posts as inspiration, I’ve just completed the last of the addresses in the annual envelope exchange … with a few extra envelopes for future purposes.
Just finished a commission for an accordion book. I thought I understood what the client wanted, but you know, every once in a while I just get it wrong.
I heard:
Well, I’m not good with muted colors; this first attempt is muted colors … for me.
What I didn’t understand was the particular meaning of traditional. Looking at this first attempt I now realize that this looks like a particular style of my Presbyterian youth. My mother had jewelry that looks like this, and I was clueless about that connection while designing the book.
Today I went looking for a simple multi-signature book binding tutorial for a friend. En route I found all these interesting binding tutorials:
Last month I did some table cards to identify the food at a reception featuring Japanese and Chinese cuisine. I meant to take some photos before I let them go, but, as often happens, I forgot. So I was cleaning up the studio today and came across the remains of the project. These rejects show the Japanese and Chinese cards, respectively.