Posts

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Progress on the Farmer’s Wife quilt

We’ve been traveling a good deal lately, and the calligraphy that I have done has mostly consisted of private commissions, so I don’t have much to show right now.

But my Farmer’s Wife sampler quilt is coming along. Back in April, I mentioned the quilt-along that my sister and I embarked on at the beginning of the year. The quilt consists of 111 unique blocks. This image shows, in chronological order of construction, all the blocks I’ve completed so far. At 64 blocks, we are more than halfway there!

Farmer's Wife quilt blocks completed so far
Farmer’s Wife quilt blocks completed so far

 

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Color wheels

Goethe's 1809 color wheel
Goethe’s 1809 color wheel

I love color wheels as objects themselves, but also as a record of our attempts to understand color.

The Public Domain Review has posted a collection of color wheels that are beautiful and diverse.

I’ve shown two of my favorites here: Goethe’s color wheel, published in his work  Farbenlehre, and Runge’s three-dimensionally rendered color globes.

See many more at the link above.

Philipp Otto Runge’s color globes (1810)
Philipp Otto Runge’s 1810 color globes
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Sculpture in Prague

"Metalmorphosis" by David Černý. A moving portrait of Kafka, probably.
“Metalmorphosis” by David Černý. A moving portrait of Kafka, probably. Someone has posted a video here.
"Saint Wenceslas"
“Saint Wenceslas” by David Černý
"Slight Uncertainty" - Fiberglas sculpture by Michal Trpák
“Slight Uncertainty” – Fiberglas sculpture by Michal Trpák
Caught in a pissing match!
Caught in a pissing match! More David Černý.

We recently returned from a trip to the Czech Republic. Prague has so many interesting sculptures, especially pieces by David Černý, Prague’s bad-boy artist.

His “Metalmorphosis” is hypnotic. We stood and watched it for longer than I would have imagined. His “Saint Wenceslas” is a biting commentary on this sculpture by Josef Václav Myslbek in nearby Wenceslas Square.

We saw most of the sculptures listed in this article in the Prague Post. Unfortunately, I’ve lost a chunk of photos, or I’d include them here.

It would have been easy to miss Michal Trpák’s sculpture, “Slight Uncertainty”, hanging above a busy intersection, but our friend Jenny was there to make sure I didn’t. Thanks, Jenny!

I’ll save the modern galleries and medieval manuscripts for later posts.

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Beautiful needlework instruction book

Needlework instruction book. Dublin, Ireland, 1833-37.
Needlework instruction book. Dublin, Ireland, 1833-37.

http://northeastauctions.com/product/two-extremely-rare-needlework-instruction-books-with-samples-from-the-female-model-school-kildare-place-dublin-ireland-1833-37/

http://northeastauctions.com/product/two-extremely-rare-needlework-instruction-books-with-samples-from-the-female-model-school-kildare-place-dublin-ireland-1833-37/

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Nota Bene – newsletter of the Big Sky Scribes

2015-10-17 Nota BeneLately, for various reasons, I’ve been hanging out at the local printer a lot.  I was wearing my guild newsletter editor hat on Thursday, when I picked up the current issue of the Big Sky Scribes newsletter, the Nota Bene. This morning I took all 90 or so of them to the post office. A lot of great stuff was submitted this time, and it’s a good issue. Guild members should see it in their mailbox early next week.

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Rachel Yallop

One of my favorite calligraphers, Rachel Yallop, does beautiful pointed pen work, among other letter styles. She demonstrated her method in the class I took with her at Legacies II in summer 2014. She keeps the angle of the pen staff to the paper quite shallow. I’m sure if I kept my pen at the same angle, my letters would look just this good. Not.

Here’s a video of Rachel Yallp, calligrapher extraordinaire, writing copperplate with a straight pen holder. Originally shared publicly by Rachel on Facebook May 15, 2014.

Follow her on Facebook for a real treat.

A video of Rachel Yallop , calligrapher extraordinaire, writing copperplate with a straight pen holder. Originally shared publicly by Rachel on Facebook May 15, 2014

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Pointed pen practice

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Pointed pen practice: Jane Austen’s letter from Darcy to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. Principality nib at x-height=2.8mm. Moon Palace sumi ink on Strathmore recycling drawing paper.

Today’s work included the final lettering for a commission: a long text in pointed pen script. I haven’t done much pointed pen lately, so I did this piece as a warm-up. It’s the beginning of the famous letter from Darcy to Elizabeth in Pride and Prejudice. Fun stuff. Good thing this wasn’t the real commission: there is a hando (rather than a typo) at the end of the very first line. The pen nib was new but awful. I had to change it out before starting on the actual commissioned piece.

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Case binding and daily ABCs

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Blank 5-signature case quarter binding using the paper which will be used for the final book. Cloth spine, cover paper gouache on Arches Text Wove

Yesterday I finished the testing binding for our local guild’s collaborative book. It had been awhile since I cased in a book. It’s rather amazing how much I forget between bindings … and also how much I remember of the tiny details. Unfortunately, often the details I remember are the same ones I’ve forgotten until just after that detail is executed.

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Sakura 3.0 mm calligraphy marker on newsprint.

And here is one of this morning’s daily ABCs.

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Some recent and in-progress work

2015-10-05-worktable-in-progress-itemsLots of projects going these days.

Today members of our local guild bound a test text block for the collaborative book we’ve been working on. We are making a standard case binding using the same paper on which the book will be printed. Today we got as far as applying the mull to the spine. I had brought supplies for this, and I was determined to unpack it all when I got back to my studio. This led eventually to trimming the text block and applying a headband. You can just see that text block underneath the top black square of paper. I did go ahead and cut out the cover and spine boards, but that’s for another day, because I continued to work on …

Addressing styles. I had the best time addressing some personal envelopes recently and discovered that I don’t really need guidelines for certain styles. So I’ve been developing some more casual envelope address styles. Some of what I tried today is shown above: sumi ink, pigment ink, gold gel pen, and fine marker on white, black and shimmery gold stock.

Yesterday I got out two travel watercolor sets and made test cards using a water brush. At the tops of the cards are the pure colors. At the bottoms of the cards I’ve experimented with mixing and tints.