Our local guild, Bridger Mountain Scribes, has been working on a collaborative book for the past year. (See more about the project on the front page of the website.) I did the layout (the digital paste-up, I mean) and the lettering for the book extras (title pages, footers, intro text), and yesterday I picked up the printing proofs. We are going to print a couple of copies each and hand bind them ourselves. Fun project!
Here’s a shot of some of the raw lettering and backgrounds that I used, and here’s the title page, which gives you idea of how I approached the section heading pages as well.
Trying to improve on one of the daily lettering pieces I did on Sunday. You can’t step in the same river twice, and often diverting the flow has unintended consequences. Even though I didn’t like Sunday’s E while I making it, that Sunday E is much better than today’s. Sunday’s H was cramped, probably because I was conscious that I was getting to the right edge of the paper; this one is a better shape but not a better line. In general, the lines are much better on Sunday’s sheet. Only now as I look at the photo of today’s work do I see that I skipped the down stroke of the T. Or, to be more accurate, made it do double duty as the first stroke of the U. I was thinking ahead to the V, which was not good on Sunday’s sheet — way too narrow, for one think. Today’s is still narrow, but I don’t mind it as much because I haven’t allowed the W to encroach. Much better X on Sunday’s sheet. I could go on, but here’s another page from today’s daily lettering:
Cocoiro Brush and one rule: every letter must have a loop
I have a love-hate relationship with loops in letters. I generally hate mine, I often hate loops made by other people, but I love loops made by a fewwonderfulcalligrapherswhoreally know how to swing it. I though that I might use loops to generate a certain texture — I’m back to reading Burgert’s Calligraphic Line again.
A pretty good page of daily lettering. The small stuff could have benefited from a little Fibonacci planning … if I had been planning. Cocoiro brush pen and Zig roller pens on Strathmore Charcoal paper.
After a week of cleaning my studio, there are still islands of disorder — small islands, in some cases. One of these is a box of Pilot Parallel Pens in various states of construction and usability. I really like these pens, but because I mostly use sumi inks and gouache I don’t think to get them out much. Although they can only take free-flowing media, they are about as manipulable as any writing tool there is.
Here are some great resources for getting to really know Parallel Pens:
A solution for the inexplicably poor design which prevents the cap from posting on the other end of the pen staff. It is the little things in life that matter, sometimes, and sometimes you just want those two minutes of your life back, as I did after reading this blog post which explores in minute detail the issues surrounding posting.
At the 2014 calligraphy conference in Dallas, Carol DuBosch demonstrated the then-brand-new radius-cut Parallel Pen. More product information here, including Carol’s alphabet made with the pen.
This past week I’ve been obsessed with cleaning my studio. It all started because we were planning to house a guest there for a week, and I realized that the place was in pretty bad shape. So I started straightening. Then I started cleaning, and of course as I cleaned I had to organize.
It took a week, but in the process I tested all my pigmented markers and gel pens, inventoried frames and framing equipment, cleaned tools, organized papers … I was pretty thorough. I can’t say that I’m finished, but I am done. For now.
Here are shots of the drawers in the desk where I do most of my writing. This desk was built for my grandfather by his father to take to college. I love the desk.
I have way too many tools, but maybe now that they’re organized I will use them up in an efficient manner. As if.
Oh, and it looks as though we won’t be having a guest there after all. Still, mission accomplished.
My standard inks, plus pigmented markers, metallic markers, calligraphy markers
Inks, ink sticks, ink stones, cutting tools, bookbinding weights, and one cut quill (which really shouldn’t have the feathers still attached).
Brushes, more brushes, vintage pointed nibs, alcohol wipes.
Paint/ink pots, tapes, compasses, jewelry tools (not that I make jewelry).
Gouache, watercolors, more pointed markers, brush markers.
Yes, more than 1,000,000 images! You can get it in a steady stream via the The Mechanical Curator, a Tumblr blog which hourly posts randomly selected small illustrations and ornamentations. Or you can dive into their Flickr photo-ocean — I know that Flickr calls it a photostream, but in this case it’s an ocean. It’s organized by album (e.g., musical instruments, architecture, children’s books, cycling, technology, ships …).
Jehan Froissart, Chroniques – caption: ‘The Peasants’ Revolt in England in 1381. The scene of conflict and the death of Wat Tyler, leader of the peasants by the sword.’ ID: c13647-28 Title: Jehan Froissart, Chroniques Author: “Froissart, Jehan (Jehan Froissart)” Provenance: Netherlands Caption: The Peasants’ Revolt in England in 1381. The scene of conflict and the death of Wat Tyler, leader of the peasants by the sword. Notes: Jehan Froissart, Chroniques Netherlands, S.; Last quarter of the 15th century, before 1483
The search function is not as helpful as it could be — keywords such as “batarde”, “manuscript book”, and “Netherlands” failed to turn up this image. I found it, instead, by scrolling through the album entitled “Images Online: a selection“.
Freely written name and address with Y&C Gel Xtreme GX100G pen, which is finally running out after about 120 addresses.
I took these envelopes and a gel pen along with me on my trip to Florida recently, doing most of the work on the airplanes. The pen is just about out of ink now, but I eked this one out at the end. I had misspelled the name Rachel and so converted this one to a sample.
After all these years, I’ve got lots of “samples” in my studio.
