Lessons for life, from a Bear of very little brain.

So here, as promised in this post, is the completed extract from 'In which Eeyore finds the Wolery and Owl moves into it' as written by Me:

(Apologies for the dodgy image quality - this is a scan, but I'm still working on the best way of sharing images of my work. Hopefully it's better when you view the larger images).

This is my favourite ever Winnie-the-Pooh excerpt, and I thought it would be a nice way of starting off practising longer pieces. Instead of rambling interminably about the various aspects of what I've written I thought I'd try and keep it succinct in the following way:

Good Things

• Relatively consistent looking throughout the three-and-a-bit pages
• Only one spelling mistake (that I've noticed) - sorry Eeyore!
• There were no 'second attempts' at any of these pages - it's all as written the first time round.

Less-good Things 

• I made a spelling mistake
• The baseline is a bit wobbly and inconsistent
• I'm having trouble keeping the 'h' downstrokes straight - mostly I need to come fruther back round with the ascender loop
• I need to take far more care with the baseline parts of the letters h and n to make sure that they have even depth (this is partly why the lines are a bit wobbly)

Next time I will:

• Choose a shorter passage!
• TAKE MY TIME over each letter and word
• Use darker guidelines or draw light pencil lines on the paper
• Relax and warm up properly - it can be so tempting just to launch straight into it and only hit your stride some lines later
• Take more care sqauring-off  and re-touching letters. NB this should be done with a finer nib

This piece was done using my Brause 361 nib and Higgins Eternal ink on Winsor & Newton Smooth Surface Cartridge Paper. This paper has a nice off-white colour and is just about smooth enough for pointed pen work, as long as you're relaxed about it. It's quite thick though, hence my difficulty in seeing the guidelines!

I learnt so much doing this piece; the main one being SLOW DOWN. It's so easy to think you can write faster just because you can write joined up, but it's a recipe for disaster. I recently saw the following in a Copperplate newsletter: Rules for Copperplate writing:
                                     Rule One - WRITE SLOWLY
                                     Rule Two - See Rule One

This pretty much sums it up I think! That being said, it is important to try and find the balance between 'slow' and 'flow', which I think comes from being relaxed both mentally and physically. So next time I'll be doing my best to slow down and relax, and also keep in mind the technical issues I want to correct without it stressing me out. If anyone has any further pointers for me to add to my list - just shout!