I have come to the conclusion...

...that Envelope Exchange envelopes are like buses; you wait ages for the first one and then three turn up at once! Two more have arrived since my last post here - both nice examples of Copperplate, the most recent one being an absolutely superb example of what you can achieve in terms of layout and making the most of the space available - it rather raises the bar! (although in my defence I believe they've all been at it a bit longer than I have).

In turn I have sent my second envelope off to:

This one was written using my Brause 66EF nib in Dr. Martin's Bleedproof White. It's actually a dark purple envelope, but seems to have come out more black in the photo.

I also added a little offhand flourish like the feather pictured left (this was one of my practice ones). I'm always slightly terrified of adding things to an envelope that I'm pleased with, just in case I ruin it, but it's no excuse not to try really.


 Having received the set of Brause Bandzug nibs I mentioned here, I embarked on the 8 lines of continuous text needed for the CLAS certificate. I also decided to have a look and see what it looked like using the Schminke Red Pearl gouache watered down to use as ink. The results of my first attempt looked like this:

(apologies for the rather under-exposed photo - click for bigger)

I have to admit that I had huge difficulties getting the ink to flow nicely from the nib, resulting in several severely botched letters (it seemed reluctant to flow from both tines at once). I think it was simply a case of it being too thick ('Sorry Gromit, that was a bit thick!'), but having started I tried to persevere. Layout-wise it's not too bad, apart from needing to be consistently an inch further to the right, and this photo shows the pearl sheen of the ink really well. Unfortunately I don't think it's good enough to send in, so will have to do it again (probably just in black this time), but I was encouraged to see that amongst all the mistakes there's also so really nice lettering in there.
The deadline for entries is the 30th of June, so I'm going to be hard-pushed to get it all done in time, but if I work hard over the weekend I might be lucky!

And finally, here's a picture of the full set of Bandzugs in all their glory: