Capital punishment

Another weekend, another fabulous course with Gaynor Goffe at Flatford Mill. Most of the usual suspects were there, with the addition of a couple of new faces too. This time I thought I'd dedicate the weekend to getting my capitals sorted out. Majascules always seem to get neglected - it's very easy to work hard on perfecting the minuscules of a particular hand, but when you come to write out a quote, poem or name you suddenly realise you have absolutely no idea how to form the capitals properly. Very annoying!

I have, on previous occasions, tried my hand at flourished Italic capitals but found the attempt more than a little frustrating not really knowing anything about the correct proportions or pen angles. This time I jumped in a at the deep end and decided to learn the strict proportions of Roman Capitals, and then branch out into a few variations, including some drawn capitals. A typical sheet from the course looked something like this:

Roman Caps and their variations. WM No.2 nib with black gouache.

At the top are a few lines of the ordinary Roman caps, followed by some experiments in size (but using the same nib) and then a more relaxed, slightly forward leaning alphabet in the middle and at the bottom. This latter variation really appealed to me - I didn't find it at all taxing to write and it seemed to flow quite naturally so I decided to prepare a small haiku to lay out and write up as a finished piece.

Left is the layout paste-up for the finished piece. Written with a William Mitchell No.2 square cut nib in black gouache this is a slightly squat, more flowing variation of the Roman caps I had been working on. As always, I ruled up for two attempts at a final version.





This one I am particularly proud of :

Final piece - No. 2 nib with custom-mixed Purple gouache (W&N designers)

Other work over the weekend included drawn Roman caps with serifs, and formal and flourished Italic caps

Drawn Roman caps with serifs

Drawn Roman caps, final word to be traced down

Final word traced down, outlined with a pointed nib and painted in with purple gouache

Formal and flourished Italic caps practise sheet

Birthday Bonanza

After a long and not-so-hot summer, September hits our family with a quadruple-whammy of birthdays in the first week alone. This can get expensive (admittedly one of the birthdays is my own, so I can't complain too much :-)) but it's also a great time to try and get creative. After spotting one of the envelope exchange jobs I'd done for my most recipient, my sister requested a hand-made card for her own birthday and I was happy to get scribbling with a few experiments.

Pencil sketch of the flourish

 After a little consideration of my efforts, I settled for a simple 'Happy Birthday' in gold gouache on front front of the card with a little hand-designed flourish (more of a doodle) underneath (see right).

Final 'rough'

As usual the final practice version of the card turned out to be the best one *sigh*, but I set about making four usable cards, each slightly different for the other.

The finished version sent to my sister looked a little like this:

Final version: Schminke Gold Pearl Gouache on Purple card, done with a Brause 66EF nib

(in fact it looked suspiciously like that!) the final four can be seen here in the gallery.