This says it all really...

New toys!

I have just bought myself a set of 3 Pilot Parallel pens. They're great fun, and absolutely ideal for grabbing and playing around with in the few minutes when my daughter is quiet or napping and I don't have time to set myself up for a long writing session. These were done with the 2.4mm pen and a cartridge of the violet ink that came with the set.

As you can see, we've been celebrating Burns Night!

Scissors and glue

Here's a quick picture of a paste-up I did over the weekend for a piece using the Apache Wedding Blessing:

This is two sheets of A3; landscape and taped together. Written in a No. 3 Mitchell Roundhand nib and black gouache. It's currently laid out at 3 body-widths spacing, but it may end up being 2 1/2, with the second block split to keep the narrowness of the first. I'll also have a play around with the text centred and offset before deciding on the final layout. Quite pleased with how the Italics are coming on though!

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

Constable Country...

 Last weekend I spent a very enjoyable weekend on the 'Calligraphy for Beginners and Improvers' course run by the Field Studies Council at their Flatford Mill Centre in Suffolk. Our tutor for the weekend was the wonderful Gaynor Goffe who gave us her undivided attention for several hours each day, and led the more novice of us through several experiments in calligraphic variations and also in the use of colour.


My own efforts were focused on developing my Italics, and one of the very first things Gaynor got me to do was completely change the mechanics of how I write. She got me writing with a far more sweeping gesture moving the whole arm instead of just flexing my fingers. This is wonderful for developing rhythm, but makes you lose most of your control at first (at least that's my excuse).

A new technique (click for bigger)

 Pages of practice ensued (I got through a small rainforest) the one on the right being a better example from when I'd regained a modicum of control. Basic concepts were taught and practised using a relatively large nib (2mm), but as we became more proficient we were encouraged to move on to smaller sizes, and then on to italic variations.

Smaller nib size, and some variations

The main variations included sharpened italic, variations in proportion and spacing,  and finally variations produced by picking certain letters, or groups of letters, and consistently extending them (see left).

Flourishing (paste-up)

Hot on the heels of these Gaynor went through adding some flourishes with me - this was by far the most engaging and enjoyable part for me, and steep learning curve in terms of what works and what doesn't (and which flourishes work in combination with others). To the right is a paste-up of the my favourite piece or work from the weekend. As well as a considerable amount of technical tuition, I also learnt heaps of tips and tricks for ruling up, laying-out and centring pieces of work. As you can see from the picture, all the individual flourishes are pasted on - this allowed to me play around with different combinations of flourishes without having to write the piece out hundreds of times. The finished piece, I think deserves a big picture all of it's own.

Flourishes - final version

The weekend was incredibly intense - every time I felt I'd got a handle on one thing we were whisked on to the next, but it was definitely the best use of the time available;  if you wait until you've perfected one thing before trying something else, you'll basically never get past step one. Gaynor persuaded us to lay aside fears of 'getting it wrong' and got us to just give new things a go. Sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn't, but I learnt something from everything I tried. The challenge over the next few weeks is to re-visit all the things we covered during the course and try to consolidate it all.

Oh, and Flatford Mill is a beautiful place for a course like this!

Spaced out

Apologies for the recent radio-silence, things have been getting a little hectic of late and suddenly it's more than three weeks since I posted anything!

The eagerly awaited parcel finally turned up, and included a couple of Brause Rose nibs, some Brause 66EF nibs (plus special oblique holder for them), and Brause Bandzug 2.5mm broad-edged nib and some Moon Palace Sumi ink. Of all the contents I was only disappointed with the Brause Rose nib, but I will happily admit that I've hardly given it a chance and perseverance may prove that I'm entirely wrong - it just seemed to give very thick and messy lines :-(

Brause Bandzug 2.5mm nib

The Brause Bandzug (left) I am absolutely in love with. The Bandzug is a far better quality broad-edged nib than the Speedball nibs I have been using. Crisp, clean and smooth lines are consistently produced, and the reservoir holds seemingly no end of ink. It has a right-oblique cut for right-handed calligraphers that helps maintain nib-angle and is an absolute joy to write with. So much so that I've ordered the rest of the set (you can by sets of 9) so that I can have the complete range from 0.5mm right the way through to 5mm. Brilliant. What's more, the numbers assigned to each nib correspond to their width in mm - so no more having to remember which set of numbers is which width (as with almost every other manufacturer)! It's almost as like they thought about it.

Brause 66EF nib

The 66EF (right) is also lovely to write with. Smooth running without being excessively 'sharp' it produces nice hairlines and is particularly good for smaller  x-heights. Used in combination with the fantastically rich black Moon Palace Sumi I've been enjoying the results immensely.
The aforementioned Sumi ink seems to flow well from both of these nibs, but it has needed watering down a touch for use with some of my other copperplate nibs (the EF Principal in particular).


But enough waffle from me about calligraphy tools, what about the actual writing? Well for the last couple of weeks I've been working mainly on my Italics (just because they're easier to pick up and put down if time is tight) and playing with the above nibs. I'm fairly pleased with how my letter forms are coming on, but something was still looking a bit funny about the sheets I was producing. I asked my tutor, and he spotted it straight away:

Brause Bandzug nib, Higgins eternal ink (I think)

Both internal letter spacing and between words (I want to write inter-wordal, but don't think it's allowed really!). I've been working hard on this and it's getting a lot better - the consistency looks miles better and some of the practice sheets I'm really quite proud of, so I'm thinking of having a go at a CLAS Certificate to see what the pros think!

Here's a bit of Copperplate to show I haven't abandoned it! This is the text I'm thinking of using for the continuous prose bit of the certificate. I'm beginning to really prefer the 1:1:1 ratio for Copperplate - I think it always looks much more elegant than the 2:3:2 that I started with, so I'll stick with what I like best :-)









That's about it from me - I'm going to try posting more frequently in the future with the idea of keeping the length a little bit more manageable. Well done if you made it this far!

Taking a break from the pointed pen

This time last week I was wittering on about looking forward to learning the basics of Carolingian minuscule at my evening class. Here's how I got on:

(click for bigger)

We tend to spend the first half of the evening discussing a particular script and practising the basic letter forms, and if we feel we're getting on well enough we can then go on and try using it for a passage of writing. I'm a firm believer in running before I can walk, so like to practice by writing things out rather than just copying out the alphabet ad nauseum.
The rounded bowl-shapes of the m, n and h lean more towards Uncial than Carolingian (as does the rounded ascender of the d), but my Calligrapher's Bible used these and I preferred the more distinctive look it gave over the straighter stems that were more like Foundation hand. A great hand for anything with a slightly Celtic feel to it - especially with a Celtic-knot border. Care needs to be taken over the spacing though, as it really shows up any overly-large white spaces (or any cramped lettering).



In other news, my Italics also seem to be progressing well. Here's a practice page from last week:

Much more consistent than earlier attempts, but this does appear to have been at the detriment of my Copperplate script, which I've been taking a little break from recently.

The lovely blossoming Crab Apple tree that I posted a picture of last time has sadly become a casualty of the building works at home :-( but we do have some lovely roses (see right) to make up for it a little bit. Looking forward to choosing a replacement tree to plant in November though.

And here's an early attempt at some flourishing. Still waiting [im]patiently for my parcel...

Dr. ... Qui?

It would appear that I haven't posted for a while - how very remiss of me! I have however been doing some scribbling, with some interesting results.

After the monumental efforts of my last post, and having come to the conclusion that I need to slow down and relax, I decided to have a play around with a different method of writing Copperplate script. To this end I visited the IAMPETH website and watched my way through Dr. Joe Vitolo's series of clips on how to write his particular style of Copperplate (the lessons can be found here). The most obvious difference between Dr. Joe's method and the Winters book that I had been using is that Dr. Joe is far more concerned with the perfect formation of the individual letters than developing a flowing style of handwriting: he lifts the pen and turns the paper round and does all sorts in order to get the most consistent shapes. This is not to say that the resulting script doesn't look seamlessly written, it does and it's really rather lovely, it's just a different approach - and one that emphasizes what works best for you at that. So I've been playing around with the minuscules again, with the following results:

This was my first attempt - I'll probably never get it this good again. Rats.

Poor Brother Jarvis, I seem to be  becoming obsessed with him!

Not too bad for first attempts I think. I also took advantage of the clip that goes through how to adjust the flange on an oblique pen-holder properly - it makes a lot of difference!

 Over the Easter weekend I also took the time to refresh my memory of the Italic script. It's amazing how quickly it drops off if you don't practice regularly, so I think I should probably set aside one or two days a week for this.

The poem is by Brian Patten - one of my favourites.

I really must learn how to spell

Apart from being a bit rusty I found the letter forms came back to me quite quickly, and I've certainly developed a flow that wasn't there before. However, I do find that writing with this pen (a Rotring ArtPen 1.5mm) makes my hand hurt a significant amount. I'm probably gripping too much.









That's all for now folks, next I'm going to have a look at Dr. Joe's take on Capitals (and carry on practising my Italics). Oh, and Calligraphy classes start up again next week - hurrah!

p.s. A prize for anyone who gets the Bill Bailey reference.

Spring has sprung!

Ok, so I have been terribly remiss about posting recently, mainly because I have been really enjoying my scribbling and worked out that time taken posting on my blog = time not spent with a pen in my hand! However, I feel I ought to show off my progress a little, so here goes...

Having spent 3 weeks or so really working on my Italics (miniscules mainly, but I have had a go at some majascules) I took my efforts in to my tutor at the evening class and got some useful pointers and encouragement on how to take things further:

As you can see, quite a lot of scribbling, but a couple of nice complete alphabets. Some of the capitals are also getting there, although I seem to have particular trouble getting the right angles (not right-angles, d'oh!) for the A and M.
One thing my Tutor suggested was having a go at a more 'flourished' Italic where the ascenders are all curved over to the right in order to match (rotationally) the descenders. I like this much more than the formal Italic - it somehow has a sense of flow to it.

 A closer look at the alphabets seen bottom right in the image above. Sometimes I get carried away and loose the ability to spell! Please forgive the missing 'y's in the first two attempts. Next term, when classes start up again, I'll be using this to attempt a 'job' i.e. a finished piece of writing complete with experiments in layout, colour and design!

All this has been helped immensely by the appearance of my new calligraphy easel, handmade for me by Rowley Abbey of Abbey Easels - fantastically pleased with the result, and it was made in super-quick time to my own specifications. Great workmanship - I would highly recommend him to anyone.




In other news, I've been making cake:

Mmmm, cake :-)

and getting back in to my running which I'm returning to after after several months off due to a hip injury. I'm up to 40mins pain free! Yay! (it's probably just as well after all that cake...).