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!

Sunshine, stained glass and struggles with Copperplate.

What fantastic weather we've had these last few days! It's so good to be reminded what it feels like to be warm enough to go out in t-shirt and shorts. I realise that that probably was summer, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

On Friday I took a little trip up to Lincoln for the day to meet my Big Sis. Lincoln happens to be about halfway between the two of us, and as neither of us had been there before we decided it would be a nice place to explore. The weather obliged with wall-to-wall sunshine and we spent a lovely day pootling round the old part of the town looking in all the interesting shops and going round the Cathedral. The Imperial Tea shop on Steep Hill is well worth a visit (although the lady behind the counter gave the distinct impression she'd never made a cup of tea before), as is Pimento's tea room where we had lunch.
Lincoln is, of course, dominated by the Cathedral which is impressively large. So large in fact that it's impossible to get a decent picture of it without wide-angle lens. Unfortunately I only have a little compact camera and this is the best I could do:

 Aside from being quite big, it also boasts some lovely stained glass, which looked spectacular in the cool darkness of the cathedral, backlit by the bright sunshine outside.
A lovely day was had all round - maybe next time we'll catch an Evensong or go on the roof-top tour.

Despite the blue sky and sunshine I did manage to persuade myself to stay indoors long enough to do a bit of calligraphy over the weekend. Yet more copperplate I'm afraid, but this time I've been having fun with the capitals, whilst still keeping the minuscules ticking along. Majascules, I have discovered, are simultaneously fun and frustrating; there's a lot more freedom in their creation, but it does mean you have to use your judgement with the flourishes - how much/where/how big etc. and this takes time to get an eye for.

(this page was done with an EF Princiapl and Higgins Eternal ink)

 This is one of my practice pages for the A-H group, including some names and some animals. I was reliably informed that a Dubong was a real animal, but in fact it turns out that I'm slightly deaf and it is in fact a Dugong. So apologies to all you Dugongs out there reading this. Heffalumps are of course entirely real and not at all made up.


After another couple of pages along similar lines (if you'll excuse the pun) I thought I'd bite off more than I can chew and write out one of my favourite passages from Winnie the Pooh. I've been working on this for a couple of days and have to admit that I was finding it rather frustrating. The tines of my nib kept catching on the paper, my letters wobbly and inconsistent and I was generally struggling and finding it quite hard work. HOWEVER, yesterday evening I had a bit of an epiphany: I've been gripping my pen far too tight in an effort to control it, and have consequently worn the tines unevenly. Now, when I relaxed my grip and moved my hand further down the pen I found that not only did it stop catching on the paper, but my flow and control had come back! Magic! Here is the first section:

Lesson 1: Relaxation = Control.

The rest of the story is on it's way (in a much more relaxed fashion, naturally). More next time on 'other useful things I've learnt by trying to run before I can walk' :-) ttfn.