caligráfica

Foundational Hand 9/14 Class

Buses! I was late for class because of the buses and the elaborate check-in procedure at RAND. Will have to leave earlier next week. :(

Class was interesting tonight. We put our homework on the board and Carrie pointed out areas we needed work. My lower case c, e, z and a came in for criticism, but my n and m were deemed nicely rounded. We then worked through the lower case alphabet again, focusing on the circular forms and learning some nice variations on the w. Whereas the gothic style was all about keeping a consistant 45 degree pen angle, the curves of the foundation hand mean that the pen angle has to be varied by the direction of the stroke.  This was not easy

One interesting thing I noticed about the group at RAND, they like to talk calligraphy via numbers and angles. I'm not very mathmatically inclined and found myself tuning out in ways that weren't helpful because what we were studying was important.  Further, I'm going to need to be better about packing my supplies. Carrie pointed out the class supply list to me and I was abashed to discover I didn't have the right tools for the lesson. I was like that kid at school that never has his kit and has to borrow from other people or the teacher. Since it was my first lesson, I think I was forgiven, but it's not a reputation I want. 

So tomorrow I get to go to Graphaids for some paper and a few other things and then can start working on my practice book project. Can hardly wait. 

 

Simplicity and the Student Scribe

 I've finally gotten back into practicing calligraphy (the fact my dad was staying out of town this weekend is likely connected to my returned focus).  For the past couple of days I've both had stuff I've wanted to blog here and have also been practicing lettering.  What's happened is that I've done the calligraphy and left the blogging to now, just keeping the practice album up-to-date.  Our apartment seems to be getting re-organized and cleaned room by room.  It's amazing the amount of weird stuff we were saving -- including cardboard boxes and odd bits of outmoded technology.  Purging things is hard for me, but once I start it feels so good I don't want to stop.

Here's an odd fact though -- my motivation to get the house organized seems connected to practicing calligraphy.  Further, the cleaning and organizing has moved outward from my calligraphy "studio" (as a friend pleases me by calling it)  into the restof the apartment.  I've organized (and now try and keep tidy) our entire bedroom (which means keeping up on laundry since otherwise it takes over the floor).  My dad moving in prompted me/us to re-organize the bathroom and guest room.  This weekend we worked on the box room / technology closet.  Having things organized has me feel a bit more centered (always a good thing).  

 Getting organized required a bit of shopping, prompting us to brave both Costco and IKEA on a weekend.  We got an amazing deal on a great set of chrome storage shelves (for the closet) at Costco for less than $28.  They're amazing because despite the low price they don't suck and each shelf can supposedly hold 350 lbs. Nonetheless, Paul and I have not tried sitting on one together in order to test this claim. It does seem to be doing a great job holding stuff.  At Ikea we found new bedside lamps (whose glow adds to the general peaceful feeling of my bedroom studio), curtains and a recycle bin.  All are much nicer than I'd have expected, given the price.  The lamps and curtains combined didn't cost half what one of the lamps I'd been eyeing at Pottery Barn for the same purpose

Something you may have noticed when looking at the most recent Tinies is the addition of rather shaky Gothic capitals.  I'll blog more about last Monday's class later (Deann has an entry about it up on her site), but in addition to going over our recent homework, taking us down from a 5mm to 2 1/2mm nib, and discussing the coming illumination project, she also introduced capitals.  The reason wasn't that we're really advanced enough, but rather that class is being cancelled by two Monday holidays in a row and she wanted us to have a chance to practice with the capitals.  On the "K is for Kate" I'm experimenting with using a reddish brown ink for the "K" and "Kate" but as the ink is thinner than the black, I'm not sure how it works out.  Like most of my lettering practice, it looks a lot better photographed than it does in person.

Coming Illumination Project

Our big assignment for the Gothic course is to produce a 60-80 word sheet of illuminated text.  The text can be a quotation from any period, but Deann expressed a strong desire we choose something from the appropriate period (about 1100-1500 AD).  I don't want to do anything Biblical because, well, I don't.  So I'm considering some passages of Dante, Chaucer (though probably not Chaucer) and also some quotations by William of Occam.  Doing it in Latin would be cooler, but given that I leave letters out all the time when writing in English, who knows how many time I'd have to re-write it to make sure I got the Latin right?

We got supply list for the project so another bit of the weekend shopping involved a trip to Dick Blick's in West LA.  I love going there.  It's always well organized and stocked (unlike, for example, Pearl) and the staff are friendly and helpful.  I left the store some $130 poorer, but with everything on my list plus a few other toys.  It's my plan to write an entry tomorrow about the tools I'm using so I'll save my shopping finds to discuss there.  

(Guest modeling by Carrots and Small Bear.)

Cozy just got cozier

Monday's class was lots of fun. Given that I'd packed up some of my practices, I was delighted to find them being collected. Apparently we'll be getting them back with comments from DeAnn (there's DeAnn writing a student's name on their practice sheet). The class is large (14 students) so this is the best way for us to get individualized feedback. Paul was also pleased to hear I'd had to turn in "homework" and would be getting it back with corrections marked.

The second class focused mostly on refining the topics covered in the first class. The central emphasis was focused on the font, gothic textura, being all about texture (achieved via "true picket fence" spacing), even more than individual letters or even readability. Whilst this seems odd or even backward from a modern perspective, it's important to understand where the medieval reader and writer were coming from. The process of making parchment, as can be seen in this Getty demo, was a long and costly, each page coming from the skin of an a single animal (generally sheep or cattle). Gothic textura dates from ~1100 - 1500, the end of the Middle Ages, before paper was widely manufactured or used. Making medieval texts were labor intensive and expensive. As DeAnn pointed out, these weren't newspapers but were written to be re-read. Reader of texts were generally already familiar with what they were reading so it was more important that the significance of the text be conveyed through its beauty.

Another reason texture became important again harkens to the expense of books, especially the cost of parchment. Gothic textura has less white space that other fonts which both gives the text visual weight and makes use of as much parchment as possible. I've tried to take this spacing information (both inline and between lines) as I've practiced the past few days. I can see a difference, but mostly to me I feel things are looking messier rather than neater. Time will tell I guess. I'm trying hard not to be too hard on my work, but just trying to do it each day's work, focussing on the issues raised in class.

Okay, that said, I did jump a little ahead the other night by playing a bit with Gothic capitals (something we haven't covered at all) on the Tinies work, "G is for George smothered under a rug." Really what I'm supposed to be doing as practice is just drawing lines with the space between equal to the width of the nib. I can only do that for a sheet each night though (and that's the maximum) before my focus wavers. I found when I stopped doing the Tinies, I stopped practicing at all. So I'm back at it, with plans to work through the whole alphabet. Last night was "H is for Hector done in by a thug."

What about the title? It's simple enough. My cozy calligraphy space got cozier because of the addition of a small space heater ($35, purchased from Amazon). Much as chilly scribing is historically correct, once a week at class is plenty.

(Special guest appearance by Stanley Fish.)

Making ink

Yesterday morning, in addition to making my usual coffee, I decided to try and brew some walnut ink. We'd worked with it in our first class and I'd loved two things about it. First the tea-brown color, browner than the reddish ink I've been using, was lovely and showed each stroke (which keeps me honest). Second walnut ink is non-toxic and easy to clean up with water. The deep black Higgins ink is beautiful and makes rich letters, but the black ink doesn't rinse off the nib easily. Since I often practice before bed, easy clean-up is attractive.

I ordered some walnut crystals from an eBay seller ($3 plus shipping) and they arrived quickly. This was my first attempt to mix writing ink.

It was surprisingly difficult to find the right proportions of water to crystals since most of the on-line recipes are by scrapbookers making the ink as a paper stain -- too light to write with, before I found a recipe in the December Society for Calligraphy newsletter. It's simple enough, 1 teaspoon of crystals to 1/2 cup of hot water and let brew for at least 30 minutes. I cut the recipe in half because the glass bottles I have only hold a quarter cup.

In the picture, the note is stuck to the measuring cup because I realized the brewing ink looks exactly like strong coffee so I was worried Paul would find it and toss it out when loading the dishwasher.)

I think the ink came out well, except I remembered too late the on-line advice to mix in a bit of vinegar to keep the ink from spoiling. I added a teaspoon of white vinegar which unfortunately thinned out the ink. I probably need to leave the bottle open for a day or two to evaporate a bit. An open bottle of ink -- sounds like a recipe for a disaster!

Lettering practice went pretty well yesterday. Unfortunately, by the time I finished filling a practice sheet with the letters, I was tired and one of the tines of my pen had started to bend a bit. The Gorey line, "F is for Fanny sucked dry by a leech" didn't come out as well as I'd hoped.

Still, I'm all packed and about to catch the bus for class. Without knowing whether I should bring them our not, Paul and I rolled up all the practice sheets I've done. Doing so made me realize I should get a folio and a tube to keep these sheets safely and neatly.

(Special guest modeling by Jeremy Hedgehog.)

 

 

"E is for Ernest"

 The rain stopped last night and we woke to the sun shinning, which made my little calligraphy space look even friendlier.  

My practice tonight was a little different than it's been the last few days. Even though it was done a bit later than it has been in the past, I'd slept late this morning and spent the day out with Paul, so I was rested and wanted to do a bit more than I did last night or the night before.  

 Taking a large sheet (17" X 22"), a different nib (Brause 5mm), and the red-brown ink from yesterday.  I worked carefully through some letter combinations from Calligraphy Alphabets for Beginners to practice most of the alphabet.  The new nib was harder to get ink to start flowing from after each dip and I struggled a bit to keep the reservoir from touching the paper, but the nib felt sharper and like it made better and sharper marks than the Speedball C-0.

Some of the letters felt easier -- the alternative "s" is definitely easier to make. And I'm almost confident in making the letter "d."  But the "a" is still a real struggle and frustrates me.  However much I practice, it doesn't feel like I'm getting any better.  

Still, I felt pretty confident when I started tonight's "Tinies" line: E is for Ernest who choked on a peach." Once I started though, I felt otherwise. While it feels like the letter forms are getting better, my spacing doesn't feel right -- either within letters or between words. I suspect this is what I'm going to have to spend a lot of time practicing in the coming weeks.  Still, I'm not unhappy with how tonight's line came out. 

-o=0=o-

Other stuff: I find I'm looking at lettering a lot more where ever I am. When we watched the closing credits tonight of Terry Gilliam's film, The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, I noticed how lovely the cards on the closing credits were. I've also started reading a book by Marc Drogin, s Calligraphy of the Middle Ages. It's got some interesting bits of history in it, though I'm not sure how accurate it is. 

A cozy little space

The Christmas holidays ended with much merriness, fun and mess.  Specifically, our apartment was a mess and I had to head back to school and work.  My plan to clean and put everything Christmas away the weekend before was foiled when the cold (the one everyone else had already caught) laid me low.   

I panicked a bit. Not about the mess (though that does make me anxious) but because my first calligraphy course was meeting Monday and on Saturday I was too sick to do much more than move between the bed and sofa. 

  With much urging from Paul, I stayed in bed, slept and created piles of tissue trash. On Sunday, before going to bed at 8PM, I put together a little box of calligraphy supplies.  By Monday, after taking a good dose of drugs and I felt well enough to head out to class.  As I wrote last week, the class was wonderful and I came back filled with energy for my new work.  

But where to work?

I did my first practice at the kitchen table, but it was clear even then that this was not a good space.  The light is great in the daytime, but the windows are cold and drafty and the light at night is terrible.  The fact was I'd made a little calligraphy space in the corner of our bedroom two years ago . Unfortunately it had become a messy stack of discarded clothing, books and papers.  I cleared it up the best I could, only to realize that my small desk (a repurposed $20 dressing table from Out of the Closet) couldn't contain all my supplies and there was no space for any calligraphy books.

Inspired by the having purchased numerous online Christmas presents, I ordered a bookcase from Overstock.com ($1 delivery charge!) and waited impatiently --Overstock is not as fast as Amazon) for it to arrive.  It did and I assembled it (with some help from Paul) this past weekend and filled it with my calligraphy books and supplies (and an American Girl doll named Mariana). The bookcase definitely made the space. Paul declared it "a cozy corner" while a friend (after seeing the picture on Twitter) referred to it as my "studio." (A calligraphy studio of my own -- I love it!)

Having all my materials in one space has made it much easier to settle down and practice in the evenings. I'm not sure there's much improvement yet.  You can judge for yourself by following pictures of practice sheets.  They're here and in the album over in the right sidebar. They're not the only work I'm doing, just the best sheet each day. My plan is to work through all of the lines of the Gashlycrumb Tinies as the poem seems appropriately gothic, though of course what I've done and am doing isn't a patch on Edward Gorey's gorgeous and distinctive lettering style. 

There was no class this week due to the MLK holiday, but I'm looking forward to Monday.  How often do you hear that?