caligráfica

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. 

D is for Desmond

 "D is for Desmond thrown out of a sleigh."

 Tonight's work, done once again too late at night. I got caught up in getting this blog going, playing with the banner (which I'm quite pleased about) and then suddenly it was after 11 but I hadn't yet done any lettering. I was tempted to wait until tomorrow, but decided that daily practice is best.  Partly to make the clean-up easier, I opted for a water-based ink (in a reddish brown that looks rather like blood) rather than the black Higgins ink.

My first hour was spent doing a copy of a worksheet, practicing letter forms.  You can see a copy in the album or in the first post -- I've done it about five times now. When I finished it was a lot easier to move onto tonight's Gorey line. The 35 degree angle came a bit easier today, maybe because I did a practice sheet before I started the lettering, but the spacing is still difficult and feels like it's getting worse rather than better. I used the alternative "s" and found it a bit easier. 

Clearly I don't know how to do numbers.

C is for Clara

A bit of Gorey gothic.  

I really should be just practicing by penning lines and diamonds, but with two weeks between classes, I've gotten bored with repeating that first lesson over and over. In fact, I'd sort of stopped practicing as much as I thought I should.  So, as I said in the previous entry, a few days ago I created a little project for myself -- writing out Edward Gorey's Gashlycrumb Tinies line by line, one per night. 

Why Gorey?  Why the Tinies, you ask (maybe).  One reason is because I'm supposed to be practicing the alphabet.  Were I a Very Good Girl, which of course I'm not, I'd probably be trying to do alphabet sentences.  This seems like a compromise so this way I can at least work through each of the letters. But the other and most significant reason is that Gorey is a delight and writing these lines gives me a lot of pleasure. 

 Tonight, when I look at the line "C is for Clara who wasted away" next to the ones from yesterday and the day before, I'm struck by the uneven spacing, though I feel like I'm getting more of a grip on the letter forms (except for "s" and "a" of course).  This could be due to my going a bit faster than I did, but I suspect part of the problem is not having started practicing until almost 11. I waited until after dinner and then discovered that our bedroom was very cold (we've had chilly rainstorms all day). While the image of a scribe in a cold garret may be a romanic one, it's not something I actually want to experience.  Maybe a small space heater for under the desk is the answer.  

This weekend it would probably be a good idea to go back to practicing the exercise lines as well as continuing the poem. 

(All lettering done with Higgins Eternal black ink using a Speedball C-0 nib.)