Whatcha Working On?

[AnasaziWrites]

As long as you asked--cleaning house. We have house guests arriving this week for the first time since Covid began.  My apologies to those to whom I owe correspondence. 

[Tasmith]

@Tasmith - Chinese people use those mizuhiki knots too, but we call them 盤長 (pán cháng).  These days they tend to be purely decorative.  The different shapes of them have different meanings (signifying friendship, marriage, good luck, etc).  When I was young and my parents sent me to summer school in Taiwan to make sure I knew how to be Chinese, knot-tying was an important part of the curriculum, right alongside language, music, calligraphy, decorative paper-cutting, and martial arts classes.  I see that you're in the DC area!  You could stop by the Folger Shakespeare Library and see some of the beautiful historical documents they have on display - print and manuscript!


--yours truly, K

I'll have to check that out!  Thanks!

Several years ago visited the National Institute of Health's library with the Washington Calligrapher's Guild.  A true pleasure seeing so many beautiful European and Arabic medieval manuscripts.  I was able to schedule a return visit and spent several hours photographing manuscript pages.

[JanisTX]

@K-2 please do post a photo of your press!  I’d love to see it!

I really LIKE it when the type is indented into the paper. It looks very elegant to me!  Any, you can see at a glance that the work was NOT done on a computer or a printer. It just screams “custom” to me!

Janis

[Erica McPhee]

How exciting @JanisTX ! And quite the challenge. I have to agree - letterpress is my favorite. The deeper the impression, the better to me! I offered letterpress invitations to my clients about 20 years ago and they loved it. It was just becoming a “thing” again back then. Then it boomed. Looking forward to seeing what you develop as you go.

@K-2 I bet you are fascinating at dinner parties! I want to be seated next to you.   

@AnasaziWrites Enjoy! So nice to have guests again! 

[Erica McPhee]

Almost forgot - @Lyric - I think you will like Italic. It is the first hand I learned when I was 10. I do think it’s a bit easier than pointed pen. Much more like drawing and less temptation to just write. Still have to learn how to manipulate the pen angle and all that. But … there are some great tools now - I like the crispness of the Pilot parallel pens.

@Tasmith - I will have to look at the Mizuhiki knots. That sounds so interesting and I have been interested in those things since learning about letterlocking. Thank you for sharing the image of the medieval manuscript.

[JanisTX]

@Erica McPhee While I adore letterpress invitations, I TOTALLY love engraved invitations!  Have you ever held one or inspected one??  They are too beautiful for words!! However, engraved invitations are SO pricey!  They are just so precious to acquire!  My daughter's were $10 PER INVITATION! That's just nuts!!  (And, now, you know why I taught myself Copperplate. - It was the one thing that I "thought" that I might be able to do to save a little money on that stupidly expensive wedding!) What I didn't expect, however, was that it was going to completely destroy my "regular" handwriting!  I had pretty handwriting before learning pointed pen.  Now, it looks like a 4 year-old who is just now learning how to hold a pencil!  Life is full of twists and turns, isn't it??

Janis

[Erica McPhee]

Yes - engraving is luxurious for sure. I have several engraved greeting cards from Cranes that were calligraphers by Maria Thomas. I won’t ever send them to anyone, they are mine to covet.  I offered engraved invitations as well but because I was a dealer for Carlson Crafts invitations (books like you see at stationer’s), I could get the engraved invites wholesale. The letterpress was a local guy who was SO good at what he did - I was lucky to have him nearby. But it was $1/piece, plus ink, and the plates. Thankfully he let me order my own plates. But yah, my invitations started at $1000/100. 

My handwriting has always been awful. LOL. But maybe yours will come back around the more you get comfortable with your calligraphy. I know when I go to sign my name now, I mess up and even forget letters because my brain wants to do Spencerian but my hand is still chicken scratching it. 

[JanisTX]

@K-2 I ordered the text that you recommended & it came in on Saturday.  I am excited to start working through it!  Thank you for the recommendation!

Janis

[K-2]

Hope you find the text useful, @JanisTX -- Have you visited https://www.boxcarpress.com/ yet?  I get a lot of supplies from them.  Here are some photos of my press - a Chandler & Price.  I wish I knew what year it was made.  It works best if there are two people working it - one operating the press; one feeding the paper.
--yours, K

[JanisTX]

@K-2 I am a 100% newbie!  I’ve just been reading, watching video, aside from my half-day workshop in Oklahoma City!  I have order nice paper from Boxcar. I used the paper to make programs for a wedding. I applied foil to them & they turned out very well! (At least in my mind!). The bride liked them, anyway!

Janis

[Lyric]

Hope you find the text useful, @JanisTX -- Have you visited https://www.boxcarpress.com/ yet?  I get a lot of supplies from them.  Here are some photos of my press - a Chandler & Price.  I wish I knew what year it was made.  It works best if there are two people working it - one operating the press; one feeding the paper.
--yours, K

Heeeey, that's from home!  I suppose many things were manufactured in the good old Ohio NE.