Hello!
I am an artist, musician, and new father living in my great great grandparents' old farmhouse in rural Maine. My father is a sign painter and i've always had a curiosity and appreciation for the intersection of text, art, and craft, and the possibilities held therein.
Several years ago I set out to learn the "Courier" font, or 'typewriter' font. I got all the serifs down and came up with a kind of cute handwritten font, but i had trouble finding pens that were fine enough (mostly at office supply stores), and i never got anything that could possibly be mistaken for typewritten. Then a little over a year ago i started working part time at a health food store. Most of our signage for our produce is handwritten with Sharpie on laminated pieces of white cardstock. I had a little fun with this part of the job and put my "courier font" to good use, but I couldn't write 'organic' in any kind of a satisfactory script style. I could just about see it in my head, but I couldn't get it right. Also the words 'and' and 'from' wouldn't quite form in the accented script style i was striving for. To that end I started looking for the 'rules' that would unlock script styles to accent my layouts.
I ended up going down quite a rabbit hole. Starting with broad tip fountain pens, then a couple pen and nip sets. It's only been in the last few months that I realized that the styles I was trying to emulate were done with pointed pen. That's when I started to really get obsessive. It was as though I had been trying to learn to play an untuned guitar that I then learned to tune. I've gotten a couple oblique holders and a small assortment of some of the nibs that I see referred to often here and on the IAMPETH and Postman's Knock sites.
So far i've mostly used Higgins Black Magic ink, but more recently I've been using india ink diluted with a little water, and I'm due to place an order for some walnut ink which I'm excited to try.
I look forward to being part of this community and I'm sure it will enrich my practice.
Many Thanks,
Nathan
