Messages

1

2020 Exchanges / Re: Love Letters 2020 Exchange

« on: February 16, 2020, 11:20:41 PM »

Thank you so much for the really generous comments @Erica McPhee .

I had so much fun putting together a card for the Valentine’s exchange and it was such a great opportunity to see the wonderful artwork and ideas of other forum members. I think the real treasure in all of this is you Erica - all the work you do to keep the forum up and running, the organizing and coordinating you do to make certain the exchanges happen throughout the year and the time you spend trying to help others follow their own calligraphy path. And all of this is in addition to everything else you do. Thank YOU Erica!

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2020 Exchanges / Re: Love Letters 2020 Exchange

« on: February 15, 2020, 11:12:08 PM »

@Bianca M @Jennifer J - Thank you both for the really kind comments! You are way too generous.

I’ve been in awe of all the beautiful cards I’ve received from all of you. The calligraphy and designs have been so different and creative and each one has been amazing. This was such a fun exchange to do!

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2020 Exchanges / Re: Love Letters 2020 Exchange

« on: February 10, 2020, 11:23:56 AM »

Kim,

I don’t know if my card would make it to you by Valentine’s Day but I’d be more than happy to send you one also if you’d like (pm your address).

Jackie

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2020 Exchanges / Re:Apologies to list 2

« on: February 05, 2020, 06:36:06 PM »

I have to apologize to everyone on list 2. I posted everything today at my local post office but ran into a few issues. I did learn a lot more about mailing letters first class though.

I had read but misunderstood the regulations for sending first class mail and thought I would just need to add a non machinable stamp to each letter because they fell under the size/weight limitations for first class mail. I went to the post office with a bunch of extra stamps (including nonmachinable stamps) but found out my letters had to be sent as packages because of their rigidity. This would have been ok too but my local post office was completely out of higher denomination stamps (ie global and above). The long and short of it is that my letters will arrive with a really huge packaging label on them. The person at the post office was really gracious about it and tried to put the labels on as unobtrusively as possible.

Crossing my fingers that my exchange letters arrive on time. Sorry for the huge packaging labels (if only they covered my mistakes too - and while I’m wishing... had pretty flourishes, were much smaller and looked like stamps ).

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Organizing, saving mock ups of projects

« on: February 05, 2020, 05:43:39 PM »

Amalie, I’m so sorry to hear about your apt flooding! It must have been so disheartening have to deal with the water damage in general plus lose all hard copies Of your work. Thank you for the advice about acid free archiving. I hadn’t thought about that aspect of preservation at all. I do take photos of what I’m doing but am not as diligent as I should be. Thank you for the great advice!

Jean, thank you for the information about layouts and design and the great info on how to organize projects. My biggest mental block to project organization is that my brain sometimes seems to turn into a hamster wheel of endless grouping methods (chronologically, subject matter, color combos, mechanisms, designs I like, designs I used to like but am not certain of now, tools used, tools used badly, material failures etc). It really helps to have an example of good organization. Thank you!

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Organizing, saving mock ups of projects

« on: January 22, 2020, 07:28:58 PM »

I’m less than an amateur when it comes to design, layout and anything vaguely artistic. I usually have to generate a series of mock ups with a lot of scribbled notes and crossed out / moved elements on them until I reach something that I think might work. These are in addition to a notebook of sketched out ideas.  I like being able to look back on these experimental “failures” because they give me an idea of maybe things to avoid or to try out in the future. Do other people do the same thing? How do you keep your mock ups/ project failures organized? I sometimes glue them into my sketch book but am not as organized about it as I’d like to be. What do you do?

7

Flourishing / Running out of ink

« on: March 12, 2017, 09:13:16 PM »

So, having stutter started flourishing months ago only to give it up (also months ago) as way beyond my skillset I've been tempted again. I was leafing aimlessly through Fascinating Pen Flourishing and somehow meandered over to my desk, pulled out pen and paper, opened a bottle of ink and started exercise 1 (all this while brushing my teeth).

The teeth brushing part was probably a bad idea (this is how I chew up and mangle brushes).

Anyway, there I was trying to smooth out my ovals, reading the text that indicated you should use a firm stroke for the shaded portions and aim for 100 ovals (or shaded portions) per minute. Yikes! I tried counting the shaded strokes as I drew them but I had to stop every 8-10 ovals to re-ink. Definitely not condusive to 100 ovals per minute. I cheated and jammed an ink reservoir from a broad edge nib onto my pointed nib. This way I could draw about 30 ovals before I needed to re-ink.

I started wondering - how do people get their nibs to hold the amount of ink needed for large/long flourishes? Am I running out of ink quickly because I'm moving the pen fairly slowly? When people flourish do they preplan multiple start/end points with re-inking in mind so that they don't run out of ink mid swell?

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Tools & Supplies / Re: Calligraphy using a standing desk?

« on: March 05, 2017, 11:06:56 PM »

Your new standing desk sounds wonderful Elaina! Thank you for sharing the process you went through trying to find out if a standing desk was right for you. I think your idea about experimenting with boxes on my existing desk is a great idea (in fact I went roaming around the house trying to figure out what I could use - believe or not an old wood shoe rack actually is working out well).

Thanks again for the info everyone. I think this is what makes the Flourish Forum such a wonderful community!

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Tools & Supplies / Re: Calligraphy using a standing desk?

« on: March 05, 2017, 01:45:43 PM »

Thank you so much Robert, Schin and Jean for the excellent info. I never really thought about a drafting table and I have to say Rakks system is very tempting (I like the idea of having the flexibility to fold the desk area up into the wall - definitely would help to quickly free up space in my small working area depending on what I'm doing).

Thanks again for these great ideas!

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Tools & Supplies / Calligraphy using a standing desk?

« on: March 04, 2017, 02:17:58 AM »

I wasn't certain if this question should go under the tools and supplies topic but i guess a desk is a great big tool.

Does anyone here use a standing desk for calligraphy? I've seen pictures in old publications which show people writing at a standing desk and wondered if it was possible/comfortable (once you got used to it). We have a standing desk that we use for the family computer but while it's height works well for the keyboard/mouse it's a bit awkward for writing on. I don't know if it would more comfortable for writing if the height were lower or it could be the top needs to be more angled.

Thank you for any info you can give me.

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Technical Support & Feedback / Re: Technical Problems Today are Resolved.

« on: February 24, 2017, 01:13:24 PM »

Thank you so much Erica for all the behind the scenes hard work and vigilence that make this forum so wonderful. I know I don't know or wouldn't understand a lot of what you have to do to keep things up and running so all I can do is shout out a huge THANKYOU for everything you do (let's see...providing calligraphy expertise, nurturing beginning calligraphers, building a community for all things lettering, drawing peoples attention to wonderful art, building and maintaining the forum, making certain everything remains safe and secure on here...and I know what I've listed is just the tip of the iceburg).

Thank you!

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Copperplate, Engrosser's Script, Roundhand Calligraphy / Re: Curious about Plume Gauloise No. 750 EF

« on: February 18, 2017, 04:36:18 AM »

Andrew, I've decided that you are the pen nib whisperer because you have this uncanny 6th sense about pen nibs.

I finally gave up on trying to decipher my notes about Sommerville's plume Gauloise 750ef and finally just found my little box of nibs and did a direct comparison with Blanzy's 2552. I'm definitely not an expert in anything relating to calligraphy so my comparison is limited and very subjective (so your mileage may vary    ). I found that while the Gauloise was slightly less flexible than the 2552 it gave a much finer line. The "snap" of the Gauloise was very similar to the 2552 but maybe just a little bit softer. After using the Gauloise for awhile I finally remembered why I had tucked the box away. I really like them and I only have a small number so I wanted to save them. I will have to hide them from myself again.

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Find a Pen Pal / Seeking victims...err penpals...to inflict bad calligraphy upon

« on: February 17, 2017, 12:16:40 AM »

I would love to have some penpals to share my bad calligraphy with. I've always wanted to participate in one of the exchanges but can't seem to build up the necessary courage so I thought that maybe starting with very small steps, like having some penpals, would be a good start.

About me -

Calligraphy: I can sort of do an engrosser's script and spencerian hand. I really love all things calligraphy but am definitely more enthusiastic than talented. Let's see...I'm a pen nib geek. I also like experimenting making inks that never quite work correctly applied to paper but somehow always permanently stain or eat a hole through whatever they spill on.

Non calligraphy: Is there more to life than calligraphy?    I enjoy hiking in all weather, gardening (only really hardy plants that can survive benign neglect), and am a terrible cook.

If you'd like a pen pal too, have a high tolerance for poor penmanship and don't mind an occasional moth eaten looking letter with amazing fading ink send me a pm.

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Tools & Supplies / Re: Vintage nib prices on ebay

« on: February 13, 2017, 09:31:12 PM »

I have some of the American Business College nibs also. I've been curious too about who manufactured them. The nibs seem similar to vintage Palmer 5 nibs to me.

The founder of the college - John Julian Hagen - learned penmanship at the Lakeside Institute of Penmanship run by Austin Palmer and Bartlett Worthington. He in turn taught penmanship himself and is mentioned in the Penman's Art Journal a few times.

This is complete supposition on my part but I've wondered if Hagen ever contacted his former penmanship teachers about how to go about getting branded pen nibs made for his college and which manufacturer they used. Palmer nibs were manufactured by Gillott. (Gillott manufactured a large number of rebranded pen nibs for the US market and American Business College nibs were made in England...)

If you'd like to see more info about Hagen, his penmanship and the American Business College, you can find it at the link below (this is a geneaology website - maybe one of his descendents has more in depth info about supplies that were used at /manufactured for the college).

http://tng.locke.dk/getperson.php?personID=I00061&tree=tree2

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The Library / Re: Another Scranton Link - Engrossed Certificate

« on: February 12, 2017, 05:23:01 PM »

Thank you for posting this link. I'm always amazed at the artistry and design of Costello's work.

It looks like the original piece is 21 x 27 inches. At first this seemed pretty large to me but when  I actually pulled out a tape measure to get a better idea of the what that size would look like I was even more amazed by the level of painstaking detail work. All of that layout work! All that ink! All that potential incidental spattering, smearing or even just accidently sneezing on it before the ink has dried! No digital erase! Wow!