Topics

1

Open Flourish | General Discussion / Doing pencil lines... with a silhouette cameo

« on: August 21, 2018, 12:51:19 AM »

This might belong better under tools - Erica if you think so please feel free to move it!
--

So I've owned a Cricut cutting machine for a few years now, but I stopped using it at least a year ago because the software was too limiting for me. I'd determined not too much later that the silhouette would give me more of what I actually wanted. I FINALLY was able to afford the upgrade without feeling guilty about getting something I sort of already had. And I also acquired a tool for it, that's made by a third party called the Adjustable Pen Holder - so that I wouldn't be limited to Silhouette's sketch pens.

And... I ended up very quickly having the idea that I could probably put a pencil in it and say... have it write my pencil guides on an envelope.
So I tried it tonight. and it worked PERFECTLY, like I'm wow'd by how nice it came out, and how fast! I always felt like these machines moved kind of slow being computer run, but knowing how long I'd take to do the same pencil lines with a ruler, I can really appreciate the speed it does move at.

Here's a movie of it drawing the lines: (I have it as a story on instagram, which is why the text is there)
https://i.imgur.com/GlsPQpQ.gifv

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Tools & Supplies / Best Iron Gall based on changing color?

« on: February 24, 2017, 07:04:56 PM »

So I finally want to try Iron Gall ink but mainly because I've heard that some of them start out a light color and then slowly turn to black. I would like to know what Iron Gall ink has the most impressive or fun to watch color transition. Thanks!

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Find a Pen Pal / Looking for a few new penpals

« on: January 07, 2017, 06:30:20 PM »

I don't get enough letters in my mailbox so I want a few more penpals. I usually just calligraphy the "dear name" of my letters and do regular handwriting for the rest but I also handmake some of the stationary I do - right now mainly with watercolor.

If you're interested let me know! I'm happy to be the one to send the first letter.

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Tools & Supplies / From Scanner to Printer Settings (at home)

« on: October 21, 2016, 10:35:47 AM »

If this is covered in another thread please let me know. But I'm pretty sure it hasn't been.
There's a lot of guidance on here for the in between digital work but not necessarily this.

I've got an EPSON perfection V370 scanner and I recently got the EPSON Artisan 1430 printer.
I've been trying to scan in simple watercolors - mostly purpley storm/night sky color washes, lots of color fading but no defined shapes. And I've been having bad luck trying to get it to give me a quality print.

I think it's mainly the printer settings to paper I'm having trouble with - so if anyone has suggestions for EPSON settings for cardstock or printer/scanner settings in general to get good prints of watercolor I'd appreciate it. I've tried just looking this up online and I usually only find info on adjusting the image after scan (Which I can do fine) or it's people saying my printer works really well with printing stationary but never information on how to do the settings for that.

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Tools & Supplies / PearlEx Pans

« on: October 18, 2016, 10:19:47 AM »

I'm curious if anyone has successfully turned PearlEx into pans of color like finetec?

I tried just letting them dry out with iffy results. Some of them work great but some of them act like they don't have the gumarabic in it and don't stick to the page.

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Copperplate, Engrosser's Script, Roundhand Calligraphy / N vs V and J vs I

« on: October 11, 2016, 10:18:49 AM »

So first off, I'm primarily a hobbyist calligrapher atm. And because I do it for fun I'm not a huge stickler with myself for letterform perfection, etc. I like to stay close-ish to traditional copperplate (NOT modern).

That said I've run into some Majiscules that look very similar, especially when you start trying to flourish on them. N can easily be mistaken for V and I can easily be mistaken for J to me.

I was wondering what you all do to try to differentiate these letters?
I've also included a sample of my letters - It may very well be my poor letter forms are what's causing this similarity but when I look up copperplate exemplars the capitals look really similar there as well.

Thanks!

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Technical Support & Feedback / Very large picture as inline edit button

« on: May 20, 2016, 02:34:05 PM »

I'm on my phone so I don't know if it's specific to that. But under my posts I've been seeing a pro-type pic of some calligraphy with props around it under each of my posts. If I click on it, suddenly I can edit my post without having navigated to a new page.

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Design & Layout / Double Capital Letters on Envelopes?

« on: May 09, 2016, 10:38:06 PM »

So I'm mainly going at this from the point of view of someone living in the US, where all our state names are abbreviated into double capital letters for our addresses, but I've run into this sometimes in other country addresses too, like the UK.

I've found I have a hard time writing the two capital letters in close enough proximity without them overlapping in ways that look weird or unsightly except for the few exceptions where the letters mesh well. And because I don't want to decrease my writing size, nor use a bigger envelope, with US addresses I very often would rather use the double capital abbreviation over the longer name.

How do the rest of you manage to get the abbreviations to look nice? (Or is the trick really to just write out the name, ha.)

I tried going back through my flourish forum exchange letters but that only gives me Virginia and pretty much all of them were written out, probably because when I enter my address into the exchanges I type Virginia out.

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Tools & Supplies / Best place to get an oblique holder for a crow quill?

« on: March 04, 2016, 08:52:31 PM »

I've really come to love using the occasional crow quills I find, but the only holder I've got is a straight one from John Neal Booksellers, which while it does the job, isn't perfect.

So I'm really hoping someone can tell me a good place to get a crow quill oblique holder, extra points if it's from within the US so I can get it shipped a little quicker. Or if you know of a really really nice straight holder for crowquills I'd be open to hearing about that too.

Thanks!

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Tools & Supplies / Favorite matte black ink?

« on: January 16, 2016, 10:40:56 PM »

I've found on this forum most people seem to really like inks like the sumi ones because they're really shiny on the page, and while that can be pretty in it's own way, personally I like a nice matte black better.

Does anyone know of, or have a favorite matte black ink? Personally I haven't been able to find anything that is both a decent dark black, is matte, and performs in a nib even remotely as well as a sumi ink.

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Find a Pen Pal / Post-card Penpal?

« on: December 19, 2015, 10:13:19 PM »

I would like a couple of purely postcard penpals, still a back and forth just shorter messages, and no envelope!

I really like postcards, and since I've started doing more letters I've been collecting/hanging onto them, but more often than not my typical penpal letters are too long to be able to just send a post card. I really want to be able to use them though, so I thought this would be a good way to do it, if anyone is interested.

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Favorite Resources / Online Printer for Stationary?

« on: December 19, 2015, 02:16:01 PM »

I'm wanting to start getting some things printed, both calligraphy and some water color stuff I've been doing, but mainly I want a good online printer for stationary. And when I say stationary, I mean flat sheets of paper typically A5 sized (5.8 x 8.3 inches) with images usually only printed on a small portion of the sheet, with the rest of it good for being written on (and fountain pen friendly!). Extra brownie points if they do foiling, but not required.

And I'm specifying online, because as much as I know finding a local printer to talk to is probably the better idea, I have social anxiety, which is keeping me from actually being able to drive out and look into some of the printers that are in my area.

I was looking into WHCC, but while they'd be great for doing most kinds of cards, they don't really cover the size/type of stationary I had in mind.

Thanks for any help.

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Tools & Supplies / My Vintage Nib Collection

« on: August 22, 2015, 01:50:16 AM »

So I wanted to share, but since I have a decent amount to share, and I wanted to open myself up to inquiries from you all on here, I decided to make my own thread for this rather than take over the couple that are around and would  have been relevant. I'd been thinking about doing this for a while, but the more recent topics with interest in others vintage nibs and the organization thread popping back up encouraged me to finally finish getting my collection inventoried and re-organized after a recent purchase.

A bit of backstory, about... half a year ago now, I had the opportunity to buy a very large set of vintage nibs off an artist selling off her supplies. I posted pictures of that unboxing on here too, and that was the start of my obsession with testing and trying out nibs. I also very quickly felt kind of guilty for holding onto so many nibs that I didn't all like, and that I definitely wouldn't all use so I started to sell them on Etsy as a response, and kept a very tight inventory on them. Since then my collection has only expanded (and I've gotten terrible lately at keeping the Etsy stocked, but I swear I'll get to it soon!), and I want to be able to share as much information on the nibs that I've had and have as I can.

So first things first here is my inventory:
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1s-Z4_-QzdziRnSZrrkyyg35ylh0EQY4rd77teVhMxRU

It should be filterable for you all, and I update it right on that sheet, so if I get more nibs or I sell them, it's reflected on that sheet. As I list them on Etsy I usually add descriptions on the listing, and I started to put that information into the spreadsheet except that I realized that those descriptions are extremely subjective, and many of them are from before I was really all that proficient enough to know what I was talking about. Which also goes for my personal ratings, they're super subjective and are based on how I felt the pen handled in my hand. BUT this is the part where I'm open to questions. If anyone is at all curious what these nibs can do I will be happy to pull one out and provide a writing sample. I can do decently now with the points, stubs I can't promise anything. And I'll put together a subjective description of what I think of them. I do the same for whenever I list them on Etsy so I'm also kind of hoping this will help push me to list more. Speaking of! I really don't mean this to be a advertisement for me selling vintage nibs. This is really meant more as me offering as much information on the nibs to the flourish forum, as a way of giving back.

Finally I have included a bunch of pictures of my newly organized collection, because I'm just so gosh dang proud of it, and even though I own it, it still makes me kind of drool, haha. The little compartments is actually what I got my most recent purchase of vintage nibs in, and they're actually meant for batteries but they work fantastic as nib boxes too.

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Tools & Supplies / Ink Gunk on ink bottles

« on: July 18, 2015, 11:21:44 PM »

Anyone ever run into this issue?
I've been using speedball ink in little dinky dips cause it's easier to dip into, but after a while, because I brush off excess ink on the edge of the bottle, it tends to dry there in layers until it's gunky enough it actually makes it hard to tap off the ink and sometimes my nib will even pick stuff up which can be equally annoying.

At that point I usually take a wet wipe and start wiping down the edge until nothing more gets picked up by the wipe.

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Show & Tell / Calligraphy and a Cricut Explore

« on: July 09, 2015, 12:12:06 AM »

So I got a cricut explore a few weeks ago, and I finally got around to using it with the intent I had originally thought of when I first decided I wanted one. That is to cut my calligraphy out of paper. You can see I put the original piece of calligraphy next to the one that got cut out of paper. About the only tricky part is that once you detach the pieces of the calligraphy, getting them to line up correctly on the paper. The image should click through to a larger one.

To give some context, the sign is actually going to go up at work because the team I'm on is named Pluto, haha.