Messages

1

Open/Active Exchanges / Re: Holiday | New Year Exchange Sign Ups are Now CLOSED!

« on: December 18, 2020, 08:45:14 AM »

List 3 folks, apologies for my late exchange. With the snowstorm the other day, I dropped my letters at the post yesterday morning. Hoping they get to you at least before Christmas. Thank you for your patience!

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Tools & Supplies / Re: Moon palace sumi ink

« on: December 18, 2020, 08:42:15 AM »

Trazo, your point about being able to use MP sumi on any paper is true. I have poor quality printer paper and am able to use it as practice paper without the MP feathering too much.

Also, when you get to the stage of scanning and reproducing your calligraphy digitally, MP sumi is the ink to use. It's a beautiful black tone and hairlines are captured well. Good luck!

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Design & Layout / Re: Centering

« on: November 13, 2020, 09:55:22 AM »

Thanks for the tip, Janis.
I hate centering and admit to being very bad at it too. If you ever start a club, I would be your first member.

I don't have anything to share but perhaps reassurance... In different Flourishing classes, Pat Blair and Suzanne Cunningham reassured that calligraphers are human. No matter your best efforts, bad centering happens. When in need, use an exit stroke flourish on your last letter to help center the name. Suzanne said in a recent workshop that it's always better to start too far left because that exit flourish may save the day.

It wasn't something I noticed right away in either Pat or Suzanne's work, but after they made those comments, I did see the use of exit flourishes for balance. Our eyes can still compute what we see as being balanced, even though as calligraphers we know what's actually going on there.

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Coffee & Nib-bles / Re: Milonguera (Debbie Martin) – (10/4/1952-11/2/2020)

« on: November 05, 2020, 09:49:31 AM »

Oh no! I know Debbie only through FF and IG. She was such a kind-hearted person and always generous with comments.
Thank you, Natascha, for sharing this. Stay well.

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Workshops & Conference News / Re: Online Calligraphy Classes

« on: November 05, 2020, 09:44:26 AM »

The Washington Calligraphers Guild has a really great virtual lineup early next year.
If you ever wanted to learn with Gemma Black before she retires, she's teaching a two-day Versals class.
And Carrie Imai is teaching a fun Italic variations workshop.
https://www.calligraphersguild.org/workshops/2021/

Right now workshops are available only to members but will be opened up to non-members in early December. I'm the registrar for the WCG, so feel free to ask me questions.

A lot of guilds have been offering great online workshops. I just saw that next Spring 2021 Society of Scribes in NY will be offering a Madarasz workshop with our very own Schin Loong.

I hope students support regional guilds and take these online offerings.

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Pat Blair Flourishing Class

« on: October 19, 2020, 11:19:28 AM »

Isn't Pat just the nicest, most down-to-earth calligrapher you've ever met!? If you ever have a chance to take Italic with her, I highly recommend!

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Open/Active Exchanges / Re: Roaring 20's & 20/20 Vision Exchange Sign Ups are Now Closed.

« on: August 27, 2020, 10:30:47 AM »

@AnasaziWrites Michael, haven't received yours yet, but shall check again later today.

The post indeed has been screwy. It took two weeks plus for me to receive first-class mail from Ohio, and then a mere two days for a letter from me in DC to my family in Pittsburgh. Talk about random!

Dropping my envelopes off late as well. Sorry, folks!
Impressed by all you punctual scribes...and relieved to be in the same, not so punctual, company of others.

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Calling Cards

« on: August 22, 2020, 11:22:20 AM »

What a great find. Thanks for sharing, Michael!
@Erica McPhee Wouldn't that be fun and challenging exchange--design your own vintage calling card?

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Calligraphy Guilds / Learn Pointed Brush with Mike Gold

« on: August 06, 2020, 10:37:27 AM »

Wanted to share that Mike Gold is teaching two awesome online workshops for the Washington Calligraphers Guild next weekend (Aug 15-16) and next month (Sept 12-13). The 2-day workshops are east coast time, but there will be lots of scheduled breaks to help acclimate west coast/international students. There are a handful of spots left.

https://www.calligraphersguild.org/workshops/2020/#MikeGoldWorkshop1
https://www.calligraphersguild.org/workshops/2020/#MikeGoldWorkshop2

I'm the registrar for the Guild, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask me offline.
Hope to see some Flourish friends sign up.

Thanks,
Janice

PS There's also a few spots in Carol DuBosch's Ben Shahn Letters.

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Coffee & Nib-bles / Re: Can you help me?

« on: March 07, 2020, 11:13:03 AM »

@Starlee Wow, I agree this is so fascinating! And like what Stefanie said--they really do look like tiny jewels.

If you still want some sand, I'll definitely send you some from Hilton Head, South Carolina in June.
@Emilyrose It would be interesting to see how the sand differs from Charleston.

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Open Flourish | General Discussion / Re: Typeface from film, Peggy Sue Got Married

« on: February 14, 2020, 10:41:40 AM »

This is really cool. Thanks for sharing!

If you click on the tags listing which font was used, you'll see that one is listed as "Quick". Instead of doing work, I ended up going down a rabbit hole looking for specimens of it.
https://fontsinuse.com/typefaces/31841/quick
https://www.flickr.com/search/?sort=date-taken-desc&safe_search=1&tags=traftonscript&user_id=36844288%40N00&view_all=1
 
The typeface certainly has a mid-century and feminine air to it, like something you'd see in a 1950-60s advertisement in a fashion mag. It's fitting that a type designer re-conceived "Quick" as a newish typeface and called it "Parfum". https://www.myfonts.com/fonts/rmu/parfum

Kudos to Coppola and his title designer for selecting it--seems like the right fit for a woman who time travels to that era.

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Open/Active Exchanges / Re:Apologies to list 2

« on: February 14, 2020, 10:15:09 AM »

@Doesy  Jackie, I got your little package just in time. (I haven't opened so that I can enjoy with the others yet to come.) I was pleasantly surprised by the bulk of the letter, thinking you really went above and beyond. I'm sorry to hear that the post considered it like a package, and you had to pay more than expected. Nevertheless, looking forward to seeing what's inside. (Btw, thank you for the kind message about my Valentine! It's nice to go with a different approach once in a while.)

List 2 international folks: Sabrina and Gloria, I may not have put enough postage on mine. Hopefully, it either gets to you anyway or comes back to me for more postage. Sorry!

Happy Valentine's Day everyone!

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Coffee & Nib-bles / Re: We are moving to Tennessee!

« on: February 14, 2020, 10:05:40 AM »

Oh, wow! That's exciting, and you can't go wrong being close to Paper & Ink Arts! (Or maybe that's a dangerous thing.) Good luck with the move, Erica!

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Show & Tell / Re: NYPD Command Log & Memo Book

« on: October 18, 2019, 09:51:17 AM »

Wow, that's so cool, and what a fun way for you to practice your lettering at work! Thanks for sharing.

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Introductions / Re: Hello from the Beautiful Eastern Shore of Maryland

« on: August 22, 2019, 10:30:11 AM »

Hello Brad, welcome to the calligraphy world! You should check out Eunice Kim-Port, who runs a calligraphy business in your neck of the woods. https://www.instagram.com/surceecalligraphy/

Eunice and I (I'm in Washington, DC) are both members of the Washington Calligraphers Guild. Consider joining and/or taking a workshop. Workshops cover a wide range of styles and levels. Also, the guild is open to suggestions for class offerings. Perhaps you can request a future workshop on Hebrew lettering. (Btw, just saw on the freelancer page, there's a Hebrew letter and arts specialist. Worth checking out her website: https://www.pattyleve.com/).

Janice