Beautiful Words

 

                                          

 Calligraphy PRACTICE, like playing a musical instrument, is necessary. It's the thing you can get lost in for long periods of time as the ink flows (or not) smoothly on the paper. I don't practice enough. It's something I'm working on rectifying.


Tools. So many choices. You have to try them out. Papers, writing medium, nibs. See what works for you. If something isn't working try changing any or all.

                                   


What to write? It's nice to have words set before you when it's time to practice. Poetry is a great choice. Song lyrics, your own thoughts.

 I saw this poem in Poetry Magazine at my local library the other day. An Explanation of Doily by Gwyneth Lewis. Another favorite is The Jabberwocky from Alice Through the Looking Glass, just the first & last quatrain. Mike Gold taught a class in Kalamazoo and had us use it over & over. Get lost in the letters without worrying about the meaning. Ran across this site, Hello Poetry. Has everything from classics to newbies trying to break into the literary world. I copy & save words of interest I find in my internet wanderings into a word document. If I'm headed to a calligraphy work shop or just need inspiration I print out the one's I want to work from. 

A few of my favorites for ink are seen at the top. Higgins Eternal is a nice wet smooth flowing black. Walnut ink is earlthy, somewhat transparent depending on how thin you apply. MCaffery's Ivory is nice for a light on dark paper. Got mine from Wet Paint. No mixing necessary with those 3 so you can keep the momentum going.

This stuff is gorgeous! Fine Tec metallic water color. There are other color choices as well. An example of the far right color below.

Have a great week end!

Vampires with Good Grammar

        Is for Vampire. Again I feel I'm taking liberties. But I'll do whatever it takes to get my letter & word into this blog for the A to Z challenge. I'm shameless.

I've had this book for a long time. I rediscovered it on the book shelf not too long ago. The name alone gets you interested. The Transitive Vampire. The reviews alone will get you chuckling. It's all about punctuation and grammar. But don't let that fool you. It's a fun read along with being a wealth of information.

Published over 20 years ago it's still a great resource. The imagery on the sides of the text are thoughtful & whimsical as well. I'm a sucker for anything vintage.

Words and how they are put together are important if you are involved in calligraphy, poetry, artfully representing the written word in any way. I still feel  I have a lot to learn about language. To find an entertaining way to become better educated is a bonus.

Quotes

  
                                                    
 
Here's a great idea. I want one of these in a shop near me so I can go get little pieces of inspiration randomly.

The post even mentions Mary Oliver, a favorite with a calligraphy group I belong to in Kalamazoo MI, the Pendragons.

 Calligraphers rely on Quotes quite a bit for their content. In a work shop with Mike Gold a couple years back, with the above mentioned Pendragons, we worked with "Jabberwocky"  from Alice Through the Looking Glass for our text. The letter artist can focus on creating the letter forms and not think about the words.

               Just a warm up, don't judge. Calligraphy is not one of my strongest suits many times.


I have word documents on my computer where I am constantly pasting new quotes & poetry. I also have a folder of printed copies to take to work shops.

In another class with Annie Cicale we used Roman Capitals to play with spacing, running words together,changes in size and weight of letters.

It all comes down to the joy of sitting down and creating. Words, quotes, poetry all offer good pieces of text to appreciate, play with,  and get inspired by.