PEN NIBS - A SOLUTION AT LAST Dip pen nibs I am very happy with my new calligraphy fountain pen, but despite it being "super flex," it doesn't have as much spread as I would like, and it's also quite hard to get really thin lines with it. The other disadvantage is that…
AN EXCITING NEW ART MATERIAL - GRAF ART TAILOR SHAPES I first saw this product being demonstrated briefly by Denise Love, a wonderful artist whose YouTube channel I follow. After that, I kept tripping over this product and was intrigued, and knew I had to add it to my studio arsenal. Background The…
DOMESTIKA COURSE - ENGLISH CALLIGRAPHY - FINAL PROJECT At long last I have completed this course. It did seem to drag on, partly because I was waiting for materials to arrive, and also because of other things going on in my life. I had already decided not to tie myself down to completing…
FLEX NIB FOUNTAIN PEN I am currently doing an English calligraphy course with Domestika, and have been using a dip pen with an angled pen holder. The nib has a reservoir which means I don't have to dip so often but the results can be a bit hit and miss. I wondered whether…
A NEW SHELVING UNIT FOR THE STUDIO A big clear-out At the moment I am having a blitz on the studio and getting ruthless. I've got far too much stuff and it's high time I went through everything and got rid of a lot of the excess. I'll do another post about that,…
GILDED BACKGROUND FOR A CALLIGRAPHY PROJECT As part of the Domestika course on English Calligraphy, we are to make an imaginary invitation. In the course, the teacher recommended some calligraphers she admires, for inspiration and to broaden our knowledge. One of these is the Irish calligrapher Denis Brown, who has completely blown me…
DOMESTIKA COURSE - ENGLISH CALLIGRAPHY - CAPITAL LETTERS I was too busy and then too tired to do anything in my studio over the past couple of days, but this afternoon I had another session. After practising the strokes for the capital letters and doing some consolidation practice, I was ready to start…
DOMESTIKA COURSE - ENGLISH CALLIGRAPHY - JOINED UP WRITING! Great steps forward today in the studio, continuing to work on Unit 3 of the course which deals with lowercase letters. The lesson was called "Union of Lowercase." Not sure if this is a correct technical term - the teacher is Spanish and the…
DOMESTIKA COURSE - ENGLISH CALLIGRAPHY - THE LOWERCASE LETTERS We're really getting down to the nitty-gritty now, and beginning to learn how to shape the letters. Lowercase letters These fall into several different groups, according to how they are constructed. The teacher therefore didn't teach them to us in alphabetical order, but in…
DOMESTIKA COURSE - ENGLISH CALLIGRAPHY I have decided to stay with the calligraphy theme after recently completing the Hebrew calligraphy course. The new course is on English calligraphy, often called Copperplate. With its flowing lines and flourishes, it is very elegant and beautiful. I have done a little in the past, but am…
