I was kept busy before Christmas by writing out family mottoes that were going to be given as Christmas presents. Lots of Gothic calligraphy and gilding involved, which made a pleasant change from the pointed pen work that I’d been doing throughout most of 2011. I started out by doing a couple of rough drafts:-
Rough draft, cut and paste
- Another rough draft… slightly less rough.
In the end I didn’t use the capital ‘C’ that I’d sketched out in my rough, as I felt it wasn’t weighty enough. I also felt that the lettering was slightly too small. My client then revised the wording. With these considerations I did a final ‘best rough’ and then turned myself into a mini factory to produce the five family mottoes that my client had requested. Once into the swing of it, I found this project very relaxing. The background to the capital ‘C’ was flat gilded with loose gold leaf.
All Five!!
…once again, apologies for the dodgy photography – the artwork looks like it’s square from these pics, but it is rectangular! I used Arches Aquarelle paper for the finished work; expensive, but beautiful to work with and, I received happy feedback from my client, which is always nice.
Close Up!
Anyhow, that was then…. what’s going on now? Well this project did give me a few interesting ideas…. but before I can play around with those I have more pointed pen work to do, which will probably keep me busy for a couple of weeks and then I am going to devote myself to some italic, as I picked up my broad edged pen the other day and my hand seemed confused. My italic is now a little bit rusty and I can’t be having that!