Paw Prints

Instructions

Paul Fujita at Zeitgeist Art Gallery

[Posted in the Nervousness Forums; there was great follow up, too.]

The best book i’ve found on caligraphy so far is _The Calligrapher’s Companion_ by Mary Noble and Janet Mehigan.

I’ll offer another opinion — i think learning with Speedball nibs in a nib holder is much better than with chisel tipped felt pens. You can get in bad habits with the felt tips, because they’ll move “backwards” across the paper in a way that the metal nibs won’t. And i have a bunch of the reservoir pens — Osmiroid, is a common brand — but find that i rarely use them.

One note — the best lesson i learned from TCC is to fill the pens with a brush and not to dip them. I’ve had much better results since. The basic black ink i use has an eyedropper — it’s perfect for filling the “dip” nibs.

I’ve drawn in ink off and on for a while and recently tried drawing with a dip pen with a drawing nib. I was thrilled with how much more comfortable i was with it than with Rapidograph pens. And it seems much easier to keep the nibs clean and not clogged.

If it’s “real” ink — and those Windsor and Newton inks are just fine — you don’t need to water it down. I’ve bought some acrylic inks and have found that i do need to water those down — experiment!

With the paper — i’ve found most sketchbook paper to work just fine. If you want to write on paper that you find out actually beeds — it’s too porus — you can use gum sandarac, a resin, to rub into the paper to keep the bleeding from happening. If you find the paper too slick, there’s something called Pounce (i think it’s pumice dust) to roughen it up a bit. (I use it to make sure the gum from erasing sketch lines is gone.)

I end up ordering most of my supplies by mail — Misterart.com was my last order of ink and nibs — because the craft and hobby and art supply stores here in *San Francisco* don’t have a wide enough selection in one place.

Hope this helps! I’ve just restarted calligraphy after years of being “too busy.”

Cheers,

feel free to ask more,

judith

Thursday night i gave some new art supplies a try, and then followed up with a little more experimentation on Friday. In my new shipment I’d ordered some supplies inspired by The Calligrapher’s Companion: frisket, soft pastels, and then, because of how much i enjoyed drawing the Star Series with a dip pen, some drawing nibs.

Frisket

Grafix: The Incredible White Mask Liquid Frisket, described as “A unique formulation of the highest quality latex assures a tough film mask that is easily removed. Its off white color shows through your work so you can see precisely where you’ve masked. It is non-staining and can be used on all artist papers, board, wood leather, glass, metal and ceramics. A superior frisket at a lower price per once than other brands.” I wanted to experiment with masking out the soft pastels. I doubted the frisket would work — i assued that rubbing in the pastels would rub away the frisket — Not so! I could rub the pastels into the paper and the frisket stayed firm. The frisket did hold the pastel pigments better than the paper, and i almost regretted pulling the frisket away — the brighter sweeps against the lighter background was attractive. Still, continuing with the experimment, pulling back the frisket wored fine, and i didn’t rub pigment into the white regions. Higgins non-waterproof black wrote just fine over both the pastels and the post-frisketted areas. There might have been a little bleed where the frisket had been, but it was not particularly significant.

Another surprise — it was easy to write with a C-4 speedball nib over the pastel dusted frisket. Note: really let the ink dry before removing the frisket! Smudges reward the impatient!

What about frisket to protect a pastel area? And frisket and acrylic inks? Well, the frisket does pull up much of the pigment that’s been rubbed into the paper. Drawn lines don’t seem as lifted.

I was too impatient to get the pen working with the acrylic ink, so i just used a brush. My main concern was that the frisket would peel the acrylic off from the paper at the edges, but it seemed to leave a nice crisp edge. I think there was one spot where it peeled back a little. The acrylic inks are very thin compared to acrylic paints.

Pastels

Alphacolor Pastel Sets set of 12 square pastel soft basic colors: “Vibrant, non-toxic. Highly pigmented strong colors make bright pictures, posters and murals on cloth or paper (not recommended for use on chalkboards).”

My first experiment was just to draw a slight weave in orange and yellow and then rub the pigments into the paper before writing over it with walnut ink. THis went well. The lines did remain pretty visible, but the deeply pigmented and the more pale were equally easy to write over.

The next page i tested more colors. Some seem to adhere to the paper better than others. In particular, the pink and pale blue never really adhered to the paper. When the colors are drawn on to the paper they don’t seem to blend as well as when using the technique shown in the caligraphy book of shaving the pigment off with a knife. My low adhesion making tape works as a fine mask. Unlike the frisket, it doesn’t seem to lift the colors underneath.

Another test was with the frisket. I used the shaving technique and mixed yellow, green, and blue pigments on the page. It made a lovely color background for the caligraphy. A final test was to see how gum sandarac and pounce (pumice dust) might affect the adhesion of the pigment to paper. While i think there was a slight improvement in adhesion with the gum sandarac, the pounce seemed to keep pigment from being rubbed into the paper.

Hunt Nibs

(Tested with walnut ink on soft pastel in my sketch book)

Hunt School Pen No. 56: described as, “A fine drawing pen for art school, stiff action. Bronze finish. Use No. 9451 Speedball Pen holder.” In my very brief experiment, i found myself wishing it had a reservoir. It didn’t seem that stiff — it is a shorter nib than the others.

Hunt Imperial Pen No. 101: described as, “A very flexible pen for ornamental work. Bronze finish. Use No. 9451 Speedball Holder.” I really liked this pen. The range of width, the flexibility, seemed amazing — if i can learn to control it. It’s very similar in appearance to the Shcool Pen nib 56 — a little longer with a more ornate “keyhole”.

Hunt Crow Quill Pen No. 102: described as, “A superfine art pen. Flexible. Use No. 102 holder.” This seemed very stiff, very fine. I can imagine doing shading lines with it. If, like all these pens, it had more of a reservoir, i’d write with it daily because i love the very fine line.

Hunt Globe Pen No. 513EF: described as, “Extra fine line bowl pointed pen for industrial arts. Use No. 9451 Speedball Pen Holder.” I liked this one too, although i feel it has a secret it wasn’t sharing with me. It didn’t have the range in width the Imperial had, but i think i had better control.

Pastel by color

White: no test
Pink: possibly helped in adhesion by gum sandrac. Nearly invisible on white paper; completely lost when mixed. Probably appropriate for uses other than calligraphy backgrounds.
Pale blue: slightly better than the pink.
Yellow green: nearly indistinguishable from the bright yellow.
Yellow: the distinction between the drawn area and where the rest of the pigment is rubbed into the paper is not as strong as with other colors. — good drawing permanence, great pigment
Orange: strong drawing permanence, great pigment
Red: good drawing permanence, great pigment
Purple: good drawing permanence, ok pigment
Green: good drawing permanence, ok pigment
Blue:good drawing permanence, great pigment
Brown: strong drawing permanence, great pigment
Black: strong drawing permanence, great pigment

PS-whines: MisterArt.com saves your order history, but doesn’t link your items back to the original description. Pout.

Also bought in this order: Higgins Calligraphy Waterproof Black Ink and Golden Acrylic Gel Medium.

I will be accumulating links to digial image archives here. I have lost so many collections by trying to keep track of them in browser bookmarks — this will hopefully be a safer home.

* NOAA Photo Library:
Over 20,000 images. I found wonderful snowflake images here. To start exploration of the collections, consider the etchings of marine creatures in this collection.
Public domain, although they request credit to “National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration/Department of Commerce unless otherwise instructed to give credit to the photographer or other source. ”
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* Prelinger Archives:
Moving images cleared for the public domain. If you’ve got the tools to pull a still out of one of these, you have a wealth of “retro” photographs at hand.
“Any derivative works that you produce using these films are yours to perform, publish, reproduce, sell, or distribute in any way you wish without any limitations.” Rick Prelinger is a great advocate for the Creative Commons.
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* http://images.usace.army.mil/historical.html

* San Francisco Historical Photograph Collection:
They have some forms for reproduction and publication (which is $15) requests.
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