Calligraphic progress

 I have been asked t0 make a book, using a portion of a poem by Rudyard Kipling.

It has been a while since I pulled out my nibs for a commission and there is always a sense of hesitancy when I return to lettering for somebody else. Can I still do it?

I started out early in the week using rubbish paper and ink; and the results were not what you would call encouraging, so today I got out some of the paper I will use for the final piece and decided to sit down and try to write something 'proper' with 'proper' ink.

Always so much better than messing about with rubbish ink and paper, and I don't know know why I didn't start there!

Working wth beautiful BFK Rives printmaking paper, I tested and trialed a series of inks. I was checking for colour and strength; but also for whether they ran.

I was working out which nib width would work (got that right first time!) and checking how long each line would be and how much height a verse would take-up.

I recorded information about each line after I had written it.

All in all I tried out 6 inks, the last one being walnut ink which I mixed from crystals, so I tested out 3 dilutions or strengths of it.

Here's the documentation to remind me. The nib I used (William Mitchell size 3 1/2), the ink I used, followed by the line length and the x-height (4mm).

I liked the strong walnut ink best, so completed the verses with that.

I knew I had made mistakes along the  way. Here I had a lapse and forgot the type of 'g' I should use, so just did the correction it straight afterwards. I also wrote birds not bird.

And here I had the word baleful in my head as I went to write bailiff, and left the second 'i' out so just stuck it in where it was supposed to go afterwards.

And just because I like this angle.

I was testing for colour and bleeding and your can see how a couple of the inks really did bleed on the paper and that the walnut ink held a crisper line.

And so afterwards, I measured the longest line in each of the three verses, worked out how high each verse was (approximately) and then tried to place them on the page where I think they will look best.

If only I was technologically competent, but I do love and trust the old 'cut and paste and move around by hand' method.

It felt like I had really progressed and could begin to see how it might look, and the spaces and places left within the book for illustrative works.

As I worked through the writing I oftentimes wondered how other calligraphers do it. Do they, like me, have the words to be written by the side of the piece they are working on, and glance over to the original, say the words quietly in their heads, repeat the words as they put pen to paper? I slow the words right down to match the pace of my writing. I oftentimes only choose three - five words to focus on at a time, so I am constantly going back and for the between the source and the work.

And I wonder where the mistakes come from - bird v birds? bailiff v baleful? I must have just drifted away in my mind between the glance to the left and the glance to the paper in front of me.

And just because we are getting some lovely, fleeting early morning winter light here are some orchids from the studio garden which I brought home. Their elegance and serenity is such wonderful companionship in the kitchen.