[Scriptoris] More Tricks

[Elaine]

Try honing a steel pointed pen that is normally used for Spencerian  
or Engraver's Copperplate, hands popularized in the late 1800's.  
Don't use one toooooo flexible, though.

I use a jeweler's pull-down visor to magnify the tip so I can check  
that I honed it in a perpendicular squared-off and not an italic  
slant. The visor in its lesser magnifications will help in the actual  
lettering.

And you are right about the 5-5-5 measurements for a line----if it is  
an italic hand. The x-height was the one I wrote about. Other hands  
need different measurements, as you already know. Once I did a "play  
piece" and used an engineering ruler to discover the x-height ( like  
an a or an o or an n) was 1/20th of an inch. That's about it for me.  
Head on out, Queen of Small. Keep that crown. More power to you. If  
my master weren't dead, I'd sic you on him just for the jollies!

I have finished out vellum when I was studying (mundanely) with a  
protege (Thomas Ingmire) of Donald Jackson (Millennium/ St. John:s  
Bible). DJ was my first gilding teacher. BTW, the parchment thingy is  
a real bitch. Plaudits to you for doing it. I prefer buying mine and  
touching it up, but not enough to make a napped surface, like some in  
the class mistakenly did.

On the other hand, those tiny nibs are so sharp, it's hard not to get  
fibers in them, even after sandarac and polishing. It taught me to  
just have a lighter touch than normal. I keep a piece of leather  
wrapped around my left thumb to rake out the fibers in the nib when I  
am in a full-steam-ahead mode. Keeps me from accidentally tattooing  
myself with an ink-filled nib. (giggle)

Sandarac? I love the stuff. Use it on everything! Especially if I  
have to mundanely write in a bound book. If you want to buy in  
sandarac in bulk, try Kremer Pigments. You can buy up to 1 kilogram.  
If you find some in "tears" (sap globs), it's a bitch to hand grind  
the facepowder level needed. I will, on occasion, re-grind powders I  
have bought. Sometimes, ya just have to.

Hint for somebody lurking: early on, I learned from experience not to  
rub my eye with that powder on my hand-----felt just like when I  
rubbed my eye as a kid, helping my grandfather pick hot peppers from  
his garden!!! Dusting the sandarac off the paper with a feather so as  
to not get body oil on the paper helps, but, still, I don't trust  
some not to be loose somewhere, ya know?

Since K. P.  are the ones who furnished the pigments for restoration  
after the floods in Florence, you might want to look at that section  
in their catalog. Some can get realllllly pricey, but when you think  
of the time and energy to make, say, Fra Angelico Blue, it might be  
worth the price. I haven't had to buy from them for a while, so you  
might want to check on them. Too, there is something about signing up  
with them for coupons when they offer them.

Great hearing from you. Would love to have a wonderful afternoon to  
schmooze. Would be lots of fun and I'll bet I could come home with a  
plethora of great ideas/techniques to experiment with!

YIS,
Lete
Barony of the Steppes, BTW-----Where are you?






On Dec 18, 2008, at 6:30 PM, Cat Clark wrote:

>
>> As to writing small, I only got into that because my mundane  
>> master (a national one) challenged me to a contest. The last tiny  
>> thing I did was a postage stamp sized quotation, a paragraph--with  
>> red uncial versal--of Sir Francis Bacon---with the x-height of the  
>> minuscules at less than a millimeter high on a scrap of vellum I  
>> had trimmed. The funny thing is that a Laurel who saw it (with my  
>> magnifying glass) wrote in her commentary that, though she had  
>> never written that small, my lettering was "sloppy." I have  
>> giggled ever since about that, and I have the very piece hanging  
>> prominently by my front door for my daily giggle.  ROTFL!
>> Lete
>
> Damn, that's smaller than I've ever done and I delude myself in  
> thinking that I'm the Queen of Small.  The smallest I've ever done  
> was 3 mm, but it was a readable and neat English bastarde formata.   
> I did it with a Speedball C-7 on vellum that I made myself and  
> which I subsequently post-sanderach polished (because I  
> deliberately had to underload the ink on the nib to do the letters  
> without "felting up" the nib with collogen strands).
>
> So, was that a mm for the body of the miniscules or was that body  
> plus ascenders (not that it matters that much with uncial...)
>
> ttfn
> Therasia's envious evil twin, must go smaller...
>
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