Tuesday, June 30, 2009

Obsolete tools

I find it amusing that as a calligrapher, I use several of the tools that are part of this Museum of Forgotten Art Supplies

Saturday, June 20, 2009

Wedding calligraphy Inner Envelope 2

One of the inner envelopes of wedding calligraphy I just finished this week.

It's Italic script done with a pointed pen. Used a combination of walnut ink and zinc white gouache for the color to match the invites.

Wedding calligraphy Inner Envelope 1

One of the Portuguese names for the wedding calligraphy I just finished this week.

This was one of the inner envelopes.

Wednesday, June 17, 2009

The Newberry Library & the Victorian Naughty Book

One of the delights of going to Chicago was a visit to the Newberry Library and their extensive calligraphy/illumination collection. They're a free-use private library with quite a few restrictions designed to protect their books. One restriction is only allowing you three books at a time, with those brought to you directly by the librarians.

My books arrive!
My first three books arrived with a very cheerful look on the librarian's face. Actually, smiles lit both the librarians' faces since the need to carefully cradle the books is so great that two of them brought the books to me. "Enjoy!" the first librarian said as she laid the books down.

"Wow," I think, "they seem to really love their jobs. Or perhaps they just really like calligraphy."

I take a look at what they gave me. Each book comes with its own padded cradle to keep them from opening fully and damaging the spine. I ask if I need gloves on to handle these. Nope, they were printed material and as long as my hands were clean that was good enough. Mind you, some of the printed books I handled were printed in the 1500s. Others, while later, were full of hand painted illustrations over the block prints.

The Victorian Naughty book
The largest book has a beautiful red leather cover on it with no title. I open it up and find many illustrations of Jane Austen-styled women with a twist -- they were showing an ankle. Or even sometimes a calf. I glance through other pages of the book. While several of the headers were indeed written in the calligraphy style of the time (copperplate), it just wasn't that interesting.

Then I think, "Hmmm....was this really the right book?" I look back at my call numbers, look at the call number of the red book. Nope. The numbers are one off. The original book still beckons, so I resubmit for it.

The same head librarian returns. This time she came with a chagrined look while profusely apologizing as she hands over the one I really ordered. "Oh, I'm so sorry! I hope you weren't offended. It's just that so many people order the Victorian Naughty book, that I just assumed that was the one you wanted when I saw the call number." I assure her that I was somewhat amused.

When I told the story to my husband that evening he mused, "Maybe it would be fun for me to check out the Newberry tomorrow. What was that call number again?"

Tuesday, June 2, 2009

SOLD!

My art in the Gift of Water show has sold! I'm about 99.5% happy and 0.5% disappointed it won't be coming home.

It feels a bit odd knowing that I won't have to go pick it up when the show comes down.