Trial by error ...

You have brains in your head. You have feet in your shoes. You can steer yourself in any direction you choose. You're on your own, and you know what you know. And you are the guy who'll decide where to go. Dr. Seuss

One great aspect about calligrahpy you can never practice to much.  Secondly, what you do with your path is limited only by what you limit your self to.

Posting for you all to see the same alphabet written with differenet nibs of the same size.  After working with these nibs I haven't come to any conclusion as to which is a favored as it seems they all have a pro and con to each one.  Each nib will have a time and place for it's use, depending on the paper texture and project.

Tachikawa had the finest finish but requires a heavy hand to write with, while expensive it's worth the extra money for the quality of lettering it produces.

Wrote a basic description and thoughts on the nibs as I went.  This way as I'm working on different pieces I  select specific nibs for finished works. 

To be posted soon is a thank you card done for a co worker who relocated.

Part two for completing this birthday card

I took this letter from the bible of illuminated letters, then traced it, flipped it over than traced it again.  Finally retracing it onto the card where I wanted it.  You'll notice in a earlier photo I had filled it in using color pencils to determine the color scheme in advance. Afer painting it in the rest of the way I cut it out.  Then used it as a raised letter on the front of the card.

Here's the completed card.

You'll notice a little more spacing in the middle as there's where the crease was.  I don't have a bone knife to create an actual crease so I used a metal ruler and some elbow grease.

   

Notice on the left hand side I use Uncial hand lettering and it's a total of 7 nib widths, 2 nib widths for the ascenders, 3 nib widths for main lettering, 2 nib widths for the descenders.  I did this inorder to stay consistent through out the piece. Some books recommend 4 nib widths for the main lettering but I found Maryanne Grebensteins book to be the most informative and accurate.

I freehanded the capitol S a few times on a seperate piece in order to get it just right.

You'll notice everything is laid out and pre measured then transferred those measurements over. Even each boarder is 3/4" with the poles being centered.

I used Reeves Gouache(pronounced gwahsh) beginners paint to do this. Each month I order a few more supplies, right now I'm still taking books out regularly from the library and utilizing the interlibrary loans to get what the library doesn't have.

steps to completion; a basic birthday card for a family member

Step1 write out the project

Step 2 draw it out on graph paper

Step 3 Drawing out the letter on graph paper, then cut it out and tack it to another piece of graph paper.  I did this so I could re arrange the wording as needed. An added bonus is the reuseable words for other projects in order to save time. I also did this with decorations on the boarders.

This is card stock we had laying around the house I almost got rid of a few months ago. It's good for practice and creating cards on till I can afford better papers/vellum.  This is the very first practice run I have ever done, it's full of mistakes but was great learning experience.  One thing I continue to struggle with is letter spacing.  Also I made the mistake of painting the main letter in first, which I realize now should always be done last. It was salvaged by finishing it out then cutting it out and adding it to the front of the Birthday card as a raised letter. 

I'll post the completed piece later this week.