![]() ![]() 127 N Cork Tip Penholder with Speedball Calligraphy Ink on Strathmore tracing paper. This is the good side of the internet, feeling part of an online community of folks just trying to improve their drawing skills and somehow committing to participating for just one month seems doable.įor all of my Inktober challenges I used a Tachikawa G nib in my Koh-I-Noor No. I knew that one would take a bit longer to do than the others so I started working on it last week in order to be ready for this week’s challenge. I did all of them but my favourite was Frida Kahlo. I was inspired by a great blog I follow called The Postman’s Knock who sent out weekly challenges (a sugar skull, a hissing cat, a bat, and Frida Kahlo). In his words, he created it to “to improve my inking skills and develop positive drawing habits.” I had heard of it before but this is the first year I have participated. Inktober is an online challenge started in October 2009 by an illustrator called Jake Parker. If Carolingian script was a person, they would be an efficient bureaucrat who loves beautiful books. I wrote out the alphabet using a Speedball C-2 nib in a Koh-I-Noor penholder. As this was such a long-lived alphabet, there were lots of different styles of capital letters paired with them over time and in different parts of Europe. To speed things up, 21 of the 26 letters are done in one stroke. Efficiency was very important for the scribes as they were working like the medieval version of copying machines. The scribes were writing on calfskin vellum, which even then was expensive, so Carolingian was written quite small most of the time giving it a real charm and delicacy. It became the calligraphic standard in Europe for the Vulgate Bible, and was used to copy various Christian and pagan texts, as well educational materials. Because of this, Carolingian is called a book hand. ![]() We can also thank them for helpful features such as word spacing, more regular punctuation, and conventions such as using upper-case letters for titles, a mix of upper and lower case for subtitles, and lower case for the body of a text.Īside from the administrative use of Carolingian, Charlemagne had a general interest in learning and wanted all of the books in the empire copied. This form, which is now known as Carolingian, became the basis for modern European printed alphabets. He asked the scholar Aquin of York to standardize an alphabet that was quick to write and easy to read. Although he was not fully literate himself, he was a canny ruler who knew that while he could conquer by the sword, he would have to administer by the pen. In the year 800, Charlemagne became Holy Roman Emperor, putting him in charge of much of central and western Europe. This script is named after a Latinised version of Charles Martel, more famously known as Charlemagne. The guest calligrapher for the Edmonton Calligraphic Society’s November zoom meeting was Reggie Ezell of Chicago, who introduced us to Carolingian script. If Brause nibs were people, they would be the kind of folks that just can’t resist giving everyone a nickname. It took a lot of attempts to just write the name of each of them in the pictures below. Neither of these nibs are very beginner friendly. I haven’t experimented a lot with the Blue Pumpkin but I’ve heard it works better with thicker inks like sumi. The only holder I could put the EF66 is my Koh-I-Noor No. ![]() The shank size is similar to other nibs I have, like the Tachikawa G, and fits most pen holders, including the Moblique. It’s not quite as flexible as the EF66 but its larger size allows it to hold more ink so you don’t have to dip as often but I also found it blobbed more. Its nickname is “Blue Pumpkin” because of its colour and rounder shape. Each nib is pressed with tools specific to that nib and then slit down the middle so the ink can flow to the tip.Īs well as the EF66, I also have a Brause Steno nib. Making a nib is a complex process and some delicate parts are still done by hand. What do sewing needles, spokes, and nibs have in common? They are all made with cold rolled steel. At first they made sewing needles but by 1895 they had expanded their line to include bicycle spokes and pen nibs. It’s the Mighty Mouse of nibs – you need to use a light touch but it gives nice stroke contrasts.īrause is an old steel manufacturing company, founded in 1850 in Iserlohn, Germany (the word Iserlohn is stamped on the nib as well as Brause EF66). The Brause EF66 (short for “Extra Fine 66”) is a very tiny, flexible nib sometimes referred to as “The Arrow”. ![]() The “Happy Easter” was written with a Brause Steno nib. This bunny is from a tutorial on The Postman’s Knock using sumi ink with a Brause EF66 nib on HP Premium 32 LaserJet paper. ![]()
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |