Copy Calligraphy

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I was asked to do some copy Calligraphy for the upcoming reign of F&E. It was very flattering to be asked and I jumped on the task right away! 

I pulled out my scribal stuff, which is a bit rudimentary at best, and realized that I had no ink and my nibs were a bit dodgy. Any scribal I had done to this point was done with the borrowed tools of my Pelican. But a bit of practice, playing with nibs, and some determination (and an amazon order) I was ready to tackle the assignment.



HAVOC: 

Doing the Havoc was a lot of fun, and I felt pretty successful. The font was quite large and bold, so it was easy to get the thick/thin line effect that I really enjoy in calligraphy. However, this was not without issue. 

I did my first “final copy”, and noticed there was a missing letter. I did another “final copy” and left the word blank until I could circle back to it and add the “w”. I was sure to practice and practice, wrote the word a number of times, and then was feeling confident enough to finish it up. 

DISASTER!! I splotched the ink. NOOOOOOOO!!! 

On the advice of Elvina, I crossed it out and wrote it again, but was so emotional I hated how it looked. So, in the spirit of my mentors… I just did it again and was pleased with these results. I know it’s still the level of copy calligraphy, but I felt successful with the assignment. And by now I’ve done the letters so much I feel pretty confident I could do this without the copy. 


TORCH: 

Night and day experience with the Torch. I struggled so much with this one. The letters were much finer and needed a smaller nib and a much lighter hand. My fine nibs are not of spectacular quality, and I switched back and forth trying to find one that worked for me. I kept “blobbing” the ink, struggled with keeping the nibs loaded, and with trying to keep the whole thing consistent. This was my best draft - yikes! 



I did finally manage a final copy to submit. I’m not as happy with it as the HAVOC for the impression when someone looks at it. Knowing where I started to where I ended up, I am pleased with the final copy however I don’t have the same feeling of mastery.


Overall, I really enjoyed the assignment and hope that more copy calligraphy comes my way.

YIS
AW

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