Wednesday, July 02, 2014

Report from July's monthly meeting
If you needed to know what the phrase 'bring your usual calligraphy gear' means  - last night was the night to come to our meeting.
Despite the awful weather outside we were spell bound by Margaret who had set up a wonderful display of tools and materials available to modern day calligraphers, combine that with her years of experience meant that our questions were answered with anecdotal comment, hints and tips. An excellent back to basics discussion and I am sure that everyone of us learnt something.  
A suitcase to help keep the gold, foils, metals etc secure and uncontaminated. The pros and cons of quills, even how to make a reservoir to slide up a shaft. Beautiful boxes of nib stock, so there is no excuse not to play. 
One of the most important things is to experiment and play with tools, pigments and paper. Margaret impressed upon us to do this and to keep our efforts as a record for comparisons. Some materials are better than others for a particular effect. Margaret shared several of her books, some containing a whole variety of different papers, some with stubby leaves to which she had then added larger trials and tests as they were completed. After the talk we were able to examine and discuss the various equipment and have a cup of tea. Margaret is starting a calligraphy course very soon, click here for details for more information.

No comments:

Post a Comment