Merry Christmas in white script on red card with gold foil holly berries is my Christmas card for this year. Each one was hand lettered on a single piece of red card stock. The basic idea came from
Michael Sull's workshop a few weeks ago. He demo-ed
Spencerian script, which my capital letters qualify as, but not my lower case letters. They are too shaded to be true Spencerian.
The nib I love the most is a Spencerian number 1, an antique nib that is very flexible. The shades come easily to this little nib, so I have to concentrate to try to do letters without shading (the heavier strokes.) Michael Sull uses a Nikko G nib, which is much too stiff for me, but it also allows those unshaded downstrokes.
The fluid I used was Michael's favorite white - Dr. Martin's bleed proof white. I usually use McCaffrey's ivory when I want white on dark paper. I think I needed to be a little heavier with the white portion versus the water, but I do like the look of the card. I hope you do too, and I hope you have a very Merry Christmas!
The holly berries were done with a gold foiling pen. Fun to use, and discontinued in the USA, but recently brought back via
Paper and Ink Arts in Nashville.
