Friday, December 14, 2012

Merry Christmas



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.

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