Calligraphy Flourish Friday - Fraktur Caps

Following is a reposting of my November 13, 2009 Flourish Friday.  I love ornamental Fraktur capitals, and my recent workshop with Reggie Ezell has given me even more ideas...

To view the comments from the original post CLICK HERE.

For this week's Flourish Friday, I tried my hand at Ornamental Fraktur. Believe it or not, this is the letter A.

I used some blue ink that was packaged with the pen my husband bought me in Venice. (You can see that glass pen in an earlier post here.)

I used my 6mm Pilot Parallel Pen. I filled a spent cartridge with a Monojet syringe. I like the Parallel Pen for practice. It is easier for me to get consistent thins from this tool than it is from a broad edge dip pen.

My reference was chapter 6 from Bill Hildebrandt's wonderful book "Calligraphic Flourishing." Some Flourish Friday I'll have to show you the Whopperplate I bought from Bill! :-)

I hope you're all Flourishing out there! Have a great weekend!!

Calligraphy Flourish Friday - Return to Contemporary Illuminated Letters

I started this contemporary, illuminated alphabet over three years ago.  My goal was to do the entire alphabet from A-Z within a year.....

....hahaha!!!  

I have the basic forms done for four more letters. Now, I just need to make the time to fill them in with watercolor.   You can view a few of my other letters in this series by clicking HERE and HERE.

Have a great weekend.

Go forth and flourish!

xo

Jane

Calligraphy Flourish Friday - Gemstone Script

This image shows the front of the birthday card I made last year for my secret, calligraphy pal.   Knowing my Cal Pal's favorite color was red, I wanted to use red, stick-on gemstones.

First, I lettered the initial with pointed pen and ink.  Once dry, I enlarged the "D" using my copier.

Next, I slipped the enlarged copy under my good paper and placed it on my light table. Then, I began to place the gemstones onto the good paper using my copy as a guide.   I tried matching the smallest gemstones to the thinnest parts of the letter and increased the size as the stroke swelled.  As you can see I had to modify my letter, because I was running out of gemstones.

My 2012 Cal Pal was Doris Sisk, a gentle, quiet, encouraging, and inspiring soul.  Fellow calligrapher and blogger, Jan Hurst, wrote a wonderful tribute to Doris on her blog. You can read it HERE.

Go forth and Flourish!

xo

Jane