Tall Tales from Kansas

exploring to find what seems instinctively right for me

Every afternoon or evening you can find me upstairs.  Determined not to be stymied by the curves and swirls of the alphabet; the lettering practice continues. 

In addition to writing my own name,  I have moved on to the names of friends and acquaintances.  I have a special affinity for N's and W's.  Luckily one of my Quail friends has a name that contains both letters. 

Samples are essential.  I am constantly referring to my books.  I need one of those borders of cursive letters that used to hang over the chalkboard in every classroom when I was in school.  

In addition to the oblique holder I started with, I now have a regular one.   I also bought more nibs and inks.   Exploring to find what seems instinctively right for me.   

When I was signing checks on Sunday I had this fleeting thought that the bank was probably going to think someone had comandeered my checkbook.   I have been writing my name so much that my normal (extremely messy) signature looks like it was written by a neat and tidy person. 

this year's homework assignment

Last year after the art retreat my sister and I came up with the Sketchwars Wednesdays concept.  It was a load of fun and I now have a lovely Venetian portfolio that is full of all the sketches we did as a part of that caper.  What it really did was make drawing something I did on a regular basis and got semi comfortable with. 

This year's homework assignment for me will be making letters.  Mostly with a dip pen and ink, but I am not boxing myself into just those tools.  No sense in that when I might want to use a brush pen, a paint brush, or a parallel pen.

I started out practicing my letters in a small composition book I got from Hammerpress just because I loved the cover.  The nib sort of grabs this paper and gets caught plus the ink bleeds through so I ordered a pad with heavier paper.  My sister got one and I had to have one too.   

So far I like it very much.  No holes in the paper from the nibs and no bleeding through to the next page. 

It's sleeting here in Kansas right now.  I don't care.  I have a whole notebook to fill up with letters.  Making letters is addicting.  Writing my own name like a schoolgirl is my favorite thing to do.  I force myself to write out all the letters in the alphabet and then my reward is I get to write my name a whole bunch of times. 

The funny thing is I used to hate to write my name.  I used to wish I had a name with different letters in it.  Letters that were more fun to write.  Not any more.  I am simply fascinated with c  a  r  o  l.

 

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she held very still, except when she fell asleep