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| Gold Ink & Calligraphy Pens |
My interest in calligraphy was
reawakened recently when a took a three hour calligraphy course at our local college
www.cotr.bc.ca/creston. Many years ago, I practiced writing italics for hours by a kerosene lamp in a log cabin, nestled beside a stream, and surrounded by towering cedar trees. What a magical setting that was and all that practice is helpful to me even now.
When practicing with the ink sketching and watercolour painting, I couldn't resist trying some gold ink in this dog's beard.
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| Fine Tec Pearlescent Colours |
This set arrived in the mail two days ago. Thank you to the people who posted about these Fine Tec colours online. They are working well with a calligraphy dip pen. The watercolour brush is used to add a little water to the compressed metallic colour disc and is then mixed. Using the brush, a bit of pigment is added to the back of the calligraphy nib for use.
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| Copper colored Fine Tec pigment Practice |
Pear and bird drawn with a straight nib. The leaf is drawn with a watercolour brush and the bottom irregular bit is 'scumbling' with a watercolour brush.
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| Arabic Gold, Fine Tec Pearlescent Colour |
Trying the different colours with a dip pen and straight nib. The straight nib worked the best for me. I did not have success using a broad tipped nib (C series) for lettering. The metallic flakes showed thick and thin in a single stroke.
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| Practicing for 'My Life with My Human' series |
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| More pen and ink practice with watercolour |
Drawing with Speedball Super black India ink and a dip calligraphy pen. Allow to dry completely before adding the watercolour.
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| Combining watercolour and calligraphy on mottled card stock. |
When trying a new medium, I often combine it with mediums I am already familiar with. Note in this photo and in the illustration below, I used masking tape to cover up the area to be used for the printing while painting with watercolour. After removing the tape, the lettering was added.
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| Practice |
Combining sketching in ink, watercolour painting and calligraphy lettering. The slightly mottled coloured paper worked well for this illustrative style of painting.
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| Brush work 4" in height |
Italics numbering using a flat 1/2" watercolour brush and thalo blue which brushes on smoothly. Being able to print this large with a brush really surprised me! I wondered about trying a house painting brush.
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| Illustration about Habitat for the Birds |
Combining calligraphy lettering, sketching in ink and watercolour painting in an illustration.
