Nibs (July 2010)

These are two nibs I ground for a fellow fountain pen enthusiast.  They were fine/medium ballpointed to begin with, so became extra-fine italic after grinding (as a rule, nibs end up a size smaller when converted from ballpointed to italic).  The writing you see was done with the pens after they were ground.

Christmas Card (2008)

This was written for fun on a scrap of art paper measuring 4.5 by 6.0 centimetres, which is roughly the size of a gift tag.  Flourished Copperplate using a vintage Hunt 56 nib and Talens gouaches (deep gold + silver).

Photographed handheld using Canon 5D Mark II and 100mm f/2.8L macro IS USM lens.

Warming Up (2010)

Something I ought to do more often — calligraphic warming up so that my hand keeps in shape.

Rude Calligraphy (September 2006)

These were three pieces commissioned in September 2006 by a freelance copywriter, whose name I’ve forgotten, for the Creative Circle Awards — a competition in which ad people create fictitious products and ad campaigns for fictitious clients. The product here was a toothpaste so pleasant that, however vile the user’s words might be, they’d still come out sounding sugar-coated. For my efforts I was paid a couple of hundred dollars, a bonus considering that I badly needed practice at the time and would gladly have done it for free.

P.S.  The last piece is particularly awful; I’ve never sat down to learn Gothic lettering properly.