Update 16th November

I've been practising to produce an actual greeting card for Christmas. (In case you've never come across it, to wassail is an old-fashioned word meaning to drink plentiful amounts of alcohol and generally behave in a noisy way at Christmas time. It's usually used in traditional Christmas carols.)

The inks are yellow and red cartridges for the Pilot parallel pen. (I bought a second pen so I could switch between the two.)

Project

I loved this class - thank you Alice!

I had been trying to learn Blackletter just before finding the class, specifically the textura quadrata style with the diamond-shaped feet. It's nice to discover a 'gentler' variation too :)

So, the first stage was practice. For that I find that squared paper helps me, as my vertical strokes can be a bit off otherwise. The ductus tool for ruling up was really useful too.

I practised writing all the individual letters, and then tried short sentences. I found the NATO phonetic alphabet useful for practice, as you write all the letters of the alphabet (not just my favourites, like the gorgeous letter g!). I wrote this practice sheet on Copic bleedproof marker paper (please excuse the odd layout, but I am really stingy with paper).

For my project, I chose a favourite quote on creativity by Henri Matisse.

I experimented with various types of ink and paper. This one was done on Langton extra smooth watercolour paper by Daler Rowney using Pilot ink cartridges (turquoise and a tiny bit of red). Still working on different combinations of ink and paper.