Wedding Table Names fit for a Princess!

Not everyone wants numbers on their tables do they? 

But if they did, a little bit of calligraphy can go a long way to making something 

that is often quite plain, look special...

Table numbers on book pages are not only for the literary lovers with a literary or bookish themed wedding. They can add a a bit of a vintage feel… 

or 'shabby chic' seems to be the description of the moment for those that watch the trends! 

I usually have a fair eye for fitting words into spaces, but when a collection are going to be displayed together, it's worthwhile being a little more prudent! 

A typed & centred list of names clearly shows which is longest & how long they each are in relation to each other. So long as the longest will fit, the rest should follow!

I wrote my list with a page above as a guide to begin with, then folded my paper over name by name…. lining each one up & making minor adjustments to spacing as I went.

As well as being Princess for a day, this bride was sharing her day with Disney princesses too!

 These dictionary pages were a perfect fit to be displayed in 5 x 7 inch frames. 

A mega accordion book- 5 feet long!

What a love story this turned out to be! A lovely lady called Lisa asked about an extra special love letter to include a marriage proposal. We decided on a concertina book with a couple of envelopes for keepsakes such as a show ticket & a pressed flower from milestone dates. Well…. the idea sort of grew… and grew.

We decided on colours early on; natural tones, charcoal & sand… layers of watercolour… more water… more colour… some acrylic...

I asked her to think about special events along the way… 

dates, places, songs etc… little things that tell their story...

She told me their tale of synchronicity & bliss, of cold feet & separation; yet always on each others mind…. until they finally re-united...

Just as their story has many strands, I wove snippets of songs alongside tender memories...

 layering their tale in a book of love… 

Extra pages stitched in, for her to write a personal letter in her own hand...

A proposal hidden at the very end...

books within books, pages to unfold...

quotes about love & words they have spoken…

 space for a ring to hide?

Wedding Vows to Frame

Do you remember this that I showed you a while ago (here)? Now that it has been gifted, I can show you the full version.

To stop the masking tape damaging the surface of the paper when i remove it, i stick it onto my desk (or my jeans or the back of my hand) first to remove some of the tackiness, before putting on the paper

I build these mini-masterpieces up with several layers of watercolour, sometimes i vary the effect by using a flat brush or by adding gestural marks and gold powder. 

This was a large piece to write out, with two distinct parts. Although I had an idea of how I wanted it, I typed each part out in a font that echoed the style I thought I might use, then fiddled around with the proportions until they balanced…. then I just wrote the first column, letting it go how it would. Then I measured & ruled in the top lines for the 2nd part. It very nearly worked first time too!

I've blurred out the names, but once I knew I was going to do another version, I used this to play around with some possible effects. If this had worked, I'd have used a spare scrap to play on. In the first version, there was no variation in the bottom few lines, but it needed some weight at the bottom to anchor it & balance with the other side. That's when I added in the ruling pen over the top…. and here is the final version….

It's on a full sheet of Saunders Waterford Hot pressed paper, which is 76 x 56 cm / 22 x 30 inches… I added crop lines for the framer, to cut through some of the outer diamonds & left a few little notes to my client in the margins which she decided to keep!

Brush Lettering on Mulberry... free to a good home!

Following on from that brush stroke that felt so good in the last post, I tried some lettering with a Chinese brush onto Khadi Mulberry. I set off with the "I do not sleep", intending to create a neater sample page with various tools & mediums, but after writing the next small line I was enjoying myself & just carried on writing!

You can see the transparency of the paper from the ruler & sheet of absorbent paper underneath. The lettering is all done with the same brush... varying from laying it on it's side to using the very tip.

 On the whole, I can write pretty straight without guide lines, but right at the end I lifted up on the right of the page. I do it so often it's maddening.... especially as I'm aware that I do it & watch for it, yet it still happens unless I mark that last line in. I actually positioned the paper straight underneath to act as a guide line but still.... Thinking about it now, I'm wondering if it happens when I don't move the piece of work up as I work down the page, so rather than viewing straight on, I'm looking at my writing at a slight angle, so I "see" that I'm going straight even when I'm not. *sigh* I've been doing this on & off for years & it's only writing about it now that it seems so obvious... I'll check my writing position next time!

Even so, it is possible to rescue a piece that suffers from a drifting bottom line. Adding some form of decoration to fill the space & balance it out often saves a re-write. The heavy line would have been sufficient, but there were a couple of  mistakes I wanted to cover, so added the splash. It was a bit heavy & missed the mistake altogether, so I lifted some of the ink out with tissue... then added a few more watery splashes, lifting some out to echo the look of the first one....

I like the effect... even though some letters aren't legible, the sense of the words is there. It also conveys a sense of the words.... of spirit slipping from one world to another, here but not here...

In the previous 2 & the next pic, the tissue is hung at a window... lovely textures from front & back... floating....

Would anyone like this?

If I had somewhere to hang it, it's one I'd keep... but it does need to hang somewhere. Perhaps pinned to a board or pegged from a string line...  or maybe another strip of paper or fabric stitched across the top to give enough strength to attach to a branch or pole of some sort.... or collage it into another piece of work... add a layer of your own creativity.... could look good with a layer of something else floating behind... ??

If you want it just leave a comment....& share what you might do with it. If more than one person puts their hand up, we'll have a draw next week :-)

Writing on Khadi Mulberry Tissue

I sort of knew that a broad edged nib wouldn't be the best of tools to write with on this Mulberry tissue. Sure enough, even with a light touch the corner of the nib tore the tissue.... possibly the thin consistency of ink allowed the paper to get over wet, thus tearing.

But... a finer nib was ok (just ok, not great!), & slightly better with larger letters. This was using walnut ink. The brush stroke felt wonderful, but this was just a little sample of paper so 1 mark was all I gave myself. 

Fine liner pens surprised me... they were excellent. I expected pastels to take well, but they 'took' much more strongly than anticipated... the tissue seems to hold the particles of chalk pastel, resulting in strong colour from a small amount.

Gouache (purple) & watercolour (pink) both worked better with a 'dryer' consistency... anything too wet just soaked away... the watercolour faded  even more as it dried. These were applied with a brush... I haven't tried them yet with a nib of any description. I was working with absorbent kitchen paper underneath, but perhaps felt would be a better option to soak away excess moisture.

Ballpoint pen was wonderful! Hard pencils not visible at all, but 3B starts to show.... charcoal pencils worked great.

So.... that's my preliminary tests done, straight onto plain mulberry. Every surface is 'writable' to some extent... we just have to tweak things until something works. The variables are; the tools, the medium & surface treatments. Adjusting these & trying different combinations can lead to really sharp writing on quite hostile surfaces. I'm not finished with this stuff yet!

Printing on Khadi Mulberry Tissue

 I was asked,  "Can you print on Khadi Mulberry Tissue?"  & to be honest I didn't know.

Khadi's Mulberry tissue is very soft & lightweight, with a fairly open weave. It also feels absorbent & tears easily too, so getting it through an inkjet printer would be one thing, never mind whether it accepted the ink.

I used a low-tack tape to tape the tissue onto normal copier paper to act as a carrier. On the first attempt the mechanism that pulls the paper into the printer, tore the tissue away from the backing & couldn't feed it through. For the second go I left some space at the leading edge....

... and this worked fine. I had a couple more trials... an inch wasn't enough space.... 2 inches worked fine. Don't forget to allow a deeper space at the top of your word (or whatever) document for this tho'! 

Also, one side of the mulberry tissue feels ever so slightly smoother... I tried printing on both sides & there was no perceptible difference.

I couldn't get the tape off without tearing the tissue... not a problem as I would tear the edges anyway, but it is a factor to be aware of in terms of the size of the finished piece. You can tear much straighter edges than these, against a ruler, or even cut them, if that is the look you want.

The bottom sheet of carrier paper picked up some great textures too.... so worth considering a "better" paper for this task to use as a background for something else later...

...or just to layer underneath the mulberry. Mulberry tissue is neither fully transparent nor opaque... it really depends how close to the background it is. The background colour makes a difference to the overall look too, so there are certainly many avenues to explore with this!

So, is it possible to print on Khadi Mulberry Tissue? Definitely, yes... but it does take some care. It's not hard to do but you do need a bit of experimenting to get the set-up working for you. 

I went on to try various writing tools & mediums, but will follow that up in a separate post :-)

Be Still and Know....

A request for these words...

So, an option that can be printed & colour added later...

...a well known quotation, but with the words repeated & contracted 

down to the essence of the phrase...

Be Still. Be.

I love the pencil with watercolour splashes. 

They have an ethereal quality... floating...

Ocean colours... Water.... Calming, cleansing...

But then, the painted letters are perhaps more balanced? Certainly more visible.
Subtly changing tones of translucent colour.... blues, greens, aqua...

This image brings to mind the Rumi quote, 

"Only let the moving waters calm down, 

and the sun and moon will be reflected on the surface of your being."

Perhaps the pencil version is more suggestive of an invitation to 'be still.... to know... to be'

whilst the stronger painted letters seem more of an instruction... what do you think?

Simplicity...

again, the watercolours merge into each other within the letters...

Although I like the look of this, for me the emphasis on the whole phrase 

turns the additional wording into more of a back-up statement.

Nothing wrong with that, of course!

I have an ongoing fascination with how a seemingly minor change can totally change the meaning or impact of the same few words. Even after all these years. It's more than 20 years since I first played with this quotation... using just the words, no decoration, changing the emphasis from one word to another, learning about contrasts, and in doing so changing the whole meaning of the phrase.

Prints will be available soon 

(but with a whiter background than these photographs show!).

Which version would you choose?