Tag Archives: writing

Is it easy to do calligraphy? Can you just write and let the pen flow to make a masterpiece or does it take skill/practice? What tools do you use? Love your work. c:

seblester:

Hermann Zapf, one of the best calligraphers of all time, believes anyone can be a good calligrapher. The key to producing beautiful calligraphy is perseverance. You will only persevere if you enjoy what you’re doing. For this reason I’d personally suggest starting with a calligraphy style you particularly like the look of. When you have a reasonable grasp of that style you will notice the skills are transferable to other styles.



Most people could be producing what I’d consider to be a fairly good standard of calligraphy in a year or so. Virtuoso calligraphy on the other hand comes from decades of study and masterpieces don’t come about anytime soon either.



In terms of tools every calligrapher will have different tools they recommend. I’d personally recommend beginners start with Pilot Parallel Pens. This is mainly because you don’t have to think about refilling the nibs so you can focus on getting the forms right. ‘Manuscript’ produce a wide range of inexpensive calligraphy supplies which I find useful. Try out a variety of pens and nibs though. Specialist calligraphy suppliers are unlikely to sell bad equipment and many of their websites explain the relative merits of specific nibs and inks. Mitchell Copperplate pens are a great starting point for pointed pen calligraphy. In terms of paper any smooth cartridge paper should produce crisp results. Daler Rowney Smooth Cartridge Paper is a good choice. If you’re on a budget layout paper and marker pad paper are good for getting started.



Three books I’d recommend. ‘Foundations of Calligraphy’ by Sheila Waters, a modern master. ‘Calligraphy’ by Gaye Godfrey-Nicholls was published this year, a very good book for beginners. Finally ‘The Speedball Textbook’ is an inexpensive source of inspiration and instruction for people starting out.

Don’t get disheartened by early failures. There will be many of those, but failure is the key to success.



Saving for future reference

William Safire’s rules for good writing:

No sentence fragments. Avoid run-on sentences they are hard to read. A writer must not shift your point of view. Reserve the apostrophe for it’s proper use and omit it when its not needed. Write all adverbial forms correct. In their writing, everyone should make sure that their pronouns agree with its antecedent. Use the semicolon properly, use it between complete but related thoughts; and not between an independent clause and a mere phrase. Don’t use no double negatives. Also, avoid awkward or affected alliteration. If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a thousand times: Resist hyperbole. If any word is improper at the end of a sentence, a linking verb is. Avoid commas, that are not necessary. Verbs has to agree with their subjects. Avoid trendy locutions that sound flaky. And don’t start a sentence with a conjunction. The passive voice should never be used. Writing carefully, dangling participles should be avoided. Unless you are quoting other people’s exclamations, kill a ll exclamation points!!! Never use a long word when a diminutive one will do. Proofread carefully to see if you any words out. Use parallel structure when you write and in speaking. You should just avoid confusing readers with misplaced modifiers. Place pronouns as close as possible, especially in long sentences-such as those of ten or more words-to their antecedents. Eschew dialect, irregardless. Remember to never split an infinitive. Take the bull by the hand and don’t mix metaphors. Don’t verb nouns. Always pick on the correct idiom. Never, ever use repetitive redundancies. “Avoid overuse of ‘quotation “marks.”’” Never use prepositions to end a sentence with. Last but not least, avoid clichés like the plague.

By saving conversations and correspondence I’m really trying to capture the interactions between other people and myself. Connections and conversation and mood. Looking back sometimes I notice the way I conduct myself changes. I am more careful about some things and less about others as I grow up. I like everything to be saved because I wonder what there is of value there and if it may be of use one day. I want to leave breadcrumbs which show who I am and who I was and how I changed. Also, lately, I think it might be useful for writing characters. I have friends who are characters and who tell good stories and sometimes I tell good stories too.

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I think it would make everyone’s life a little better if we took time to plant things. I mean, the act of getting your hands dirty with earth and water and then patiently tending a fragile growing thing has got to be good for the soul. Plus, doesn’t the world need a little more patience, a little more nurturing? Things go fast fast fast all the time, and with speed comes haste and laziness, and soon things are done just to be done, with little care or consideration, and at that point the meanings attached to words, actions, projects and the like are easily forgotten, trimmed away for the sake of speed. I think the whole of earth could use a bit of a reality check, I mean, we need to get our priorities straight, myself included. It is so hard to see what is real when we speed along the way we do and contrived human notions surround us on a daily basis. Marketing, media and unspoken rules about what makes a good life. Phobias, greed, the cries for justice which so easily shift in to cries for war, blood. I understand that there are things worth fighting for, I really do, but I think we fight for silly things sometimes. We focus our attention on things that don’t matter. We isolate ourselves in order to avoid the conflicting emotions cause by empathy for those who are worse off than ourselves, and in turn feel jealous of those who we see as above ourselves in this social construct of our own imagining. And the thing is, when a vast majority of people believe in something, incredibly enough, it is very hard to distinguish from reality. It’s called the tinkerbell effect. I think children should be taught to plant things, instead of to tear them down. I mean, I think its time for us to choose some new things to believe in, this just isn’t working.

Link

‘close stranger

I really adore the writing on this blog.

I swear, your breakdown was like watching my favourite building crumble. So I stepped through your rubble and began stacking safety bricks for both of us.

silverwords:

i promised to be strong on sunday. i told myself that i was going to turn around and drive home immediately; that i was going to climb into my bed, read a few of my favourite words, and then drift off to sleep with them still on my tongue.

but i texted you and asked if i could come see you, though i knew you were going to say yes. i sped past street lights and dark roads to your house, praying that curfew would give me a little bit more time. when i parked, you walked to the passenger side like you always do, but i had already locked it because i didn’t want you to sit beside me. i wanted your arms around me again, i wanted your bones, your forehead against mine. opening my door, i stepped out into the wind and chilled air. “what’s wrong?” you asked, in the softest tone. i tried, but i couldn’t say anything, and so i walked up to you, wrapped my arms around your neck, and whispered “i miss you, i miss you, i miss you”. you held and pulled me closer as the wind bit our eyelids and made our knees shake. we were silent, and it was perfect. chest to chest, cheek to cheek, heart to heart, my entire body soaking in the warmth of yours. you breathed into my neck, the heat from your mouth sending goosebumps down my spine and asked me to come back to you: “it isn’t right that two people living in the same town should miss each other this much” you softly said. we held each other as the night grew darker and the sky grew colder, and that was enough.

when you left, i sat in my car with my head in my hands. i wanted your arms again, your dark blue eyes, and calloused fingertips. i cried and fought the cold, my body begging for your warmth, and then there you were, tapping on my window with a concerned look on your face. i unlocked the door and wiped the salt from my eyes. you reached over and gently set your hand on my right cheek. i closed my eyes as you brushed my hair away and gently slid the tips of your fingers along my jawline to my chin, and eventually to my lips. your eyes told me all that your mind was screaming and i ached for you. my breathing became uneasy, and my shoulders moving up and down gave it away. it was enough to tell you that i wanted you too.

and so you leaned in without a word and kissed me, and i didn’t stop you, the strain of our hearts crashing against our ribs leading us back to the familiar rhythm that has only ever made sense to you and i.

silverwords has lovely heart-wrenching writing

Stories and streets are powerful venues for contradicting the imminent doom of loneliness. The public art we make of ourselves in the street, the languages of our bodies tracing postures and assuming them, the paths of our eyes grazing each other,  are either participatory or resistant. Here, in public, we can choose to change our immediate world by remaking our myths and telling our own stories, by remembering how to ask and listen, and by learning to show our most real faces to each other and celebrating them. Show your warts, and you defy the very process of airbrushing the truth. Risk smiling at the person sitting next to you on the bus, and immediately the message of isolation is undermined. Not just for the two of you, but also for these watching this unusual event unfold. The moment we notice that we can meake fresh choices every minute the moment we take Funky’s advice and think for ourselves, it’s easy to see that we’re all in this together. Isolation was somebody else’s bad idea.

pg 43-44 from ‘off the map’

There are so many ideas I agree with outlined in this piece. So many. I miss doing my own writing.