(Click to see bigger) Bride and groom, When we started this process, you said “I don’t think it could possibly work out, but I just had to give it a try.” You asked for something you thought was impossible, and it turned into something quite lovely. May your marriage have many similar shots at seemingly-impossible […]
I like a bit of a challenge now and again. Here’s a community that wants to honour its rabbi by giving him a piece of artwork. Since the rabbi is well-beloved by the families with children, the Surprise Committee wanted to have the children participate in creating the artwork. Unfortunately, that doesn’t usually result in […]
Here’s an interesting question: Dear Ms. Friedman, this is not specifically about religious scrolls, but as a scribe, could you tell me how many handwritten letters can usually fit on the parchment made from one cow, or on the parchment made from one goat, or on the parchment made from one sheep? Assuming the letter […]
Isn’t this sweet? It’s the little letter aleph in “Vayikra,” but it’s a particularly tiny version, where the height of the whole letter aleph is same as the width of the quill used for the other letters. The regular letters in this sefer, by the way, were 7mm high. Huge!
A question from someone typesetting a ketubah: “I’m using typefaces that have a hand-done feel to them, but obviously they are mechanical. There are some typefaces (Guttman Stam and Guttman Stam 1) that recreate a sofrut look. One of these uses taggin and one is plain. I have no pretension to be following sofrut laws, […]
This Purim, I was commissioned to write a megillah for the Abramson Center for Jewish Life, and not just create a megillah, but also a case for it to live in. The Center’s rabbi asked if I could make a design that drew on the Center’s existing artwork, and that’s what you see above. The […]
February 12, 2011 – 20:31
What happens when you let the nose on your dalet get out of control: it turns into an elephant.
Ever wonder what makes heavy Torahs so heavy? Size is part of it, of course. Before Good Electric Lighting and Universal Spectacles (in the eyecare sense, not in the entertainment sense), having bigger letters helped the reader. Line height these days is regularly 8mm, only two-thirds the size of the letters on older, bigger Torahs. […]
December 31, 2010 – 09:05
This is one of my favourite letter-halakhot, from the rules of how to make straight nun: אות נו”ן פשוטה תואר צורתה כמו זיי”ן וג’ תגין על ראשה אך שהיא ארוכה כשיעור שתהא ראויה להעשות נו”ן כפופה אם תכפפנה Its form is like a zayin, with three tagin on its head, but it is long, such […]
December 30, 2010 – 11:00
“We like Rivka,” said my client, “but we’d like something more elaborate.” (Click to see bigger Rivka.) So this is what I did. (Click to see bigger Elaborate!Rivka.) Note particularly the SHINY PAINTS that sparkle in the light! I like this very much.
