First of all, I fish out my Full-Colour Sourcebook of Historic Ornaments. I have a shelf of books I use for inspiration, and this is one that never fails. Highly recommended. Turn to the Mughal India pages, because I’m in that sort of mood and I’ve got that sort of budget. I’ve been wanting to […]
A meditation on the incremental nature of change, with interconnected letters and increasingly-flourishing leaves. Attributed to R’ Abraham Joshua Heschel, although I truly doubt Heschel ever said that, such that if anyone can find me a primary source I will eat my hat broccoli. Prints available for purchase in my Etsy store, just in case […]
Now all the holidays are safely over (I’M LOOKING AT YOU, COLUMBUS DAY), it’s time to get down to the semester in earnest. What about making this the year you get round to learning safrut? Especially if you’re in NYC and you want to learn it with me, because I’m thinking about taking a few […]
September 13, 2010 – 16:52
While I’m waiting for the kettle to boil, a quick post about how much I love pens. Really. When the Soferet is miserable or grouchy, a trip to the art store is almost always a good plan. Pens are little tubes of potential, and they don’t cost much, so they’re good happy-making things. Then you […]
This is the piece of artwork I was working on the week before last, a little piece of illuminated poetry. I had the most glorious time with it; waking up in the morning and bouncing out of bed going “ooh!” with anticipation, working long, long days at it because it was so delicious I didn’t […]
Here’s a rudimentary calligraphy worksheet, which you can use with ordinary calligraphy markers. To do things like this: Clicky for more…
Fitting text into shapes, the bane of ketubah artists everywhere. First thing with funny shapes is to check them out with the officiant. Some officiants are DEAD AGAINST funny shapes – anything that doesn’t have four sides and right-angled corners. Others are okay with it so long as the lines are horizontal and any added […]
Occasionally I dip my pen, by accident, into my tea instead of into my ink. When that happens, I wipe the tea off my pen, and dip the pen into the ink as per original plan. But sometimes apparently I don’t get all the tea off my pen. A tiny drop of it lurks in […]
In an ideal situation, then, you have your .doc file, with the names and everything neatly filled in. Next to the portable drafting board, the most awesome tool in the ketubah artist’s kit is – VARIABLE MARGINS! Yes. You open your .doc file in Word*, and you mess with the margins. It’s great. I’ve learned […]
Or more, or less. I don’t really even know why I’m writing about this, except that I spent a little while working it out, and it seems a pity to deprive the internets of my vast wisdom (<= HUMOUR). So. There’s a category of fountain pen nib called “Broad.” I don’t know what that corresponds […]
