Original Work

What a wonderful gift to give your spouse!
This is a recent commissioned piece that a thoughtful wife will be giving her husband. She explained that he has kept this quote on a small piece of paper on his dresser for a very long time. She decided to get it hand lettered and framed for his next birthday.

Our last two guild meetings came in handy. We spent one night playing with various RULING pens, giving us a chance to try out different manufacturers and homemade pens. Another meeting was how to make and use walnut ink. Our hostess gave each of us a fresh jar of walnut ink to take home.

This final piece is all walnut ink, with a few touches of Dr. Ph. Martin's Spectralite liquid gold.


Not really knowing the client, I decided to do a second layout to give her a choice . . . . and it is also the way this project seemed to being working out in my head. While playing with the ruling pen and walnut ink, both of these layouts came to me.

I do like to work two at a time. Usually that means that with the same layout I make two. It must be because I am a mother of twins. The nice thing about working with two copies, if you make a mistake the pressure is off because you already have the backup one. Some how this makes me a bit more relaxed and the lettering seems to flow more naturally. I'm not uptight about each stroke having to be perfect. For the most part, it does not take any more time to create the second one since I would be doing practice on the various parts any way.

So for this job, I really worked on four.

The duplicate for the first layout turned into a practice rather quickly. I never did like the artistic mark. But it gave me a piece to work things out on  .  .  .

Then for the second layout design, the second piece turned out just as clean and finished as the one I like better. I used it to try out a different color ink for the text lettering. While I like the color, I'm not sure it is as easy to read. The final lettering was the I believe up the side. I'm not as happy with that on this one because the letters are too tight. I created the letters with the ruling pen and walnut ink. While the walnut ink was still very wet I dropped in some of the Spectralite and let the two blend as they wished. I love the look. Hoping the client will as well.

So here is the second of the second . . . 

I meet with the client tonight. Can not wait to see if she likes either. And, which one she will take home. The great thing about working with two at a time, I'm left with an original for my portfolio. And it was all just part of the process.

Here is a close up of the side lettering. The wlanut ink was put down first with a ruling pen. While the ink is wet, I drop in a small amount of the Spectralite Gold and let the two wet solutions mix as they will. I just love this look.