Wed Letter Day

Hard to believe this is the 26th week of this project. 26 letters down. 26 to go. Watercolor pencil, Schiminke gold watercolor and pigma pen.

Where are you in your current project?

Offhand Flourishing

An attempt at offhand flourishing. Offhand flourishing was how master penmen amused and one-upped each other. They would show off their skill. No planning ahead of time. No rough pencil. Just pen and ink, a wave of their hand and from their pens would fall graceful birds and swans with lavish and delicate swirls.

My bird was copied from a bird flourished by master penman, L.H. Hausam found in the penman archives of Zanerian.com I penciled my drawing before I inked using ultramarine gouache and a Gillotte 1068A nib. I need to loosen up and need work on shading, but I'm pleased with my attempt. So pleased I'm using this drawing in my sidebar to my Twitter account.

If you have some time, scroll through the penman archives. Some of the offhand flourishing is quite intricate.

Wed Letter Day

Catching up. From the WPI schwag The Young One got from the Great Beginnings seminar. The school colors are crimson and grey. Cardinal Red Ziller ink on suminigashi paper (a scrap of Arches text wove)

What are you working on today?

The Friday Five

Yesterday's Tweet Cloud reminded me how much I love words and reading. I love to read. On Saturdays, my dad would take me to the Children's library to wait while my brother took accordion lessons. Five things I read and re-read as a kid.

1. The dictionary. We had a giant tome of a dictionary. It was so heavy, I could barely lift it. I loved lying on the floor in the attic (later my dad's office) and randomly reading pages.

2. Encyclopedia. We had The Golden Book Encyclopedia, Funk and Wagnall's, and The Children's Illustrated Encyclopedia of General Knowledge. Always some entertaining article to read.


When I was 11 or 12, I discovered the adult library. I loved to wander through the stacks breathing in the scent of the old books.

3. The Saint, series by Leslie Charteris. A modern Robin Hood sort of story. He robbed from the rich and gave to himself while giving Scotland Yard a run for their money. Loved watching Roger Moore in the television show so had to read the books.

4. The Scarlet Pimpernel by Baroness Orczy an English aristocrat uses a secret identity to rescue French aristocrats during the French Revolution.

5. The Count of Monte Cristo by Alexandre Dumas. (Can't help it just couldn't get enough of the swashbuckles) A young man accused of a crime he didn't commit embarks on a journey for revenge.

What books did you read when you were a kid? What are you reading now? I'm reading Echo in the Bone by Diana Gabaldon and Tuck by Stephen Lawhead

Tweet Cloud

I found a fun Twitter app that generates a list of your most used words from your tweets. It's called Tweet Cloud. You can generate a list by day, week, month, 3 months, 6 months or a year. Here's my list for this week.

Do you tweet? You can make your own Tweet Cloud here.  What word did you use most often?

Wed Letter Day

For a change up, white on black. Ziller Winter White on black Canson Mi Tientes.

Where are you on the daisy chain?

Dracula

Andy Fish over at Fishwrap has posted a page from his upcoming graphic novel, Dracula. Andy's post reminded me of something that happened shortly after I was married.

During the late 70's, the vampire myth enjoyed a resurgence in pop culture with a remake of Dracula starring Frank Langella. Stephen King's novel Salem's Lot spun off a made for tv movie. I had seen both movies and thoroughly enjoyed the book.

Flash forward to the mid-80's. When I glanced through the TV Guide (yes, we actually had a small book to look through to choose our viewing pleasures back in the olden days) and saw Nosferatu was going to be on. I couldn't resist. I was home alone one night as Himself was teaching. Had nothing better to do, so I settled in. I thought it would be interesting to compare and contrast the Hollywood version with this different looking version of the myth. (I love horror films. Not the gratuitous slasher junk of today's features. But thrillers. The movies that give you the heebie-jeebies because you don't really see any gore or violence, but fill in the details from your own overactive, fertile imagination. I digress..)

In a dream, I told Nosferatu I thought he was incredibly ugly. I told him though Bela Lugosi as Dracula was charming and elegant, Frank Langella as Dracula was stunningly handsome. As you can imagine, Nosferatu took exception to my audacity and as dreams sometimes deteriorate into nightmares, Nosferatu began to chase me. My arms were pumping like steam engine pistons, and my chubby little legs were churning up the ground as fast as I could go. I glanced over my shoulder and could see Nosferatu gaining on me. I turned and ran full steam. Nosferatu reached his bony hand with its horrendously long fingernails and grazed my thigh. I squeezed my eyes shut and let out a high-pitched, blood curdling scream.

Then there was laughter. Gales and guffaws of someone busting a gut a with laughter. My legs were still churning. I was breathing heavily. Great gasps as I tried to fill my aching lungs with oxygen. My mouth, a gaping maw. I felt the blood pounding through my ears in time to my heart pounding in my chest. I felt my eyes, huge and round ballooning out of their sockets. I came to a dead stop on top of the bed. Himself sat on the edge of the bed. He was the source of the laughter.

"Ha.." he tried to speak, but words failed him as he was laughing so hard. "Ha, that..that is...is.. the funniest thing I've ever seen. You were dancing on the bed!" Another wave of laughter shook him.

At first, I was a little put out. To think my husband who was supposed to be my protector, my shield, my knight in shining armor was an unsympathetic clod! But no matter how fetching one looks standing in the middle of the bed and wearing a pale blue, Christian Dior nightshirt, the reality is one looks ridiculous running in place on the bed. And never miss an opportunity to keep your mouth shut. I sat on the bed and laughed with Himself.

I still think Nosferatu is one fugly dude. I'd take Bela Lugosi's charm and Frank Langella's dark looks any day and twice on Sunday over Nosferatu. I'd even gravitate towards the sparkly vampires of Twilight though I could do without the teen angst. On another tangent, I'm grateful that Stephenie Myer's vampire romance caught the imagination of The Young One. The Young One is not much of a reader. She burned through the pages of the series and is reading the entire series again.

Do horror movies make you dance on the bed?