Scribblers Calligraphy Blog » Chit Chat

Did You Ever Stop and Wonder ….

admin — Thu, 06 May 2010 13:16:39 +0000

If you are getting stuck on what text to practice your writing, try these …

Why do toasters always have a setting so high that it could burn the toast to a horrible crisp, which no decent human being would eat?

Why is there a light in the fridge and not in the freezer?

Why do people point to their wrist when asking for the time, but don’t point to their bum when they ask where the bathroom is?

If corn oil is made from corn, and vegetable oil is made from vegetables, then what is baby oil made from?

If electricity comes from electrons, does morality come from morons?

Why do the Alphabet song and Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star have the same tune?

Did you ever notice that when you blow in a dog’s face he gets mad at you, but when you take him on a car ride he sticks his head out the window?

Does pushing the elevator button more than once make it arrive faster?

Car covered in pens!

admin — Wed, 13 Jan 2010 13:39:36 +0000

I was looking around the Internet the other day and came across this amazing image:Apparently the car is covered with over 6,000 pens.I found this picture at http://www.toycyte.com/

The Man in Blue – BokehType

admin — Thu, 07 Jan 2010 13:54:15 +0000

I recently found this website The Man in Blue“The Man in Blue is the alter ego of Cameron Adams, a Web Technologist in Sydney, Australia. (That means he does graphic design, HTML/CSS, JavaScript, writing, server-side jiggery pokery, and anything else that takes his fancy that day.)”There are some very interesting articles on this website about a wide range subjects. However, it was BokehType that caught my attention. I tried to get a couple of screenshots but I was not very successful.Its hard to explain – you will just have to visit the BokehType page and see for yourself what happens.

Lowestoft Air Show 2009

admin — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 08:57:31 +0000

Last Thursday and Friday again saw the best start possible to the summer holidays – The Lowestoft Air Show. Each year the show gets better and this year was no exception.The Lowestoft Air Show was the largest attended attraction in East Anglia last year and the winner of the Suffolk Tourism Award 2008 for the best Festival or Event.On Thursday, the show got off to a great start with the Princess of Wales Royal Rgt. who are one of the country’s premier freefall parachute display teams. Personal favourites included F-16 Fighting Falcon, Avro Vulcan XH558 and the KC-135 Stratotanker.Thursdays show finished with the Red Arrows. One of the highlights of their display is the solo manoeuvre performed by the synchro pair who race towards each other at 800mph before passing only 100ft apart.Just as the Red Arrows finished their display the skies opened and we were caught in a torrential downpour. It rained so hard that my digital camera, which was in my pocket underneath the waterproof, has broke. Hopefully I will be able to retrieve the pictures from the memory card when I get a card reader.This was the Red Arrows last year.Fridays show started with the Red Arrows. Again an excellent range of displays was planned for the day. However, the weather was not so kind disrupting the displays throughout the day. Again for the second day in a row we experienced a torrential downpour, which may have been even harder than the previous day.I only got two photos on Friday using my phone camera, which was taken minutes before the storm.

SSI Lay Member’s Day 2009

admin — Wed, 29 Apr 2009 08:35:16 +0000

	Lay Member’s Day was again a sell out with all the tickets sold before the event started. This was our second visit to the show so we were more prepared.The doors open early for the stall holders, giving us nearly 2 hours to set up. This time went so quickly. We almost got the layout of the products how we wanted them when we had our first customer. Josie Brown was demonstrating at the show and so quickly made a purchase before she started.
The doors opened at 10:00 and minutes later we were all serving customers. Some of the most popular items purchased included oblique penholders and pointed nibs. Thanks to Joy Daniels from the CSIG demonstrating Copperplate writing, there was much interest in getting the equipment and having a go at this style of lettering.
Sales of vintage nibs were good. Luckily I just remembered to pack the nibs moments before we set off to London. Potential customers were disappointment when they learnt we had had some Gillott 303 nibs in stock, which had quickly sold out within a week or two of them being available on our website.

The only period we were quiet was when most of the visitors attended the lecture. This year, Dennis Brown was speaking. I met Dennis for the first time just before he was about to speak. It was great seeing his work up close rather than images on the website.I also met Ewan Clayton. He was selling a wonderful range of Japanese Ink Sticks.

We eventually got back from London late at night. What a great day and I’m hoping we return next year!

Ice Letters

admin — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 11:48:12 +0000

Toxel.com is a design, inspiration and technology blog dedicated to showcasing the best creative products and designs from all over the world.They recently had a post about ice cube trays, which showed a collection of unusual and creative ice cube trays! There are some great designs including Lego bricks and Tetris.There was also a letter ice cube tray, which is really cool http://www.toxel.com/tech/2009/03/24/20-unusual-and-creative-ice-cube-trays/

Spencerian Envelope by Brian Walker

admin — Thu, 02 Apr 2009 09:48:47 +0000

The other day I was sorting out some drawers and I came across this envelope.It was from Brian Walker and the post mark indicates it was sent in 1999. The images do not do justice to the quality of the calligraphy. When you look closely you can see the detail and extremely fine hairlines.Unlike the Copperplate style, the Spencerian minuscule letters are more cursive in their construction. Looking closely at the word ‘Suffolk’ it would have been written as follows:The capital ‘S’ was written first! This letter is written at some speed i.e. not carefully drawn. When I have observed Brian writing Spencerian he would practice the capital letterform a little in the air just above the paper (a bit like a golfer practising a putt). The letters ‘uf’ follow – all in one continuous movement without lifting the pen off the paper. Pressure was applied on the down-stroke of the ‘f’ to get the shade (thick part). The second ‘f’ was written on it’s own. Finally ‘olk’ would have been produced in one continuous movement without a pen lift.It was a little disappointing when I looked inside the envelope – there were two blank sheets of Character paper for me to try and a post-it note stuck paper explaining why the paper was so good for pointed pen writing.

Tree Drawing

admin — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 13:56:17 +0000

I recently came across this image on stumbleupon, which is from www.rokebygallery.comIt would be have been interesting to see a close up, although I doubt there would be any great letterforms

Double Celebration

admin — Fri, 27 Feb 2009 14:42:30 +0000

This is our 100th post! and earlier this week our blog was 2 years old! To date we covered a lot of calligraphy topics. The most popular section of this blog has been Starting Calligraphy.Writing a blog – well writing this blog can be lonely Many other blogs get lots of comments. Some blogs I read will get up to 20 comments on each post. Thank you to those of you who have written comments, but we would like hear from all you other calligraphers. The most comments I have seen on any post whilst randomly looking at blogs was 795!WANTEDWe would like to hear from you. Email us or comment here on what you would like to see on the blog. Anybody who emails us with an article we can share will receive a coupon code giving them discount on their next order.

Why is it ….

admin — Thu, 26 Feb 2009 13:48:36 +0000

Here are a few thoughts you can practise your calligraphy on. These were emailed to me from a friend a while back:

Why is it that people say they ‘slept like a baby’ when babies wake up every two hours?

Why do we press harder on a remote control when we know the batteries are flat?

Why do banks charge a fee on ‘insufficient funds’ when they know there is not enough

Why does someone believe you when you say there are four billion stars, but check when you say the paint is wet?

Whose idea was it to put an ‘S’ in the word ‘lisp’?

What is the speed of darkness?

If it’s true that we are here to help others, what are the others doing here?

Why do people pay to go up tall buildings and then put money in binoculars to look at things on the ground?