Pop Goes the Artist!

This is my most recent calligraphy project, made as a gift for our parish priest, who is celebrating the fortieth anniversary of his ordination. I actually started it over Easter break, but I finished it up this morning. The Bible verse I used is one he’s sort of taken as his motto, so it was an obvious choice. The colors and decoration were more arbitrary. I’m reasonably pleased with the way it turned out, but I think it’s obvious that my lettering has a long way to go. The lines are not actually crooked–or rather they are, but only along the tops, since my letters apparently tend to get shorter as I progress down a line. I should work on that. (4×6″ on cream-colored paper. The letters are drawing ink, the leaves are thinned acrylic.)

Well, after agonizing for a bit longer, I finally decided to use the money from my first sale to buy the set of Rembrandt half-sticks, a few sheets of Colourfix paper (on sale!), and some opaque white ink for future calligraphy projects. I placed the order at Dick Blick on Sunday evening. I was sure I’d get home from school before they arrived at my house, but in fact, the package arrived today. It’ll be waiting for me when I get home tomorrow, although it looks like I’m in for a busy weekend–it could be Monday or so when I finally get to try them out. I can’t wait. I’m so excited to finally try out “real” pastels and the Colourfix paper sounds interesting too, since it apparently reduces the need for fixative. (Fixative is a tough issue with pastels–it tends to dull and darken the colors, but without it, on normal paper, the pastel painting is incredibly fragile and smudge-prone.) I was excited to go home before, but now I’m really psyched. I love having new art supplies.