Well.
I posted what, one post in the last resurrection? Disappointing. Part of it is time management; I'm actually quite bad at it, and get distracted and redirected easily. The other is that the first iteration of the blog took place at a time when calligraphy was effectively my only creative outlet.
Since then, I'd moved to London, and expanded my creative and energetic pursuits. I got reinvolved in kendo, started practicing scale modelling, danced the tango for a bit, hit balls at a batting cage for a year, and started seeing someone. All of these do exact a certain toll on blogging opportunities. None with regret, though, let's be honest. I wouldn't exchange any of those to go back to blogging on a regular basis. I just have to be more productive with my dawdle-in-front-of-the-computer time, instead of watching baseball and hockey highlight compilations (although, nothing wrong with those in and of themselves).
And with all those pursuits, calligraphy time hasn't been all that available--especially with projects being larger scale than the small cards I used to make. So the scope of the blog needs to expand if it is to live. Calligraphy and modelling summaries and WIP (works-in-progess) notes, the occasional kendo-related post...
But wait--wasn't this post titles 'Cyclist's notes'? So why wasn't it mentionned in the just listed pursuits?
Cycling has sort of been up-and-down in the list of interests. When I was in Hungary in 2011 on a scouts' trip, we'd taken a week to tour 300 km. That was tremendously enjoyable, discovering a bit of the country like that, and meeting one of my favourite friends. Prior to that, biking was something that I'd only done to bike around the block for a few laps, or to school and back. But that week-long cyclotour was a revelation--that was a cycling bug I wouldn't mind being bit by! There had been talk of replicating a trip from Ottawa to Montreal with some friends, but it didn't pan out, life being what it is. And my only bike was a city cruiser-type. Hardly suitable for long-distance travel; awkward positioning if I want to pedal standing up, and with only 6 gears, not really conducive to hill-climbing. Then, in 2016, a second bike had been bought, one better suited to cyclotouring, along with the idea that a ride would be made from London to Toronto by way of Hamilton. Things happened, and the trip never happened.
But the idea of biking to Burlington became a perennial summer project. And so far hasn't happened, for a number of life event-related reasons. In 2018, the idea had been curtailed to bike to Port Stanley, a two-hour, 40 km trip. Even that was abandoned, as it was interrupted by the purchase of a house.
This year, though, Burlington might actually be feasible. And I'm approaching it with each ride being a checklist of small cycling targets, not all distance related.
Biking in sunny, yet cool (read: 10C, feels like 7C) weather? Check.
Cycling incrementally longer distances? Check--last ride was 26 km. Next one will be 30 km.
Biking in inclement weather? Next on the list.
Using pedal clips?
Um, check? Maybe?
And here beginneth truthfully Cyclist Notes No. 1.
So, I've taken to semi-facetiously referring to my bike as "Theseus' bike", in deference to the logical concept of the 'Ship of Theseus'--the idea that at what point does the ship Theseus has cease being the ship he first left dock with? Once the first repair was made? If repairs are made incrementally, and at one point no piece of the ship is original, is it still the same ship? The first year I had the bike, no adjustments were made, but in the past two years, I've started modifying it to make it more cyclotouring-suitable; saddle-bag, bottle cradle, bar-ends, helmet mirror, bike shoes and pedal clips. So far. If (hopefully) I'm at a point where Burlington is absolutely realistic and feasible, panniers will be added.
But the pedal clips. Ah, the pedal clips.
I'd bought the shoes last year, and replaced the pedals, but I hadn't installed the clips onto the shoes until this year; something about educating myself more before attempting it. Earlier this year, I'd decided to hell with it, put the clips on, and figure it out. A cyclist acquaintance of mine recommended first cycling in a park, so that the grass would cushion the inevitable falls due to unfamiliarity with pedal clips, and the first time I'd ridden with them, I did. And it went well, so today, as a short test-ride of the newly installed bar-ends and shoe clips, I would cycle to my school and back. And everything went swimmingly well; the bar-ends gave me an alternate hand position, and I was easily clipping in and out at intersections.
Except for one stoplight.
I'm right-handed. When I take my feet off the pedals at a stop, I lean to my right, and put my right foot down to support myself.
Dear Reader, you see where this is going, don't you?
I cannot explain why, for I haven't the faintest idea of the thought process, but coming up to a light, I unclipped my left foot, and took it off the pedal.
And proceeded to shift my weight to my right, as usual.
Which lead to a very surprised driver, watching the cyclist to the right of his car lean and fall, like a tall redwood being cut down for lumber.
It all happened in slow motion, and I was laughing at the silliness of the situation as I got back up, much to the relief of the concerned driver by my side.
So--riding with clips: check? Maybe? If I can remember to always unclip my right foot first, we'll mark that as a 'Check'.
And hopefully I find more time to scribble here about my endeavours and projects.
vendredi 10 mai 2019
jeudi 19 octobre 2017
Twins
I have friends in a lot of distant places.
Well, we all do, only I seem to be conscious that I have more friends that require roadtrips to visit, than friends that are local.
I'd been invited a couple of times to a debutante ball in upper New Jersey, but I hadn't had a chance to attend until things fell into place in 2012, when over the summer I went to visit friends in New Jersey, the NYC area, and Boston. At that point, I decided that I'd attend the ball in the fall.
Two of my good friends in the are happen to be twins. Which means that if I'm going to do a project for a birthday, I'll need to do two. Just ain't nice, otherwise.
I know I don't have to do the same thing for both of them, but that's what happened. Unintended. In one of the first books I looked in for ideas, the first image shown was of a particular design, from Furta, in Eastern Hungary. What was interesting, was that the description of the pattern included a statement along the lines of the design being in "red on white cloth for women, and white on dark blue cloth for the men."
Well, that solved one question.
As with 'Negative', I couldn't trace the pattern onto the board by light-box, as the boards were both too thick to let light through. Thankfully I learned my lesson with that one, and didn't try to punch the pattern into the board. Instead, I photocopied the pattern from the book, and resized it so that it matched the size of my boards. Once I had my 'positive' at the appropriate size, the task was to impress the pattern into the board, by tracing with a goldilocks pencil (you know, not too sharp, not too dull--just right!)
Now, a note about my project sizes. My usual projects, with some rare exceptions, are at a size of 11"x14". Partly because it's a good size--not so small as to be a pain to work on, but not too big as to be a pain to display. This one was a totally different beast. If I recall correctly (it's been five years, after all...), the boards were cut down to be 18" square. Add the frame, and the fact that I was working on the diagonal, and this thing ended up being big. This also meant that for much of the time, I had to work standing, hunched over my table. My back was not the happiest with this project, I can assure you! Nevertheless, the impressing and inking were completed with little trouble, as was colouring. As usual, I lined the red project with black ink, just to define the design. The blue project, however, required a different approach. A thin black line wasn't going to be very visible, so it was lined with a white pencil crayon, as a result of which, there was no defining of the design. Despite this, the design on white, on a dark blue backing popped visually quite nicely, and lining the design wouldn't have added much.
As for the text, I went with a passage attributed to Goethe. For scripts, the sister's was in an italic script, allowing me the opportunity to play with ornamentation of the text through the letters themselves.
The brother's was one that caused me some concern. Not with the text, nor with the script (the crispness of Gothic is something I've always been fond of), but rather the ink. White ink isn't a solution in the way a red ink is, but is something of a mixture; there are small particles in the fluid, and if it's not mixed properly before inking, the letter isn't uniformly coloured. Thankfully, this was a matter I'd learned to take into consideration while working on Speak White, so I was able to plan inking accordingly--no thin, almost phantom letters, no oversaturated letters that become formless blobs due to the amount of ink being absorbed. Crisp lettering, and almost completely uniform colouring.
Now, the other fun part was getting these gifts to their recipients.
I had an eight-hour drive ahead of me, an international border, and once at the hotel, I had to wrap them (I'd previously learned, while dating an American-Hungarian young lady, that it's a lot easier if Customs and Border Patrol can verify what I bring with me, as opposed to questions about the wrapped packages in my car--much more so, considering the size of these gifts). I also had to somehow conceal these big, 24"x24" wrapped packages somewhere in the ballroom, to await the right moment to present them.
They were wrapped in a thick blanket and strapped into the back seat. The border agent was unconcerned once I told him it was a calligraphy project as a gift; I'd wrapped them in such a way as to easily show them, if need be. They were brought up to my room and wrapped, then placed into the ballroom (the organizers were notified of their presence) a few hours before everyone arrived, hidden behind a potted plant by a doorway. Out of the way, and in an easily ignored spot. Perfect.
Once the ball began, it was just a matter of finding a moment to present them. This was during one of the band's breaks.
And it was a complete surprise. As planned.
I wonder what has become of them, since then. The projects, I mean. I'm still in touch with the twins.
Well, we all do, only I seem to be conscious that I have more friends that require roadtrips to visit, than friends that are local.
I'd been invited a couple of times to a debutante ball in upper New Jersey, but I hadn't had a chance to attend until things fell into place in 2012, when over the summer I went to visit friends in New Jersey, the NYC area, and Boston. At that point, I decided that I'd attend the ball in the fall.
Two of my good friends in the are happen to be twins. Which means that if I'm going to do a project for a birthday, I'll need to do two. Just ain't nice, otherwise.
I know I don't have to do the same thing for both of them, but that's what happened. Unintended. In one of the first books I looked in for ideas, the first image shown was of a particular design, from Furta, in Eastern Hungary. What was interesting, was that the description of the pattern included a statement along the lines of the design being in "red on white cloth for women, and white on dark blue cloth for the men."
Well, that solved one question.
As with 'Negative', I couldn't trace the pattern onto the board by light-box, as the boards were both too thick to let light through. Thankfully I learned my lesson with that one, and didn't try to punch the pattern into the board. Instead, I photocopied the pattern from the book, and resized it so that it matched the size of my boards. Once I had my 'positive' at the appropriate size, the task was to impress the pattern into the board, by tracing with a goldilocks pencil (you know, not too sharp, not too dull--just right!)
(Here we see my standard 5mm border, the impressed pattern, and the beginning of inking.)
Now, a note about my project sizes. My usual projects, with some rare exceptions, are at a size of 11"x14". Partly because it's a good size--not so small as to be a pain to work on, but not too big as to be a pain to display. This one was a totally different beast. If I recall correctly (it's been five years, after all...), the boards were cut down to be 18" square. Add the frame, and the fact that I was working on the diagonal, and this thing ended up being big. This also meant that for much of the time, I had to work standing, hunched over my table. My back was not the happiest with this project, I can assure you! Nevertheless, the impressing and inking were completed with little trouble, as was colouring. As usual, I lined the red project with black ink, just to define the design. The blue project, however, required a different approach. A thin black line wasn't going to be very visible, so it was lined with a white pencil crayon, as a result of which, there was no defining of the design. Despite this, the design on white, on a dark blue backing popped visually quite nicely, and lining the design wouldn't have added much.
As for the text, I went with a passage attributed to Goethe. For scripts, the sister's was in an italic script, allowing me the opportunity to play with ornamentation of the text through the letters themselves.
The brother's was one that caused me some concern. Not with the text, nor with the script (the crispness of Gothic is something I've always been fond of), but rather the ink. White ink isn't a solution in the way a red ink is, but is something of a mixture; there are small particles in the fluid, and if it's not mixed properly before inking, the letter isn't uniformly coloured. Thankfully, this was a matter I'd learned to take into consideration while working on Speak White, so I was able to plan inking accordingly--no thin, almost phantom letters, no oversaturated letters that become formless blobs due to the amount of ink being absorbed. Crisp lettering, and almost completely uniform colouring.
(The shadow around the text and design is due to the fixative used.)
Now, the other fun part was getting these gifts to their recipients.
I had an eight-hour drive ahead of me, an international border, and once at the hotel, I had to wrap them (I'd previously learned, while dating an American-Hungarian young lady, that it's a lot easier if Customs and Border Patrol can verify what I bring with me, as opposed to questions about the wrapped packages in my car--much more so, considering the size of these gifts). I also had to somehow conceal these big, 24"x24" wrapped packages somewhere in the ballroom, to await the right moment to present them.
They were wrapped in a thick blanket and strapped into the back seat. The border agent was unconcerned once I told him it was a calligraphy project as a gift; I'd wrapped them in such a way as to easily show them, if need be. They were brought up to my room and wrapped, then placed into the ballroom (the organizers were notified of their presence) a few hours before everyone arrived, hidden behind a potted plant by a doorway. Out of the way, and in an easily ignored spot. Perfect.
Once the ball began, it was just a matter of finding a moment to present them. This was during one of the band's breaks.
And it was a complete surprise. As planned.
I wonder what has become of them, since then. The projects, I mean. I'm still in touch with the twins.
mardi 10 octobre 2017
The Scribbles Have Mayhaps Risen From the Dead?
Well.
It's been a while, hasn't it?
A lot has happened since the last post: On the 'artistic' front, some more projects, followed by an almost complete cessation of commissions, due to my being fed up with the repetitive nature of the projects, and a decision to focus on projects that would allow me to develop various skills and techniques. An attempt (so far unsuccessful) to learn to paint and draw; this will be revisited at some point as well. A renewed interest in scale modelling. And, lastly, I have begun learning to play the clarinet. The latter won't be covered here, most likely.
On the personal front, a move from Oshawa to London, due to a slight change in employment circumstances; a return, then a hiatus due to injury, then a return, then another pause due to personal circumstances, and finally another return (at another club) to kendo; and the beginning of a relationship. Followed by an engagement. Followed by a breakup. Ah, well. Such is life.
Oddly enough, through all this, "I should work on the blog" was one of the few constants. And its lack of work was another constant.
But, with time slowly healing the emotional wound (although, as is my wont, I pick at the wound like a scab. It's healing, but slowly, and it will leave a permanent mark to show experiences experienced), or time wounding the heel (it had to be done. Mea culpa.), I started thinking about this again. And broadening its scope.
The initial intent of the blog was to record the methods and ideas behind my various projects. However, due to the nature of many of these projects, the method became "I found a pattern, I picked a font, and I added the same text as usual," and I felt the blog was becoming repetitious.
While I will fill in the gap of projects completed in the four years since I last posted, this is no longer going to be solely a calligraphy project blog. I don't know if it'll also become something of a journal (although that mess is probably kept away from the internet's permanence), but from here on out, with me working on different art and craftforms (calligraphy mainly, of course, but also scale modelling, and hopefully learning to do illumination, as well as paint and draw), it'll be mainly a platform to talk about my different projects.
So, in the words of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Part 2",
"Welcome back my friends
To the show that never ends
We're so glad you could attend
Come inside! Come inside!"
See you again soon!
It's been a while, hasn't it?
A lot has happened since the last post: On the 'artistic' front, some more projects, followed by an almost complete cessation of commissions, due to my being fed up with the repetitive nature of the projects, and a decision to focus on projects that would allow me to develop various skills and techniques. An attempt (so far unsuccessful) to learn to paint and draw; this will be revisited at some point as well. A renewed interest in scale modelling. And, lastly, I have begun learning to play the clarinet. The latter won't be covered here, most likely.
On the personal front, a move from Oshawa to London, due to a slight change in employment circumstances; a return, then a hiatus due to injury, then a return, then another pause due to personal circumstances, and finally another return (at another club) to kendo; and the beginning of a relationship. Followed by an engagement. Followed by a breakup. Ah, well. Such is life.
Oddly enough, through all this, "I should work on the blog" was one of the few constants. And its lack of work was another constant.
But, with time slowly healing the emotional wound (although, as is my wont, I pick at the wound like a scab. It's healing, but slowly, and it will leave a permanent mark to show experiences experienced), or time wounding the heel (it had to be done. Mea culpa.), I started thinking about this again. And broadening its scope.
The initial intent of the blog was to record the methods and ideas behind my various projects. However, due to the nature of many of these projects, the method became "I found a pattern, I picked a font, and I added the same text as usual," and I felt the blog was becoming repetitious.
While I will fill in the gap of projects completed in the four years since I last posted, this is no longer going to be solely a calligraphy project blog. I don't know if it'll also become something of a journal (although that mess is probably kept away from the internet's permanence), but from here on out, with me working on different art and craftforms (calligraphy mainly, of course, but also scale modelling, and hopefully learning to do illumination, as well as paint and draw), it'll be mainly a platform to talk about my different projects.
So, in the words of Emerson, Lake & Palmer's "Karn Evil 9: 1st Impression, Part 2",
"Welcome back my friends
To the show that never ends
We're so glad you could attend
Come inside! Come inside!"
See you again soon!
dimanche 9 mars 2014
Negative
Yeah, I know, I've been way too quiet, procrastinating and doing other stuff. But I've always meant to do more blogging, honest!
One of my friends happened to be the patrol leader for one of the patrols in my scout "squadron" in Toronto, and as usually happens when people find out that I do calligraphy, the question "can you make me one?" pops up. While I don't have a full recollection of how the project got initiated, after conferring briefly with her over its initial conception, she reminded me that she had mentionned that she liked darker colours. Back then, my reaction was "Bingo. I know what I'm doing." On being reminded, it was a "That's right!" moment.
A black-ground design is quite difficult. Not design-wise, as the photos show it to able to give a nice contrast to the colours. No, the difficulty is in finding an appropriate recipient: "Hey! I made you a card!" "How kind of you! Thanks!" BLACK. Yeah, it tends to dampen most smiles... So, when she mentionned that she was quite fond of darker colours, I knew exactly what I was doing.
And as is often the case (and perhaps the reason few projects are like immediately preceding ones? I hope I'm not being too presumptuous), I have a new challenge to deal with. The challenge, this time, is right at the beginning. How do I transfer the pattern, since I can't trace it through a light-box? I initially tried to pin-prick the design through the pattern sheet, but:
a) It took a very long time to get a minimal transfer of design; and
b) the pin-prick transfer was quite a mess.
So, how do we progress?
Maybe using a simple idea that somehow evaded me the first time around: tracing it as an overlay.
That worked quite nicely.
I was quite surprised, though, by the colour scheme. I was expecting a typical matyó pattern, with reds, greens, yellows, blues... Instead, I got pink, purple, and orange. I got to skip one step I usually do with projects, i.e., taking a thin black pen and defining the pattern, since there was no obvious reason to do it on a black ground, but, as the design itself had been pressed into the board (I think I used up an entire pencil with the whole process of sharpen to a point for thin lines--press heavily so the design gets imprinted in the board---lead breaks or gets dulled--sharpen again), as I would edge the design in the appropriate colours, some colour would wander into the neighbouring element unintended. However, it would seem as the patter got coloured in, most of those small touches disappeared under the colour.
One of my main annoyances with working from patterns (I'm not artistic enough/knowledgeable enough to create my own patterns from scratch) is that often, only part of the pattern will have a colour scheme. And with an unfamiliar pattern like this one, after colouring in those elements for which colours were noted, colouring slowed down considerably, as it became a process of looking through my resources, and comparing uncoloured elements with coloured elements, to find matches.
I guess I did a good job of matching the colours, because no-one's told me "that flower's the wrong colour." Before you go "how rude!", this is the pleasure and pain of working with traditional folk designs; on one hand, there is the continuation of an ethnic tradition, of following in the artistic footsteps of generations of embroiderers, of regular folk who embellished their clothing, potteries, walls, etc., with these same elements. On the other hand, there is the fear of not staying true to the colours, or mixing patterns from different regions in the same project. Doing so really does show up, and it really just leads to a jarring image.
Normally, with a white-ground (or, really, any colour other than black, so far) project, I have difficulty figuring out what colour to do the inking. This one was self-evident: my friend tends to wear silver jewelry. And silvered ink would stand out nicely from the black. Which left me with the style of script.
I decided I wanted something ornate, which would be something gothic, but at the same time, gothic scripts can be slow and illegible. Secretary hand is really great in the regard that it has the ornateness of gothic, but as a chancery hand (a script used by clerks, and others who would have to take dictation), it's meant to be written quickly.
The result really turned out nicely. The pattern really stands out nicely from the black ground, and the silver script, while it retains a touch of formal ornateness, its speed gives it a lightness and joy at the same time.
mardi 8 octobre 2013
Whistles
Now that I've gotten that out of the way, every year, at the end of September, there's a camp whose theme changes every year, but always has something to do with Hungarian folk culture. Last year, the theme was the Csángó of Moldavia, a Hungarian population that has lived in isolation from the remainder of Hungarians for a few centuries now, to the point that among other things, their dance styles hadn't evolved with time ("old-style" group dances, as opposed to "new-style" couples' dances; because, hey, who doesn't like dancing?).
I was contacted by a friend who was one of the organizers for this camp, and she asked me to design the camp souvenir. We have little souvenirs we can hang from our neckerchief woggles, and some scouts' woggles become so decorated with souvenirs, aide-mémoires of various sorts, etc., that they're referred to as "Christmas trees". Anyway, she had an idea she wanted me to do--a souvenir based on a traditional type of flute, called a 'kaval'. A kaval is a flute that is open at both ends, is end blown, and in Csángó folk music, is hummed into, as it is blown, creating a sort of drone, along with the flute's 'whistle'.
That was all I had to work with, really: "make it so it looks like a kaval." Everything else was up to me. Unfortunately, I didn't have time that week to work on the design, but I had an idea of how I wanted it to come together, how it would look. My original prototype had a mocked, black-markered mouthpiece at one end, and only five holes. The final result was more like a real kaval, with "holes" at both ends, and six "holes" for melodies (all drawn, of course; they would have been much more authentic, but much too fragile had I attempted to actually make real holes...).
I had to make about forty or so of these souvenirs, which took me nearly the entirety of the first day of camp. Dowel rods had to be cut, coloured, and lanyard holes drilled, before I could scribe them. That was the hard part: not only having to use a pen-nib on a rounded surface, but wood, at that! Every once in a while, whether it be from the nib being too full of ink, or whether the wood grain happened to be more absorbent at spots, some of the letters were more, well, blobs, than actual letters. I decided to go with an Uncial script, for no other reason than it felt right. And it would be easier to write on a rounded wood surface, than, say, Gothic. I was also afforded one or two creative touches in the lettering: the Hungarian alphabet has letters with umlauts ( ö, ü) and "long marks" (ő, ű), and these go over the letters. However, due to the constraints I had to deal with, I chose to tuck the umlauts of the letter 'Ö' inside. Thankfully, the word is still readable as "REGÖS", despite the unusual umlaut placement. Furthermore, instead of writing "REGÖS 2012", I decided to write the year a bit more subtly, and tucked "12" inside the bowl of the letter 'G'. I doubt there will be confusion as to whether it was Regös 1912, 2012, or 2112.
The souvenirs were very well received. So well received, in fact, I was asked to do the souvenirs again for this year's camp. Which, apparently, were very well received. I think I just excelled myself into a job I can't get out of.
lundi 7 octobre 2013
Phoenix
So I started looking through my books for something to work from. I have a decent amount of material on the embroidery of Kalocsa, since it is the most popular style of folk embroidery. Ironically, this is also why, while I don't dislike it, I try to minimise my use of it.
One result of having such 'standing orders' in regards to cards is that every year, I have to find a way of making each card better than the preceding. Since my skill level isn't exactly skyrocketing from toddler-scribble to the Hours of Catherine of Cleves (which a) I own a digital facsimile of certain pages of, and b) you really, really, should have a peek at; check Wikipedia or the Morgan Library), it's more on the level of presentation that I have to work. In the case of this project, it was taking a circular tablecloth pattern, and stretching it out into a hanging banner, and finding another, similar pattern to fill the bottom of the sheet with, lest it look too empty.
Tracing the design, and preparing it for colouring was as usual, a bit time-consuming, but really, no worry. And this is where the trouble began...
For some reason, I decided not to follow my own instinct and knowledge in how the flowers should be coloured, but decided to try and match the colours in the book with my pencils. I was half-way through colouring the banner before I stopped, looked at it, went "wait a minute..." ...and noticed that the colours were all wrong. I don't recall what everything wrong was, but I distinctly remember that the cornflowers, which are light blue, somehow ended up dark, but dark, blue. Between comparing the book-colours, and laying them on the sheet, the colours were no longer what they should have been. Unfortunately, as is wont with coloured pencils, I couldn't erase this glaring flaw. I had to scrap the whole thing, and start from scratch. Which I did, swearing under my breath of course.
The second time around, despite now having less time in which to finish the project, went smoother than the first time, as I now had a familiarity with the design. Tracing, lining, and colouring (now trusting my knowledge to the colours I knew, and then adjusting for the ones I needed) went quite quickly. Scribing went nicely as well, with the exception of what I consider one of my quirky flaws--no matter how centred I set my guide text, I always seem to pull to the left. The text, as usual, is a simple Hungarian birthday wish, expressing a hope for much happiness, joy, long life, etc., etc. I'm not translating it. It would just sound awkward and stilted were I to do that.
Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you the Phoenix: a project reborn of the ashes of its preceding incarnation.
vendredi 7 décembre 2012
Skeleton
One of my friends asked me in June to make a card for her, containing the traditional Hungarian house blessing, for some friends of hers who were getting married. Only, she didn't need it coloured in, as she was going to make it into an embroidery pattern. So, I ended up taking an embroidery pattern, making it a calligraphy project, so it could be turned into an embroidery project.
A note about the house blessing... Most Hungarian homes (or, at least those I've been to) have one of these somewhere, with some form of decoration (usually Kalocsai). The text is (here comes another horrid translation):
"Where there is faith, there is love
Where there is love, there is peace
Where there is peace, there is blessing
Where there is blessing, there is God
Where God is,
There is no need"
Or, more tersely,
"Where faith, there love
Where love, there peace
Where peace, there blessing
Where blessing, there God
Where God
There is no need"
As a result of it being designed as an embroidery pattern (with lettering), the various parts of the flowers had to be visible, which is why the design was left in a "bare bones" stage, and why it was only done in black. I'm rather pleased with how striking the monochrome effect turned out to be. And how popular the resulting work ended up being! I had one friend make it their Facebook cover photo, and I had another ask if he could get an identical project (coloured in, of course).
The reason I've so delayed with posting this, is because it just feels too short. However, since there is no colouring, that's about 2-4 hours of work that didn't get done... So, short and sweet.
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