I'm back

Long time since I posted here, my apologies.
Now that I feel a little bit less lazy, I'll try to keep you updated on what's going on in the workshop :-)

And today, I finished the calligraphy of a song, Alligator 427, from the french singer Hubert Félix Thiéfaine.
I've been thinking about it for years (the first drafts are from 2011 !!) and it's done !
And, as far as I can say, quite well done (I really like it).

I transferred a photograph (paint marks on a sidewalk) on an old zinc plate, etched the title using acid and ended by writing the text in NEULAND script.

DIY

I had a few easels, wooden and small ones. They didn't stay right, were fragile, kind of bulls**t.
As I had an exhibition coming fast, I decided that I needed something more resistant so ... here is the result :

It doesn't resemble to anything but it's not a problem. 80cm of electric wire, carefully bent and here I am, perfectly stable, solid and almost invisible easels. The only problem may be the color but I had some red wire and no time to go and buy some other.

And, as I'm a very gentle guy, here is another cadel letter, this time it's an L.

more cadels

Another long weekend and here are more cadels.

A Cadel E

and a K :

Both are, once more, inspired by the Ms AN II 3 from the Basel Library.

To see more pics, just have a look to the gallery.

weekend report

An ill apple tree cut, 20 m² of ground digged, 5 rose bush and an orange tree transplanted, lots of other maintenance works in the garden... To make it short, I spent all my weekend in the garden.
But, as I woke up early, I found time to etch a new cadel initial, inspired by the same manuscript as the previous one (Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, AN II 3).

It's quite different from the cadel initials I already made & I like it.

I think I'll made other ones inspired by the same manuscript but the priority now is the maintenance of the garden :-)

Cadel initial

Spring is coming and my garden requests all of my time, so no time to do calligraphy. But, surfing on the web, I came accross a manuscript with quite a lot of cadel initials and could not resist. So here is a new cadel initial, inspired by the Basel, Universitätsbibliothek, AN II 3, an initial P, as usual, acid-etched on zinc.

I'm quite happy with it, partly because I could make it smaller than the previous ones without loosing the quality of the etching. It is 6 cm high.

Soon more initials inspired by the same manuscript, if gardening does not take all my spare time :-)

Clams again

I promise, this this the last time I give voice to clams (until next time). This time their messages are full of love and care.

On the other hand, I'm working on new projects, so, soon new pics of real calligraphy with real texts

claming clams

New messages from our friends the clams

Ok, the last one does not really speak english, it's a word to word translation of the french for holy cow !  ;-)

Limits

A new work, etching again but this time acid-etching on zinc.
It's a sentence from the play Morts Sans sépulture by Jean-Paul Sartre.
I wanted to have a gash between the beginning of the sentence and the last words, I consequently had to keep the plate in the acid for quite a long time, resulting in holes in other parts of the plate.

But I find the result good, the texture and the look of the plate responds to the text and the spacing between the lines is not a problem either.

I still have to add the name of the author and I will be done with this work :-)

Knotwork

I already told you about the embossed version of this knotwork, based on a triangular pattern. Here is the etched zinc version.

I like both versions, next step is to create a more complicated knotwork and to mix embossing and zinc to realize it...

Mea culpa

I was recently telling you about things clams have to say and insisted on the fact that it wasn't really enunciated sayings.
I first received some protests which were not really convincing.

Then I received other ones and I now have to admit that clams are not clumsy :-)

Some can play (& even win) a tic-tac-toe game.

And others are scholarly, they know latin, psalms & english and are even able to arrange bilingual play on words.

In short, I'd like to apologize to all clams I may have offended and hope to hear from them soon.

clams have things to say

Well then, they are clams, not philosophy professors ;-)

All these clamshells have been acid etched, the last one I decided to etch the number and not the surrounding because of the shades of the shell that would have been lost otherwise.

knots

passionate by the clams, here is a little knotwork etched with acid on a clam's shell.

The etching is not very deep but enough to be visible.

Nonetheless, I think I can improve the process, another shell is in progress...

Alphabet - next step

Once cleaned, here are the letters from my alphabet (technological miracle, I inverted the pic so you can see them on the right side).
As you can see, I made a mistake on some of them, the ones that looks inverted after being inverted :-/

Moreover, my printing tries are just awful, so awful that I won't show even a bit of them.
I tihnk I'll have to restart from the beginning, differently, with more care, briefly : to be followed...

To make you wait, here is a pic of the residues of the cleaning which is, probably, the best thing I got out of it.

50%

I've just finished two little brooches (approx. 2.5cm in diameter) and failed the etching of one of them :-/

The knotwork I made with acid etching and the filigrees with electro-etching. This one got eaten on the edges and I'll have to redo it. 50% of success, I have to improve the ratio :-)

varnish & etching done

I have finished (at last !) to remove the varnish from my metal plate so as the white (well black for the moment) vine to show up.

As the next step was the etching, I put the plate in the acid bath immediately.

Unfortunately, it remained too long in the acid and the result, even if interesting, is not what I expected it to be.

We'll see whether the next step will improve it or not :-)

ABC etc

Last weekend, unusually, I had some time to work. But the sky was as blue as an orang utan so I decided to go to the beach, even if the water was so cold that I soon looked as an orang utan. Anyway, I manage to produce some little things, the beginning of an alphabet of brooches and, as I really love books, a nother brooch for my personnal use...

The initials are inspired by the Art Nouveau with a puzzle look which comes from the gothic period, and I like them. Not to mention my SERIAL READER brooch that I love !

zinc

Still no time for real work, this time I decided to make two little broochs instead of magnets.

I take the occasion to tell you about Monique who decided to create cadel initials on zinc after she discovered them on my website. With no information from me on the technique, she managed to get quite good results!

If you are also interested in zinc engraving, please send me pics of your works, I'm sure that all together we can improve this technique.

Magnetsss

Really no time to do anything worth it nowadays. I just continue to recycle bits of metal by creating magnets, here is what I did these last weeks.

Next ones will be more calligraphy/typography-oriented, in short, with some text

Cadel G

As the interval with my previous post may have warn you, I really don't have time for calligraphy for the moment. So as to have you wait until I find some time to create new works, here are some pics of a cadel initial I made some time ago.

The cadel pattern is inspired from a manuscript of the XVth century and the shape of the initial from a much earlier one, so I dare say it is a real creation.