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.

S

A good thing with 3 days long weekends is that one have time to work on things :

A new cadel initial, once more inspired by the  Ms AN II 3 from the library of the university in Basel.

There will be more of these ...

Merci

An M to say thank you (in french we say merci).

I designed the cadel from patterns previously seen in different manuscripts.

And, as you would have guessed, it's been done with electro etching on tin.

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 :-)

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.

G comme Galet

Sorry for the title but it only works in french, it would make no sense to say G like the first letter of pebble :-)
Anyway, weekends are short nowadays which means I don't really have time to create new things, just to copy things I already did using other media.
A few days ago, I told you about a cadel letter on zinc, I copied it today but this time on a schist pebble, engraved by hand.

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.

Cadel L

It seems that I cannot do anything but zinc engraving these days. This is then a new cadel initial before I go back to me vegetable experiments.

Cadel O

As I'm waiting for the inspiration to come, I made a cadel letter, just because I like this very much.

This time, I "invented" the letter by reproducing a simple interlacing, repeated until it makes a circle. To see the whole of it, click here.

Cadel J

Yet another cadel initial, yet inspired by the ms Rawl. B. 499 of the Bodleian Library.

to see the whole thing, click here.

Cadels

No time to work on a large scale, so I do little things, here 2 cadels initials.

The first is inspired from the ms832 of the Angers Library.

The second is inspired from the ms Rawl. B. 499 de la Bodleian Library.

To see them entirely, click here or there.

subproduct

After rubbing an engraved cadel letter using carbon paper, this is how this one looks.

I very much like the differences of  brightness between the rubbed parts and the others. There may be something to do using this material.

failed cadel

I'm trying to use other metallic plates than zinc ones to engrave cadels letters. This time, a bit of "I don't know what" previously used as a lid of a cigar box.

the pinkish hue is not totally uninteresting but as the varnish started to unstick after a few minutes in the acid bath, I had to stop the experiment.

Maybe anoter try soon with another kind of varnish ??

Rust

After playing quite a lot with zinc, I'm now experimenting steel as a medium for calligraphy.
Here is my first try almost correct of a cadel letter.

Next time, I'll have to better sand the surface and to adjust the edges as the varnish is too sticky to get clean contours on the first stroke.

On the wall - 5

Probably the final version of this work.
I added a fragment of Petronius' Satiricon (bottom right) in Luxeuil's script and calligraphied a large cadel initial later highlighted in black to enhance the visibility.

The wall will remain like until the end of the year then I will erase all white a coat of white paint before starting another work.

The Flies - final version

I've just finished with my version of the text from The Flies by Jean-Paul Sartre.

You can see the whole work by clicking here.

As it is quite long, one cannot really see anything on this pic, that's why I took close-ups :

first one

second one

third one

fourth one

More cadels

Two new cadels in the gallery.

This time it's a T and a Y (click  on the letters to see them).

I had to build up the Y from bits out of others initials because it's quite rare and I couldn't find an historical one.

Cadeau III

I really like the "cadeau" initials engraved in zinc. So much that I made one for myself, still inspired by the same manuscript.

I may have kept it a bit too long in the acid bath, it's very fragile but anyway, I like it very much.
Too see the whole thing, click here.