Beati

This project will have been going on for almost three years, but it is finally over.

It is therefore about the beatitudes in the version of Saint Luke and according to the text of the vulgate.
The cadel B was made on metal and the embossing on a rag paper whose provenance I have totally forgotten.

I'm rather happy with the result, especially with my abbreviations, ligatures and Tironian notes in the NEULAND style, but even without mentioning these details, the overall view is rather nice, isn't it?

Mobile

 In order to let pieces I have just varnished dry for a project that will incorporate other elements, I have hung the different parts in the workshop.
I almost feel like leaving them like that, they make very nice motives.

Well, I'll take them down once they're dry but I'm keeping the idea for later and create mobiles using cadels letter elements in metal, it's going to be great !

Love

Because even if she knows it, we can never repeat it enough, a small steel etching for my wife.

Alphabet

Electro-etching on steel, the plate is 15x20cm.
The colors are due to oxydization which happened when I heated the plate after the etching.

More vine

Slate engraving is fun but it doesn't help with my project of white vine on metal.
Time for a new round with a new pattern.

First step, the draft on paper

Second step, copy on the metal plate before clearing the spaces for the etching

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.

MC & G

They said yes to each other yesterday and we were there to see that. We had a marvelous day.

Now, I can show you the monogram I made for them.

To see the whole thing, just have a look to the gallery.

And, as one has to dress a bit for a wedding, I made this chain mail tie, quite nice even if a bit heavy :-)

For my wife's neck, I chose something a bit lighter, I made her this pendant of slate, engraved with a filigree pattern and gilded with gold powder.

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 ...

snow ?

Subproduct of an ongoing work

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.

knitting

Winter is coming. I know spring has just begun but, winter is coming.
I consequently decided to get myself to knitting. As I just can't cope with needles and wool, I opted for steel and copper so as to make myslef a scarf for winter (cos it's coming !!).

I doubt it can keep me warm, but until then, it keeps me busy :-)

Circles

No, I'm not forgetting you, neither do I forgot calligraphy.
The fact is that I have quite a lot of work right now and that I'm working on a new project I can't tell you about for the moment.
As a starter, just a pic :

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 :-)

Know thyself

An umpteenth version of this sentence engraved on the Oracle's temple in Delphi : Know thyself.

This time, I mixed an embossed roman capital with its greek counterpart, letterred on tin and electro-etched to show the hidden parts of the roman caps.

I'm very happy with the result, already thinking of new works using the same technique. Impatient !!!

To see the whole thing, click here. The pic is not very good, it's difficult to get enough light to reveal the whole etching :-\

work in progress

Just to prove that I'm still working, even if (or maybe because) I don't post a lot on this blog.
Here is a pic of my latest work, still in progress and far from being finished.

There' some greek in it but not only and it's a sentence I already worked on. For the time being, I won't tell you more about it ...

:-)

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...