Old and Past It

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Yes, that would be me. I am sitting at my keyboard [as I usually do when writing a blog post] feeling angsty, grumpy, and rattled. Charmaine has been regaling me with all the unlikely friendships she’s been making on Instagram since she opened an account and started displaying all her lettering efforts on a white textured background board with a variety of props. She has mastered the flat-lay; knows what to do with a sprig of lavender; and can make unusual, yet visually appealing arrangements with nothing more than a set of keys and a bulldog clip. She has even been encouraged by her new playmates to build a website on Squarespace. This is all well and good, but her calligraphy is still crap.

I apologise. It is wrong of me to be critical of my dear, darling niece, … BUT… it is now me locked in the attic. I am being fed gruel. I am sat shivering in a cold corner with only Harold as a companion, and trust me, the constant clatter of castanets can get a little bit tiring. How did it come to this? Charmaine has smugly explained that I failed to move with the times. This is probably true, but in my defence I have been rather busy… Charmaine has suggested that I rebrand myself. Apparently, if I am to successfully market my calligraphy business I need the digital equivalent of brilliant white walls, Lloyd Loom furniture, and voile curtains rippling gently in a ylang-ylang scented breeze. D’ya know what? I can’t be bothered. I am an individual, and I can’t be bothered to faff about with bits of dip-dyed pastel shaded ribbon just to fit with the in-crowd. Oh the irony! I was one of the first calligraphers in the UK to wax lyrical about modern calligraphy online, and now I have been rejected by the young, the fresh, the cruel, and those who are led by the nose by an identikit design.

Enough. Enough of this maudlin swan song. Enough because the majority of my dear readers here won’t have the foggiest idea what I’m going on about. Apologies. Again. This has all been on my mind, and now that I have gotten it out of my system perhaps I will feel better.

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24th September 2011

Happy Birthday, Mr Devine!!!

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My fingers stuttered over my keyboard as I tried to write a birthday post for my blogging chum, Mr Devine. I wanted to say something more than: Happy Birthday, Big Boy!!! I wanted to write a post that would be memorable, considered, heart-felt, and almost as good as eating a ludicrously overfilled cake. I stared at the screen, my cursor blinking unhelpfully.

Perhaps a glorious picture of the Devon sky at night with a shooting star would impress him…..

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Devon sky at night with shooting star? Or close-up of a black piece of paper?

Or maybe he would be filled with joy to see a picture of a crashed UFO that turned up on my doorstep on Sunday?

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Snow drift… or crashed UFO?

And then I remembered…. I had just the thing….a bird with a very long beak!!!! Even better, an unidentified bird with a very long beak!!!

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Beaky has gotten beakier….

I had done it!!! I had surpassed myself!!! With this birthday post I was spoiling everyone!!! And, there was only one thing left to say to Mr Devine: Happy Birthday, Big Boy!!!!

Where is my Loopy Letter?

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Where is your Loopy Letter?

….I hear you ask. Fear not, it will turn up eventually. I have been having a harsh Winter due having no central heating and therefore I have not been able to get on as I would like. Also, I have been navel gazing and pontificating over how I’d like to present these letters… I know, you just want to receive one in the damn post, preferably in an envelope with your address emblazoned on the front, but, I was thinking that perhaps I should include a certificate of authenticity??? I then I forgot about writing Loopy Letters and started fannying about designing a simple certificate to go with the non-existent letters…
It will all come good. Promise. Also, I really enjoy making these….

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Weird collage thing….

…so some people may receive one of these.

Other Letters

Although I am very behind [still at the starting gates!] with the Loopy Letters, I have been taking part in exchanges with other calligraphers. I generally practice writing an address on my Rhodia pad before writing it for real on the envelope – just to see how all the letters fit together. What bugs me is that my practice piece is often more fluid than my final version. I think this relates to my ongoing performance anxiety. This is the lively practice piece…

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My jaunty practice piece….

….full of bounce and attitude. And this is how the address turned out on the envelope….

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The ‘Oh my goodness someone might see me!’ final piece.

As soon as I know someone is going to see my work I become self-conscious and a lot of the jaunty attitude is lost. It’s something for me to work on, apart from the more I work on something the more self-conscious I become! Aargghh!

And Finally…

This is another major distraction and another reason why things are slow to happen in my world…

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Sid

This is my mad dog. His name is Sid. He needs 5 miles of walking every day. Currently he gets closer to 3 miles. EVERY DAY. Yes, I have been out in the harsh Winter weather, I have felt every biting wind on my face, and every dollop of snow on my head. Put it this way – I am not an outdoorsy sort of person, and each day when I return from my walk I collapse in a heap and I am fit for nothing. To be fair, what I have achieved so far is a flipping miracle.

Conclusion

I am still working on the Loopy Letter project!! I have not forgotten!! I have not given up!!!

Happy Birthday to Me!!

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It is my birthday. I have a buggy head cold sort of bug thing, which is buggy. I am eating cake, so all is well. I think the bug was made worse by this sort of thing….

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More snow…

When I looked out my window and saw this I thought it was a rather pathetic attempt at snowfall, it was only when I came to walk Sidney that I realised that the snow had been blown off the fields and into the lanes making them impassable by most vehicles – even 4x4s. Do I have pictures of the lanes? Of course I don’t…. you need fingers to take pictures, and my fingers were frozen within two pairs of thick woolly gloves. I’m actually very sad that I don’t have pictures because it was all very dramatic and rather rare for Devon.

Meanwhile, I am concerned that we have lost Mr Mags, I believe this is due to technical issues, so I shall be trying to contact him the old-fashioned way via pen and paper…. I was thinking that I could buy a card that we could all sign and send on to him, obviously this card would start in Devon, UK, then journey to Norfolk…. it would then spend some time in Texas, HERE and HERE before making its way to Canada, then down under to Australia…. [perhaps Dinah could stand over Ms Prinny when she signs it so that it doesn’t get lost] and then finally to Germany. I’d like Mr Mags to know that we are all thinking of him.

Yes, and while I am on the subject of lost things…. shall I see if I can purchase an item of clothing to replace the Freakin’ Green Elf Shorts??? Shall I? Just as a temporary measure until the real ones show up…. but it wouldn’t be the same would it? All the legendary stains/smells/curly hairs would be missing.

Right, I must rouse myself to eat more cake….

Calligraphy Address Label for Envelope

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Address Label

I managed to write out an address label in the dark the other night – okay, so ‘dark’ might be an exaggeration, but it was certainly dim. I think my writing looks better than when I can actually see what I’m doing. Perhaps for a future post I will experiment with blind-folded calligraphy? We did such things at art college.

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Red address label with calligraphy…

Apologies for my photographs. They were also taken with the lights off and at different times of the day… therefore the red label kinda looks orange in one pic… then sort of washed out… you’d think that over the years I might have sussed out how to take pics for my blog. My excuse is that the goal posts keep moving as in the technology is always changing. I do read blog posts about it optimisation… but… blah… I don’t know why the top picture in this post looks blurry. Perhaps cleaning my glasses would help?

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Outgoing mail… as opposed to the mail that’s too afraid to go out.

Whatever, all this fussing over uploading pictures takes my attention away from things that I should be concentrating on, such as writing a Loopy Letter! So I will be away to do something more fun… and if you want to see clearer examples of these pictures then click on them and you will be taken to a better version.

Alright, Mr WordPress, I’m ready for my close-up….

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Close up!!

Next Week

Another envelope gets dressed up to hit the sack…

Valentine Calligraphy Poem…

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Calligraphy Poem

And now for something completely different, yet slightly similar… a poem.. written out in a modern calligraphy cursive. Yes, I might have changed the words of a more familiar Sonnet…

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My poem…

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Close up!

Apologies for the lateness of my Valentine’s greetings. I did try to post it yesterday, but the Gods of technology seemed to be against me. I am having a lot of problems with this website, it’s not as easy to maintain as my Wonky Words site, so if you want to check to see if any Loopy Letters have been written then it’s best to check there first. This poem will be winging its way to a Loopy Letters recipient.

Talking of technology – and this is way off my remit – I have a fix for an Instagram issue, but I’ve not been sure where to post it. As many calligraphers do use Instagram I thought perhaps it would be relevant to post it here.

Ipad Fix for a Blurry Instagram Feed

Earlier in the year I was having problems viewing my Instagram feed on my vintage mini iPad; my whole feed was blurry and fuzzy making my Instagram experience unpleasant. I have discovered that this was caused by user error! Yes, I was inadvertently causing the problem! I tend to hold my iPad in landscape mode and thus click on my Instagram app from this position, this is the wrong thing to do! Why? Because the Instagram app is designed for phones not iPads, hence the app seems to be programmed to open properly from the portrait/vertical position. Opening the Instagram app from the vertical position makes my feed crystal clear. Such a simple fix. Before trying this fix close the Instagram app down completely from the home screen by double clicking on the home button and swiping up, then go back into Instagram holding the iPad vertically.

I really hope this fix helps someone!! The blurry, fuzzy feed was driving me nuts, it’s incredibly frustrating.

Anyhow, this is not a technology blog… and I promise that my next post will be all about calligraphy!!