Artsy Fartsy

Quilling. Calligraphy. Journaling.

This year is it's looking like we've heavily invested in artsy stuff.

Learn a new craft skill, so we decided on quilling. With the aim of putting the skill to some use rather than as something we learn to do and then put aside.

With regards to calligraphy, well, it was sometime early November when we finally found out where to buy flex calligraphy nibs. Our keenness for getting flex nibs to experiment in copperplate writing was due to this particular video:

While we were aware that the pen had some sort of customised nib, we never really did do our homework finding out more about flex nibs, instead learning that most fountain pen brands don't have these kind of nibs. We started off with the Lamy Joy since the italic nib was a good start for calligraphy writing (mostly uncial in our case, the nibs aren't wide enough for us to write copperplate / blackletter properly) and wasn't messy as we used ink cartridges instead of dipping ink or using an ink converter.

Then we found flex nibs. And now, we got ourself a Jinhao fountain pen customised with a Zebra G flex nib installed in. The thing is, re-learning how to write isn't easy at all. Calligraphy is more akin to drawing than writing and is much slower.

And since we got ourself a Midori Traveller's Notebook, there's been some double work as we've made notes, marked appointments and dates, and journaled entries. Things we have been doing on the iPhone. There's just something about actually writing it down, though. Sometimes it's much easier to refer back to a physical notebook, too.

Now the problem is, these things are eating into our time. While this year we've already said we would take a break from the choir, but it looks as if we're taking more onto our plate than anticipated.

Let's hope we don't burn out before the year end.