Relax

Jun 22

Written By Stacey

It’s probably no secret...

Relaxing is not my thing…I have a difficult time keeping my hands still when it comes to making. All I know is that, at any given time, I want to do all the things! I want to try this and that…take this class over here, finish that class over there…play with this new gadget here…and see how awesome a new pen is.

Play is how I de-stress.

In between lessons and grades, I practically play all school year. 🤷🏾‍♀️ It’s my genius mode.

At the same time, in the midst of all my play, I felt pretty well drained last week. But, then, that’s the beauty of having a blog…

I took a short trip down memory lane to see what I was doing this time last year and, voilà, look what I found.

Remember this?

Apparently, I was experiencing burn out right about the same time last year…the end of the school year. I likely handled it a little better then.

Although this past school year was a lot better than 2020-2021 was overall, I suppose I didn’t take into account that recharging is the order of the day for teachers for the summer.

Bad Stacey.

So, in an effort to right that wrong, this past week, while I did work a little bit…

I also gave myself a little breathing room and just allowed for some experimentation here and there.

Look at what I came up with…

I had been putting off using colored inks until I got the hang of just run-of-the-mill pointed pen use. But, since I was just playing around anyway, I figured, “Why not?”

I used Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bleed Proof White for the first time. It’s pretty thick and has to be thinned down to be able to use it in a pointed pen. Fun fact: it’s because it was originally used as a type of correction fluid for comics. But, once you get the right consistency, it is beautiful used as a calligraphy ink.

Side note…I feel like my Copperplate is coming along pretty well, if I do say so myself.

I also tried mixing a little Pearl Ex Pigment Powder with some gum arabic powder as well. While I think there’s a little room for error, mixing 1 part gum arabic to 4 parts pigment powder and then adding water for flow worked pretty well.

Look at that! Another beautiful ink that makes calligraphy even more fun to play around with…although, keeping either of these two colors consistently mixed while working with them is a challenge for another post.

Last but not least, I played around with making some guides.

If colored ink turns out to be something I will use a lot of…