Colored Pencil Odyssey

Long-time readers of Feathers of Hope will know that both Numenius and I like watercolor pencils. I also like non-soluble ones and have a large collection of Prismacolors. Sounds like there are others I should try, but for now, I have penty to be going on with.

The idea here is to use colored pencils to “sculpt” letterforms and areas around them, following an article I read in the latest issue of Bound and Lettered.

I’ll post some results here soon, but [Images uploaded 1/11/07] for now I’m having a great time experimenting with color, shading, texture. It’s not just a medium for children…

Feld Hell and Friends

Last Friday marked a momentous event in the history of ham radio — the FCC declared that knowledge of Morse Code will no longer be necessary in obtaining any level of ham license. This move has been long forthcoming, especially since many other countries in the past few years have abandoned the Morse requirement. My initial reaction to this news was a bit of guilt, followed by relief: my campaign to learn Morse Code has gotten sidetracked these past few months. The FCC decree goes into effect 30 days after publication in the Federal Register, and from that time on all I’ll have to do is pass a multiple-choice theory and practice of operations exam to get on the air on the high frequency bands (30 Mhz and below).

What I’m immediately interested in is some of the digital keyboarding modes. These take advantage of the digital signal processing capabilities of modern computers’ sound cards. One hooks up the computer to the audio input and output of the transceiver, and types away at the computer to send digital signals over the air. The advantage of these digital modes, and for that matter Morse Code, over voice is that they work very well with weak signals.

There are many of these digital modes in use — some new, for instance PSK31, which has gotten quite popular, dates back to 1999, and some quite old. One of these, Hellschreiber, goes back to 1929 in Germany. It is essentially a fax mode, where one transmits an image of the text one types out, the characters getting encoded into a 49-pixel matrix. It was originally used over landlines and over radio, the latter version termed Feld Hell (Field Hell).

The name Hellschreiber comes from that of the inventor, Dr.-Ing. Rudolf Hell, who turns out to have had a very long and interesting career. He died in 2002 at the age of 100. He eventually got interested in typesetting, and in 1964 invented the first digital typesetting system called the Digiset. His company in 1990 merged with Linotype to form Linotype-Hell AG, a corporate name which seems to have lasted until 1996 when Heidelberg took them over and spun off Linotype as a subsidiary.

This Pen is No More

As I’ve said on these pages before, I have many fountain pens; each one is a favorite in its own right. A gunbarrel gray Mont Blanc I bought in Cambridge, Mass, in or around 1993 died today, the victim of negligence as it dropped out of my hand.

I’ve dropped this pen before, always lucky it didn’t fall straight onto the nib. It has a very loose cap, and attempts to fix it have only made it worse. But today, I can only blame my clumsiness.

Oh the agony.

This pen’s qualities: wrote like butter. Nib fine but not scratchy. I had just written about 550 words of my novel with it. It seemed to be liking the voice of Willie, one of the twin brothers in love with my heroine languishing in a Confederate prison in Richmond.

I didn’t take the pen anywhere because of the loose cap, so it became my stay-on-the-counter pen, the one I wrote with in my journal over the years. It paired perfectly with Clairefontaine. We made a morning triad.

In case you’ve been asleep all day, the Democrats took control of the House and, now, the Senate. On a day when I might have been in mourning for a tool I’ve used a great deal over the last fifteen years, a pen so lovely it has felt like an extension of my hand, I’ve felt little but euphoria.

It is a bittersweet day, though, at the end. RIP, dear friend.

Saint John's Bible Revisited

Our friend Father Ed from our days living in Santa Barbara is visiting here overnight — he flew out from his home now in New York to perform a wedding up in Placerville. After sharing vacation sketches and photos (ours of New York and Europe; his of Alaska and the Boundary Waters) we somehow started talking about the Saint John’s Bible, the amazing calligraphic creation that I was fortunate enough to see in exhibition last summer. So we watched the DVD I got last year about scribe Donald Jackson and the creation of this hand-illuminated bible. Looking at the project’s website, I can’t tell how close the project is to completion, but happily for Father Ed, there is an exhibition of folios of pages from the Prophets volume currently showing in New York. For anybody who is in the area, it is well worth going to — the exhibition runs through November 27.

Embarking on Copperplate

I’ve enrolled in a copperplate calligraphy correspondence course. The first lesson arrived today.

This had had always fascinated me, but I’ll also admit to being a bit put off by its fussiness. No matter. Now I’m going to be spending my evenings working at a 70° 55° slant, perfecting the art of allowing spreading tines to make a perfect square top.

I’ll let you know how I get on.

Sketchcrawl XI

Today we finally joined the source, the San Francisco sketchcrawl outing to Sausalito. This effort was started by Enrico Casarosa two years ago; it’s grown into a worldwide movement.

I was trying out the Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils today. I’ll post some scans tomorrow, but I like them the pencils very much: they are, indeed, intense.

We were joined by Erin, Emma, and Gretel. A great way to escape the Sacramento Valley smoke and north wind…

I’ll post some sketches tomorrow.
[now uploaded; too bad the bull terrier came out looking like a cross between a pig and a wolf…]

Pulling up Freeway Daisies

I’ve been clearing the area in front of the house for a herb garden, suggested a while ago by Nicole and seconded by many. The Arboretum plant sale is on October 7; I have time to plan and ponder.

Meanwhile, the first of a series of scans from the Europe sketchbook have been posted here.

Sunflowers In Decline

Fall is almost here, and the sunflowers in the garden have run their course.

This upcoming Saturday is the 11th worldwide SketchCrawl. We’re going to be headed to Sausalito with the San Francisco contingent of sketchcrawlers.

Could You Spare a Colorado Quarter?

But only minted in Denver, you understand, not Philadelphia. You’ll know by the small “D” not the small “P.” (You need the OED magnifying glass for this one, folks, at least if you’re over 35.)

This was a request from the guard at the Alcázar in Segovia, who must pose the same question to all American tourists.

Muy Señor nuestro:

Adjunto le envío una moneda de 25 centavos americanos del estado de Colorado sacada en Denver y no en Filadelfia, tal y como nos la pedió hace dos o tres semanas en la entrada al Alcázar, y que por casualidad tenía en el monedero un compañero ayer.

No dude en pedirnos otras monedas estadounidenses, pues casi no nos damos cuenta de lo que se nos escurre por las manos.

Monedas, guerras, mundo. A su servicio.

[More sketchbook scans will follow by popular request]

Farmers Market Wander

We met Ron and Joe today for sharing notes on Gertrude Jekyll, a visit to the Davis Farmers Market, and lunch at Pluto’s followed by sharing of our sketchbooks from our trip. The Farmers Market is an excellent place for sketching so I drew a typical produce stand at left.