Sans Coke

The April meeting at Bede's World was called Sans Coke and tutor Ian Ditchburn explained that what he was aiming for was the effect of writing with a coke pen but without the uncertainties that come with pen lettering. In his example shown below his top alphabet is made with a coke pen but the second alphabet is pencil drawn. He showed us a method based on a drawn ellipse to which you then freely added lines to build a letter. Having got a design you liked you could then trace that letter and re-use it.

Once you had your letters ready for your phrase or quotation then you could rough up the contours of the drawing so that it did not look too neat.

Ideas for this included using watercolour pencils which could then be splatted with a wet paintbrush or using your rubber to blur the lines and edges of the letters.

Few Scribes needed a second telling when asked to rough up lettering, after all it is not often that you get a chance to get your own back on it. The results are shown above and below with Ian using some elbows to demonstrate how framing can alter the look of a piece.

You can tell how much the workshop was enjoyed by the amount of work done during the meeting and on display below.