Supplies- Papers, Nibs, inks, etc | |
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PAPERS: Always purchase 3 sheets of any paper you are using for a project. One for the finished piece, one to use as a test sheet, and one for piece of mind should you make a mistake and need a new sheet in the middle of the night. Nancy Grossenbacher, Portland Oregon _____________________ Always practice and do your rough drafts or dummy books on the same paper you will be using for your final project. This will help you become comfortable with the paper and help to solve any problems between ink, paint and paper before you begin the "real thing". Carol DuBosch Class _____________________ Papers that are well suited to the brush include: rice paper (rough side), Arches Textwove, Rives BFK lightweight, oatmeal paper, Nideggan, charcoal paper, Gilbert Laid. Marji Groth, "Great Stuff I've Learned" _____________________ Trouble writing on a surface? You might consider Pounce or Sandarac. Pounce gives tooth to smooth papers. Use pounce for papers on which ink lies on the surface. Pounce removes the slickness and degreases preventing the ink from spreading. But be careful as too much will cause a total resist! Now, Sandarac is used for paper that is too absorbent, on which the ink sinks into spreading and bleeding. Sandarac is a pine like resin. You can buy sandarac in lumps and grind it with a mortar and pestle. But it takes so much grinding you might consider buying it! You can purchase it at a drafting supply store, or both can be purchased through Paper and Ink, or John Neal. Virginia Meltzer, Missoula, Montana _____________________ Papers that will go through the copier include: Rives BFK (lightweight) white/cream, Italia, 90 lb. Arches HP, Arches Textwove, Canson Ingres (lightweight), Strathmore Charcoal, Canson MiTientes, Frankfurt white/cream, acetate transparencies, and vellum stationary. It is strongly recommended that each of these sheets, if hand cut, be cut exact to a standard size, be hand fed through copier, and be heat set once copied to fix toner to paper. You can heat set with an embossing tool for heating embossing powders. Carol DuBosch Class _____________________ How to imitate a burned document. Tear the edge of the paper slowly. Take a brown chisel edged felt tip marker and rub the edge of the document by holding it up in front of you ( not down on a table) Then take a black chisel edged felt tip marker and repeat except this time hit and miss. Don't make a solid black edge. Your document will look like you took the time to burn it. (No more Boo Hoo's) A close examination of paper actually burned with shows a bit of both colors. Works for me. Ruby Coe _____________________ Also, for storing sheets of paper that are larger than your paper drawer or filing cabinet: try hanging them with a wooden pants or skirt hanger in a spare closet. You can hold quite a few pieces of paper with one hanger. Make sure to use the kind of hanger that has felt between the two long wood arms so that it doesn't dent or mark your paper. I got mine at Wal-Mart. Veronica Koh, Des Moines, Iowa _____________________ INKS: Did you know that sumi ink sticks with pictures on the labels are for painting and the sticks with letters are for writing? Marji Groth, "Great Stuff I've Learned" _____________________ You need to know where your inks are dyes or pigment based because dyes penetrate the paper and pigmented inks sit on top of it. Because of this, it is easier to make corrections with an exacto blade on artwork done with pigmented inks. To determine if your ink is dye-based or pigmented, put a drop on absorbent paper and let it bleed outward. If the ink is dye-based, within a few hours it will produce a two color edge. Steven Saitzky, "Art Hardware" currently out of print. _____________________ Mixing Dr. Martin's Bleed Proof white with watercolor (tube or Prang Pan Watercolors) makes a pastel that works wonderfully on black paper! Mary Ann David, Queen of Black Paper _____________________ Add 8 drops of gum arabic and 2 small pebbles to a new bottle of Higgins Eternal. The pebbles wake up the carbon at the bottom of the bottle. If the ammonia smell is strong, leave the cap off overnight (this should also increase the blackness of the ink). Peter Thornton _____________________ TO STABILIZE YOUR INK BOTTLE: Cut an ink bottle sized hole in a sponge. Insert the bottle. And you can use the sponge to wipe your nib! _____________________ Plastic film canisters are waterproof, air tight, have a wide mouth, and hold a relatively large quantity of ink. But they are unstable! To stabilize them, insert them into an aerosol spray can lid. In the US, various spray cans, including hair sprays and art fixatives use a capping area in the center of the lid. The film canister fits snugly into this area. Once inserted the film canister fits snugly, add some weight in the form or clay, sand or stones to further stabilize. Orignally posted to CS by Pavasa with permission by Arcey _____________________ NIBS: Using athletic tape as a reservoir for Mitchell nibs is terrific. Cut a very thin strip of tape, about 1/8th of an inch, and wrap it around the nib like a shawl. The shawl should cross and end on the front of the nib. (There is a great description of how to do this somewhere in our archives.) Ann Van Tassell _____________________ An X-acto knife (with blade removed) makes a penholder for reed. Bow Valley Calligraphy Guild Newsletter. _____________________ Save the silica gel packets from shoeboxes or vitamin bottles. Put one of them in your nib containers after you clean them. The packets will absorb moisture and prevent rust. Marji Groth, "Great Stuff I Have Learned" _____________________ To remove factory oil from a new nib, dip the nib into liquid gum arabic, rub with soft cloth, and wipe clean. Inga Dubay Class _____________________ Use WD-40 to prevent nibs from getting stuck in your pen holder. Marji Groth _____________________ Reservoirs should be about 1/16th from the end of the nib to allow for proper flow of ink. Marji Groth _____________________ To avoid ink build up on your nib, snap off the head of a used toothbrush and use Plumber's Goop to glue it to the inside wall of your water jar. The plumber's goop withstands the water to hold the brush in place. Now you can easily run your nib across the brush while you are rinsing it to prevent any build up of inks or paints. Nancy Grossenbacher, Portland, Oregon _____________________ BRUSHES: Try reshaping a brush by coating it with gum arabic. Coat the bristles with a very light coat of gum arabic using your fingers to apply it and shape the brush carefully. Let dry several days, rinse out the gum arabic & use. Virginia Meltzer, Missoula, Montana _____________________ To protect the bristles of your brushes, use plastic drinking straws to cover them. Cut the straw slightly longer than the combined length of the bristles and metal ferrule. Carefully put the cut straw over the bristles and wedge onto the ferrule. Marji Groth _____________________ Coat brush bristles with dishwashing liquid before using masking fluid. Then the mask will wash right out of the brush without gumming it up. Marji Groth _____________________ It has always bothered me to set my expensive brushes to dry in the standard jar with the bristles up. So I played around with some foam rubber strips & even those cosmetic foam things. I cut slits in the foam & glued them to containers I can now push the brush handle into the slits & suspend my brushes to dry with the bristles down. Dad even made me two rectangular stands that hold bottles, pens, etc. They have 6 inches of the foam on each side with slits for a bunch of my brushes. Peggy Jo,Dayton, Ohio _____________________ As a sign painter, I learned to take a spring of about 1/2 inch in width (for the smaller brushes) and stretch it across the top of a jar (adjust tautness). The coils would hold the spring in place on the jar as well as hold the brushes hanging in the solvent until I was ready to clean them so the bristles wouldn't get smashed (these are really expensive brushes as well). Clip the spring if it is much too long and secure it with a strong tape, glue, etc. to the jar if you want. You could do the same to have a safe spot to dry them (minus solvent of course), even putting the spring on a box or other container, stringing it on the wall (could even store them there), etc. Jill Bell _____________________ PENCILS: Nancy Culmone recommends the German made Brass Sharpeners. These are small 1 inch square, with 2 sizes of openings for either large or small pencils. They make wonderfully sharp, long points & do not waste pencils. She prefers this to electric sharpeners, preferring simple tools class notes, Calligraphy Northwest Portland submitted by Virginia Meltzer, Missoula, Montana _____________________ To sharpen Prismacolor pencils, the late Benny McAdams preferred the Staedtler-Helix sharpener with the built-in shavings container. The lighter Prismacolors should be sharpened more carefully as the filler in them makes the lead fragile. Workshop notes, ABC Red Deer, Canada submitted by Virginia Meltzer, Missoula, Montana _____________________ Peter Thornton sharpens pencils by hand with 1/2 inch graphite showing so you will have a light touch and can see what your're doing. Hand sharpening gives practice for cutting quills. As you rule lines, r o t a t e your pencil to keep it sharp. Class Notes submitted by Virginia Meltzer, Missoula Montana _____________________ When purchasing new pencils, colored or leaded, always be sure that the lead is perfectly centered. Otherwise as you sharpen the pencil, because the lead is off-center, it will break more frequently. Nancy Grossenbacher, Portland, Oregon _____________________ ADHESIVES AND GLUING: Elmer's School glue is archival. Bow Valley Calligraphy Guild Newsletter _____________________ YES paste is NOT archival. It contains dextrose. She recommends PVA & wheat paste. Class Notes From a Sandy Tilcock Bookbinding Class, submitted by Virginia Meltzer _____________________ BARGE cement is the best for adhering objects where flexibility is important, -- i.e. a pin on back of small leather book which will be worn as jewelry. Carol Pallesen _____________________ Homemade envelope glue can be made with 1 teaspoon vinegar, 1 teaspoon Elmers White Glue and 2 drops of peppermint extract. Mix together and paint on envelopes. Marji Groth _____________________ Use an old yellow pages or phone book as scrap paper to glue on. This is especially useful when gluing a series of things. Just keep turning the pages for a clean gluing surface each time you need one. When the entire yellow pages is stuck together just toss it in the recycle bin. Ruth Booth, Mississauga, Ontario, Canada _____________________ I learned this nifty tip in a bookbinding class. When you're gluing paper to another piece of paper, instead of using a bone folder, use a crumpled up ball of wax paper. You can press down with it and move it in a back-and-forth motion without leaving shiny marks all over the paper like a bone folder does. But, there are times when you must use a bone folder, and in those cases, cover your paper to be glued down with another sheet of paper and rub your bone folder all over that paper. This way, the shiny marks are only on that top piece of paper and not on your good paper. Veronica Koh, Des Moines _____________________ Don't forget about the web site called "Glue This To That" whenever you have an adhesive question! originally posted by someone, a favorite of many _____________________ BONE FOLDERS: Use a Teflon bone folder and it doesn't leave shiny marks on the paper. A wonderful tool and great for origami too. Mary Elizabeth in PA | |