'cadeaux' Or 'cadels' Lettering

[mliptrot]

It's the week of a thousand weddings (well, three) and so I've been busy doing cards, etc.. I've got a present that I'm working on at the minute that I'll post soon.

 

Tomorrow, some friends called Sophie and Wayne are getting married. I thought I'd put some effort into the envelope for their card, with some embellished lettering called 'cadeaux' or 'cadels'. I found a taster in the Calligrapher's Bible but there wasn't a full alphabet, just some ideas. After a bit of Internet browsing, I came across a fuller alphabet but still had to adapt a 'V' into a 'W'.

 

Let me know what you think. As a first attempt I'm quite happy; next time it'll be a bigger nib and more detailed 'dotty' bits, lozenge shapes etc. Stay tuned for the other thing I'm working on. It's my first experiment with gold leaf!

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Mark

 

P.S. I've just seen the pic in the preview and it's enlarged on my screen. It sure shows up the wobbly bits...

[Judybug]

It's the week of a thousand weddings (well, three) and so I've been busy doing cards, etc.. I've got a present that I'm working on at the minute that I'll post soon.

 

Tomorrow, some friends called Sophie and Wayne are getting married. I thought I'd put some effort into the envelope for their card, with some embellished lettering called 'cadeaux' or 'cadels'. I found a taster in the Calligrapher's Bible but there wasn't a full alphabet, just some ideas. After a bit of Internet browsing, I came across a fuller alphabet but still had to adapt a 'V' into a 'W'.

 

Let me know what you think. As a first attempt I'm quite happy; next time it'll be a bigger nib and more detailed 'dotty' bits, lozenge shapes etc. Stay tuned for the other thing I'm working on. It's my first experiment with gold leaf!

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Mark

 

P.S. I've just seen the pic in the preview and it's enlarged on my screen. It sure shows up the wobbly bits...

 

Beautiful! Thanks for posting it. I hadn't heard of "cadels." Very interesting.

 

Judybug

[meowmda]

Really lovely!

[mliptrot]

It's the week of a thousand weddings (well, three) and so I've been busy doing cards, etc.. I've got a present that I'm working on at the minute that I'll post soon.

 

Tomorrow, some friends called Sophie and Wayne are getting married. I thought I'd put some effort into the envelope for their card, with some embellished lettering called 'cadeaux' or 'cadels'. I found a taster in the Calligrapher's Bible but there wasn't a full alphabet, just some ideas. After a bit of Internet browsing, I came across a fuller alphabet but still had to adapt a 'V' into a 'W'.

 

Let me know what you think. As a first attempt I'm quite happy; next time it'll be a bigger nib and more detailed 'dotty' bits, lozenge shapes etc. Stay tuned for the other thing I'm working on. It's my first experiment with gold leaf!

 

Thanks for reading,

 

Mark

 

P.S. I've just seen the pic in the preview and it's enlarged on my screen. It sure shows up the wobbly bits...

 

Beautiful! Thanks for posting it. I hadn't heard of "cadels." Very interesting.

 

Judybug

 

It's apparently from the old French word 'cadelé' (decorated, ornamental, embellished) rather than 'cadeau' (present, gift) but I'll bow to somebody else's knowledge of old French. My source was here:

 

Cliquez!

 

Cheers!

[GhostShip Blue]

Very nice. I'd seen the word "cadel" in a thread that caliken had posted in but had little idea of what they were talking about. Thanks for the enlightenment and sharing your gorgeous work.

[jbb]

Very nice mliptrot. Thanks for posting. I love the concept of cadels. There's an old FPN post about it somewhere.

[The penner]

Lovely. Consider adding some more elements in it, perhaps some filigree? I remember seeing the cadel letters in the Calligraphers Bible as well. Picked it up and discovered how darn fun it was to play with them. Great effort!

[mliptrot]

Here are two more, this time for another Wedding, but with less time to spend on it...

 

Thanks for the feedback above, my next project is to copy some of these and add some finer pointed pen swirls. When I have the time!

 

Mark

[The penner]

Very nice! Did you use guidelines? If not, that would have been a good idea, as some of your writing is sloping mildly uphill, and the letterheights are a little short of uniform.

 

I would shift the 'hristine' segment further into the cavity of the C, to minimise the space. Also, the C would look better if the weight on the top balanced the weight on the bottom.

 

Apart from that, these are really nice. Will you have time to fix them up before they get sent off?

[Chevalier]

That's already very nice, you might want to try to speed up the strokes. I usually compose Cadels of forms I previously trained. It's a lot harder to draw them, because it's a tough task to get a straight flowing line this way.

[mliptrot]

Thanks for the (as usual) helpful feedback. No, it's too late as the Wedding's over now! They were still quite impressed.

 

I didn't use guidelines as I wrote straight onto the envelope. I'll have to get some printed and fold them so they fit inside, as that's what I use when working on paper.

 

Mark

[caliken]

Beautiful! Thanks for posting it. I hadn't heard of "cadels." Very interesting.

 

Here's a beautiful example by tipstricks, posted in the recent past.

 

caliken

Edited September 12, 2011 by caliken

[caliken]

Here are two more, this time for another Wedding, but with less time to spend on it...

 

Thanks for the feedback above, my next project is to copy some of these and add some finer pointed pen swirls. When I have the time!

 

Mark

 

Cadels aren't easy as they require a steady hand. Thanks for posting these attractive examples, Mark.

 

caliken

[Chevalier]

I've seen lots of rather ugly cadels (compared to those executed by Mark) in official and other important documents already. Mark's lines aren't always even yet, but the alignment of the lines is already pretty good (and this is the hardest part imho). I've seen cadels with even single lines, beeing completely crooked and awry nonetheless.

[HDoug]

There are some cool examples and links in this thread from a few years ago.

 

Doug