Contest! Fp "inspiration"

[OcalaFlGuy]

All the entries are wonderful! Thank you very much to those that have already posted and those yet to. Thanks to PB for the Great Contest too!

 

:clap1:

 

Bruce in Ocala, FL

[Robinkeys]

Padrino Styb with Manuscript Green, Camlin Trinity with Manuscript Red, Camlin 47 with Camel Royal Blue, Fellowship 303-W with Higgins Eternal Black

Edited October 28, 2012 by Robinkeys

[rvisser]

 

Letter Excerpt: Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet, trans. M.D. Herter, W. W. Norton, 1954.

[czanguine]

 

I had never in my life considered myself to have horrible penmanship, yet 4 years of intensive instruction in science in mathematics have forced me to abandon handwriting as an art in favor of "lightning-fast" chicken-scratches.

 

My appreciation of fountain pens brought with it the inspiration to revisit its beauty, and so I have commenced practice. It is a tedious activity, yet I am determined to succeed -- that in the future I will end up with a practiced hand and neat lettering which shall soon graduate to a fluorished script.

 

I use my favorite pen here, the Parker 51, so as to keep the inspiration flowing.

 

Love your entry.

 

S.

 

Thank you very much! I'm really glad you liked it.

Edited October 29, 2012 by czanguine

[czanguine]

Internet connection trouble, I'm afraid. Please disregard second post.

Edited October 29, 2012 by czanguine

[czanguine]

This quote has a story behind it. When my mother, who recently passed away of brain cancer, first received her diagnosis many months back, a framed version of this quietly showed up on her bedroom wall one day. I didn't think much of it at first or even really notice it beyond seeing that it was there, but as she grew sicker I noticed that visitors to her room would pause to give it a cursory glance on their way out and then silently stay a moment, as though it had caught them by surprise, finally walking away still lost in thought.

 

I didn't have much time to think about it during her illness as the majority of her care was left to me and I had too many other things to do. But since her passing, in the quiet that has finally replaced the many crises, I now see what it truly means and why she selected it to occupy a prominent place in her view as she approached her final battle.

 

 

The indignities and defeats of terminal cancer are many, and the wins eventually slow from few to none, but she never gave up. She never stopped trying. She never, as far as I know, lost her courage. If she did, I never saw it: she invariably "tried again tomorrow," time after time, with whatever she had inside her to throw at that long and waning battle that particular day. Many, many times I saw her screw up her courage to do what had come so easily in another time and now she desperately did not want to do: eat, drink, communicate, swallow meds, be bathed, etc. And I can't help but think that maybe having this in front of her daily helped in ways I never noticed until now.

 

So when you said "inspiration" I couldn't get this out of my mind.

 

It is my hope that you receive the same inspiration from it that she and her visitors did, and that I finally also do.

 

 

 

The original print (the version hanging on my mother's wall) by Kevin Dillon of the Celtic Card Company can be viewed and/or purchased here (no affiliation). I don't know the actual author of the quote, though I'd surely thank them if I did.

 

The artwork of George Auriol upon which I based my own handworked, FP version can be found here (see links in upper right of page), here, and here.

 

Thank you to FPN and PB and all the rest of you who enticed me to get off my butt and do this. She would have been thrilled to bits to know she was being remembered in this way, and it's a privilege to be able to share it with you. Thank you!

 

 

 

P.S. Sorry for the blurry pic -- photography is always a challenge to me. Even autofocus didn't work!

 

 

(edited to correct link and add P.S.)

 

Finally, I've seen it!

What a beautiful, beautiful entry! Can't help but get a little teary-eyed at the backstory.

[inkstainedruth]

This quote has a story behind it. When my mother, who recently passed away of brain cancer, first received her diagnosis many months back, a framed version of this quietly showed up on her bedroom wall one day. I didn't think much of it at first or even really notice it beyond seeing that it was there, but as she grew sicker I noticed that visitors to her room would pause to give it a cursory glance on their way out and then silently stay a moment, as though it had caught them by surprise, finally walking away still lost in thought.

 

I didn't have much time to think about it during her illness as the majority of her care was left to me and I had too many other things to do. But since her passing, in the quiet that has finally replaced the many crises, I now see what it truly means and why she selected it to occupy a prominent place in her view as she approached her final battle.

 

 

The indignities and defeats of terminal cancer are many, and the wins eventually slow from few to none, but she never gave up. She never stopped trying. She never, as far as I know, lost her courage. If she did, I never saw it: she invariably "tried again tomorrow," time after time, with whatever she had inside her to throw at that long and waning battle that particular day. Many, many times I saw her screw up her courage to do what had come so easily in another time and now she desperately did not want to do: eat, drink, communicate, swallow meds, be bathed, etc. And I can't help but think that maybe having this in front of her daily helped in ways I never noticed until now.

 

So when you said "inspiration" I couldn't get this out of my mind.

 

It is my hope that you receive the same inspiration from it that she and her visitors did, and that I finally also do.

 

 

 

The original print (the version hanging on my mother's wall) by Kevin Dillon of the Celtic Card Company can be viewed and/or purchased here (no affiliation). I don't know the actual author of the quote, though I'd surely thank them if I did.

 

The artwork of George Auriol upon which I based my own handworked, FP version can be found here (see links in upper right of page), here, and here.

 

Thank you to FPN and PB and all the rest of you who enticed me to get off my butt and do this. She would have been thrilled to bits to know she was being remembered in this way, and it's a privilege to be able to share it with you. Thank you!

 

 

 

P.S. Sorry for the blurry pic -- photography is always a challenge to me. Even autofocus didn't work!

 

 

(edited to correct link and add P.S.)

 

Beautiful work! Also beautiful sentiments (my mother died of ovarian cancer in 1998, after having been a 35 year melanoma survivor). To quote her: "Don't take no sh*t from no d*mned doctor!"

She was absolutely convinced that the ones who sat back and said "Yes, doctor, whatever you say doctor" were the ones who didn't make it -- the ones who were fighters, the ones who said "D*mn it! I've going to beat this thing!" did. And for 35 years she did. She'd had a bad localized reaction to the sulfa drugs she was given in chemo -- all the bones in one ankle fused together. She joked about being Imelda Marcos, because sometimes she changed shoes three times a day when her foot hurt; and she had to wear an elastic stocking on that leg year round because of the scar tissue and lack of muscle. But it didn't stop her from being a world traveller (when she got to the point of not being able to handle bus trips anymore, my parents switched to cruises, and was quite irritated that she never got to go to Greenland (the ship's captain was afraid of getting blocked into the harbor) and my parents were horribly disappointed that their trip to Barcelona and Carcassone didn't include Andorra (because THAT would have been another country!) -- but the tour guide was worried about traffic since it was Columbus Day in Spain, and people would be traveling across the border to get duty free booze in Andorra!

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[smk]

This quote has a story behind it.

 

The story makes the beautiful hand and attractive composition even better. Thanks for sharing.

 

Salman

[smk]

Here's another bit to add to the inspiring collection of contributions so far.

 

 

Pens & Inks:

 

- Spirit of Life by Henry Simpole, Fine Italic nib filled with Quink Blue Black.

- Parker Vector Calligraphy pen, Italic (M) nib filled with a mix of Sheaffer Skrip Red and Pelikan Brown.

- Noodler's Creeper, flex nib filled with Waterman Havana Brown.

 

Salman

 

ETA: I'm adding another version with colored background - I can't decide which one I like better so I'll leave the choice to you :-)

 

 

The color in the background is quite smooth in real life but the scan shows up blotchy for some reason - it might be the fixative.

 

S.

Edited October 30, 2012 by smk

[inkstainedruth]

Here is another entry (although both of mine are fairly inadequate, compared to some of the really incredible ones I've seen so far).

Of course my photography skills are not the greatest (and I had to work and work to crop the images enough to make them fit within the 1 MG upload limit, which didn't help....)

I know nothing about the author of the quote; I just found it online and thought it was really cool, and lent itself to artwork. I worked from an image I downnloaded from, IIRC, the NASA website -- it's not exactly the same, being a freehand drawing, rather than a tracing. Obviously I need to practice drawing with a fountain pen more!

 

 

 

There have been some truly amazing entries in this contest, and it's been fun to get the creative juices flowing. Also pretty humbling, being neither a calligrapher nor an illustrator....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[Daisy]

Wow... thanks y'all.

 

*blushing*

 

@Ruth -- yeah, my mother was definitely ornery strong willed, and she always knew what she thought about something. Let me put it this way: at one point within a month of her passing, when she could no longer walk or speak or even make a sound, she indicated to us that she REALLY had something to say, something CRUCIALLY IMPORTANT. We were kind of shocked, actually; we all thought she was in some kind of unusual discomfort or in immediate need of something critical. So for twenty minutes or so we all labored with word charts and "Twenty Questions" and trying to understand the hand motions and head jerks... only to eventually find out that she didn't like my shirt and wanted me to change it. :ltcapd:

 

She had the same thing Teddy Kennedy had, but lasted over two and a half years from diagnosis, which is amazing given her age and pretty much surprised all the doctors. Didn't surprise me a bit. When I was young (in my teens) and was just starting calligraphy, she had me do Dylan Thomas' "Do not go gentle in to that good night / Rage, rage, against the dying of the light" and oh, let me tell you: she surely did just that.

 

 

 

 

 

P.S. All of these entries are so amazing -- I just saw yours after I started writing this post. Cool! If I may ask, what are those copper things you have your samples standing in? (I've been known to stand them on a loop of tape, myself.)

Edited October 29, 2012 by Daisy

[mag]

I just received this PFM and the sac is hard as a rock, however after soaking it a little bit brown ink started coming out of the snorkel. Enough for a few short lines...

http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn253/sesenticinco/Pens/IMG_1020_zps04d36fb8.jpg

 

[inkstainedruth]

P.S. All of these entries are so amazing -- I just saw yours after I started writing this post. Cool! If I may ask, what are those copper things you have your samples standing in? (I've been known to stand them on a loop of tape, myself.)

 

They're some sort of pipe connectors for copper tubing. Roughly $5 each at my local hardware store (plumbing section). Go to a real hardware store, not a big box store (of course it doesn't hurt to live in a small enough town to be on a first name basis with the two guys who own it... ).

I brought a sample vial in to try and find something the right diameter and the guy showed me those. The bottoms are for threaded connections, and the tops for connecting to smooth copper tubing. The pieces are bottom heavy, so they don't tip. Cheap, functional and relatively attractive looking (they have a good bit of weight and heft to them, too).

Multi-taskers. Alton Brown would be so proud....

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[inky_artist]

 

 

One of the greatest things about the fountain pen is that when "new" technology fails (my DSL is still down and I'm still depending on Starbucks to get these posts up :embarrassed_smile: ) the pen keeps on going!

 

Pelikan 120/Sheaffer Prelude/Aurora Ipsilon/Rotring ArtPen with Levenger & CMR inks.

[pb2]

Re. Daisy entry ...

 

Finally, I've seen it!

What a beautiful, beautiful entry! Can't help but get a little teary-eyed at the backstory.

 

 

 

Me 2 Daisy ~ pb2

 

 

[nightwing]

Daisy, thank you for sharing your story. A beautiful entry, too!

 

inkstainedruth, that's a brilliant idea to use pipe connectors as sample vial holders! They look great.

[inkstainedruth]

I just received this PFM and the sac is hard as a rock, however after soaking it a little bit brown ink started coming out of the snorkel. Enough for a few short lines...

http://i306.photobucket.com/albums/nn253/sesenticinco/Pens/IMG_1020_zps04d36fb8.jpg

 

OOH -- nice ink. Don't suppose you have any clue as to what it is?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[mag]

I just received this PFM and the sac is hard as a rock, however after soaking it a little bit brown ink started coming out of the snorkel. Enough for a few short lines...

 

OOH -- nice ink. Don't suppose you have any clue as to what it is?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

 

No idea really, but if I'd were to take a guess I'd say it's Waterman Havanna Brown. There seems to be a lot of it too and the funny thing is I punched a hole in the sac and it is literally petrified.

[inky_artist]

OK, the technical issues with the burnt out modem are almost resolved this morning and I have a backlog of quotes now, but I'll end the month with two.

 

The first is from the man who inspired me (and a lot of other Americans) to venture out to the wild places and find ourselves: John Muir.

 

 

And the second... well, I thought I could do a lot worse than ending the month with a quote from the Dean of American Wit -- talking about fountain pens.

 

 

This was the first "competition" I've had an opportunity to participate in since joining FPN and I must say I can't remember the last time I had so much FUN! And thanks to the organizer(s) for giving us yet another excuse for using our pens!

 

(Done with "the usual suspects": Pelikan 120/Aurora Ipsilon, Sheaffer Prelude/Rotring ArtPen with Levenger and CMR inks.)

[rvisser]

 

Journal Entry - rvisser