My Mom’s Birthday was June 5th. I always try to make her something special as a gift. A few
months back, she had texted me this picture from a conference she had been at:
Her text just said,”Can you print this for me?”
I texted back, “sure”.
When she got home I gave her a printed copy of the photo.
“Oh, that’s not what she meant,” she said.
I see now. She wanted me to “paint it”.
Ahh.
But, then I forgot about it for a while.
Until….birthday time, that is…..
I started with this frame I already had.
And got out our calligraphy set and walnut ink. I am pretty certain I haven’t touched these items for at least 5 years???? And no doubt the walnut ink was even older than that. Steven does most (okay, all) of the needed calligraphy around here. He’s just great at it! He even has some font alphabets memorized. Me?…well, I have to copy.
I measured out some spacial dimension guidelines on a piece of calligraphy paper. And then practiced a bit.
I wrote out the words from the texted picture she sent me…in pencil first to make sure the spacing was correct.
And filled in my letters. I just “mock-copied” the same style that was on the printout.
And, it started working out okay, to my relief!
But, then, as I almost was done, some mistakes were made. Oops. No turning back really.
To cover those mistakes, I decided to do a wash over the whole thing with the walnut ink. I used a 1 1/2″ wide brush, thinned the walnut ink with water, and ran my brush over the whole thing. It ended up looking like watercolor. And that was good with me.
And here’s the two to compare. The one on the left is the texted printout, and the one on the right
I did. So, what do you think?
A close up. Alas, I forgot to take a final picture of it in that ornate golden frame, but you can picture it, can’t you? My Mom loved it. Maybe she was just amazed that I remembered to actually “paint” it for her this time. Well, though I am rusty at it, it was my pleasure to try!
I did forget to add the verse till the night before, but it got on there at the bottom.
Psalm 34:18
New International Version (NIV)
18 The Lord is close to the brokenhearted and saves those who are
crushed in spirit.
And, just today, Steven and I worked on this printed project together as a gift for a friend. We love how it came out. You can’t really tell from the picture, but Steven printed the black type onto vellum, and had the color printed on parchment paper underneath, which shows through. Love it! Now, we need to make one for Nathan, and well, baby #2 too, if we can find out who he/she will be! Two more weeks to go!
