George Watts: Okay, so you’ve made the big announcements, and now you need to get all your friends and family to the ceremony; but how? Well, I ‘m here to look at the more traditional approach that will add a touch of glamour to any occasion.
So we need to establish to start of with that you’re a calligrapher, now is that the right expression?
Paul Antonio: Well, I trained as a calligrapher guild in Heraldic Artist and their specialism once you start going to the materials. So people tend to more reputing as to scribe than a calligrapher
George Watts: Now I hate traditionally you use a cow skin, tell me a bit about that
Paul Antonio: Well, historically, let the forms of manuscripts are written on papyrus, and around the second to fourth century, there was a huge uproar with papyrus’ supply from Egypt; and the Egyptians decided they want quainter supply papyrus to Europe anymore; so they have to find an alternative surface. Parchment and Velum come from animal skins, basically treated like leather.
George Watts: If a couple comes to you, where exactly do you start, what services do you offer?
Paul Antonio: I have had guys come to me when they want to propose; this guy called me up and said, I really love this girl and I’m going to propose to her in Greece this weekend, I’ve written a poem and I want you to write it on. So that kind of thing then started out the absolute beginning. They even wanted to see the card’s done, then they wanted the engagement card done, and then they came back to me and said, “Right, we’re getting close to the wedding and we need to get the invitations done”. So they get the invitation design; you should have think that’s about it and of course, you know, a year later they call you up and go, “we’re having a baby, you want to birth in that Smurf? (Laughter)
George Watts: Okay Paul, now we have all these bits and bobs in front of us, where do we start?
Paul Antonio: Right, I think the first place to start is with the paper; usually people come to you after they’ve had their wedding invitations printed, which is the problem; cause invariably some people are not good enough to write calligraphy and they might look beautiful and they might be more
George Watts: So you have a specific type of paper that you use
Paul Antonio: Well, there’s a specific range that you need to work within, for instance, this is a really nice envelope; this is called a Cold Pressed Paper; so the paper’s been rolled between 2 huge rollers which are cold. This on the other hand, is a hot pressed paper, where there’s 2 rollers actually heated; so what you’ll end up with is a smooth surface. Now one of the problems with modern papers, they tend to be coated, and if you have a coating on the surface, the coating, when you apply ink to the surface, the coating actually wets the surface, the ink wets the surface and picks up the coating so it clogs the pen; but also the ink has nowhere to go. So it sits on the surface and just spread; so you can’t get a sharp end of letter. So if you’re willing to go for having invitations printed on any kind of stationary, you need to check with your calligrapher, or hopefully your printer will not
George Watts: Now, leaving on from paper, I can see in front of us here, we’ve got shells, we’ve got feathers, we’ve got fountain pens, so all kinds of things, dip pens, terrible expression. How do you put at penned paper?
Paul Antonio: Right, with the advent of different types of pigments, we see here red, and we see some blue and we see some purple in here; and I tend to use shells for mixing pigment or paint
George Watts: So you actually make your own paints, is that how Germany works?
Paul Antonio: Well, yes and no; it depends on how much the client is willing to spend.
George Watts: There’s always a way, and where’s the way?
Paul Antonio: The 2 major types of tools used in calligraphy; there’s the pointed pen, which gives you a fine, if you apply pressure to it, it spreads; so it goes from fine
George Watts: Oh, it’s like pinchers
Paul Antonio: Yes, from fine to heavy; and this generally produces Copperplate script and Spencerian script. This is a square edged tool; see you don’t apply pressure to this, what causes the nickel to heavy your mark is the angle of that square edge to the bottom line of the letters. There’s 2 immediate implements to the text script choice, of course this tool, the pointed pen, is the most temperamental tool, cause it does produce more beautiful letters.
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