Inktober is in full swing and I’m playing social media manager since I did all the pieces in September—it’s the only way to stay sane during October. That said, I am practicing the ruling pen for a side project…that’s on the pile to scan along with other pieces from last year!
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I tackled the Inktober prompts by difficulty, from easy to hard. I quickly realized I was going to try versals on ogre, so this was among the last pieces. Trying to do a full versal did not work, but the rough dry brush came really nice.
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This was a 2-step piece. I drew several anarchy symbols with a rough hake brush, scanned and printed them to write multiple panic’s with a ruling pen. Even then, I cheated and moved the P up against the A in the computer.
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Another standby is italics with a flat brush. I like how the flourish of the “k” slips through the skip in the flourish of the “t”. even if it risks becoming sfinky.
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I initially thought about writing this like raw with a large hake brush, but I had done this already. Somehow it evolved into this flat brush tweak on uncial letters with way more horns than a ram ought to have.
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This was my initial uncial offering, since Celtic feels a bit tied to mystical stuff. Of course, that’s a tortured connection since insular uncial is a continental script brought to Ireland via Christian monks, so it’s antithetical to pagan druids in the emerald forest.
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My sister was in town last week. When you’re young, you’ll always be with your siblings and then years go by and you’re both forty heading into fifty.
Then again yesterday quickly becomes today, and we played some fun games with the kids, including Fu, Beowulf vs Little Red Riding Hood (Unmatched), Mystical Curling Club, and Horrified, American Cryptids.
The last two games were early birthday presents for my wife, but she wasn’t too excited about them.
Cya next time!
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PS—The Greek Islands, Lawrence Durrell, 1978
I’ve always wanted to visit the Greek islands.
However, desire doesn’t mean willingness. As a homebody, I’ve never done anything towards this goal, except to purchase this book on the strength of the author’s name (I mixed it up with Gerald Durrell, Lawrence’s younger brother) on discount at the back of Half Price Books.
It then took a decade (and a continental move) to get around to reading this leisurely jaunt around the Greek Islands at the crest of modernity. As a cultural backwater, time is blurred with antiquity. Lawrence reminisces of the 1940’s when he lived on these islands, mixed with the time of his writing and the technological postmodernism that we currently inhabit.
I’m certain an updated book would be quite different. Then again you don’t spend a week slowly digesting a travel book that is older than yourself for actionable information. If I finally jaunt around the Greek islands one day, Google will point out all the practical information that I need.
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Unfortunately, I read the author’s bio on Wikipedia part ways through the book. I still finished the second half of the book since his flaws had nothing to do with this subject, but it was impossible to completely ignore his life. Lesson learned, I’ll wait on learning more about my artists after I’ve gotten through their art.
—January 2022
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PPS—The Greek World, Robert Garland, 2021
This twenty-four lecture (twelve hour) Great Course is a survey in the “history and culture” of the Greek civilization. Half a day is a long time, but there’s a lot of material to cover.
He starts with the history of the Greeks for a few lectures before going topical with their culture, including their plays, languages, food, war-making, and philosophy.
Being an omnivore in my media diet, I can’t say anything was particularly new, however it was good have the history of the Greeks from prehistory to present consolidated into a single collection.
It is sobering how a civilization that spans millennia leaves an imprint that barely covers three weeks of commutes. What, if anything, America will leave behind, aside from a memory of worldwide domination for a century.
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I got my hands on this course due to the beneficence of the library system, who obliged my request to purchase this item. As such, I pushed hard to listen to it, otherwise I wouldn’t have finished this series. It’s one thing to throw away your own money, but it feels profligate to waste everyone else’s money.
Fortunately I have now completed my duty to the county and I don’t regret it. And I see that there are three other people who have it on hold, so I have done a good deed in requesting this course. Yay!
—January 2022
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PPPS—Practice
—November 2025