After 40 years of pen, ink and guache I finally moved to digital format for a 60th birthday presentation piece.
What can't this brilliant vector software do?
Ray
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After 40 years of pen, ink and guache I finally moved to digital format for a 60th birthday presentation piece.
What can't this brilliant vector software do?
Ray
My guess would be to create brilliant designs from brilliant artists such as yourself. :)Quote:
Originally Posted by gbpatriot
The image
Ray
A nice piece of work.Quote:
Originally Posted by gbpatriot
Trouble is, the printed word does not have the free-flowing spontaneity inherent in the work of the calligraphist.
Not that it matters - mostly the punters are ignorant philistines who couldn't tell the difference.
Quite snazzy and marketable I say.
Well done.
Intbel,
Off the record a bit, but what the heck is a "punter?"
We Americans sometimes need education on the English language. :D
A punter is a slang term for a customer :)
quite possibly but not necessarily of the gullible kind - again it depends which part of the UK.......
Quite Pretty Ray - Thanks for Sharing! :)Quote:
Originally Posted by gbpatriot
Beautiful work, Ray!
ron
Intbell wroteOf course Intbell is quite right in his comments. As a calligrapher for over 40 years, I too miss the pounce, egg-white, hand-mixed inks and hand-cut quills in this 2D traversty. The work also lacks the depth provided by burnished gold and fine shaved parchment. But he misses the essential shortcoming with very expensive commissioned civic heraldry - few people ever see it. Many of my works are on display in Mayoral offices and glass cases well away from the fading effects of sunlight, where the public (who pay actually for them) seldom see them.Quote:
A nice piece of work.
Trouble is, the printed word does not have the free-flowing spontaneity inherent in the work of the calligraphist.
Not that it matters - mostly the punters are ignorant philistines who couldn't tell the difference.
In a similar way I mourn the loss of hand-drawn animated films - like the Disney masterpieces of the fifties where there was never a still frame. But this does not stop 'punters' from turning out in their millions to see the current flood of sterile CGI films that pollute the cinemas.
Software like Flash, Swish and now Xara Pro allow amateurs to believe that they are actually animators. As if drawing two frames and having the computer 'tween' the rest can be called animation. But at least it has the dubious merit of keeping the art alive.
Despite its shortcomings (which are many), this sort of digital heraldry and calligraphy might at least allow the common man to engage with this ancient art - albeit on a superficial level. Perhaps some may be motivated to buy a copy of Boutell's Heraldry and set of ink pens and metal nibs? Indeed how many artists who visit this site could understand the following blazon: 'Gules, a chevron ermine between ten crosses paty argent.'- and how many could actually paint it?
Thanks for your continued support.
Ray
I never made inks though I frequently used hand-cut quills which are a joy to use once one is practised with them.
Only ever once wrote upon a skin and that was a great experience.
Wish I'd kept it up now - there is a greater demand today as computers take over and generally folks don't even use a fountain pen let alone a nib and a bottle of ink.
Handwriting began to deteriorate with the advent of the ballpoint and today they bash their burblings out on a PC and have near enough lost the ability to produce decent handwriting.
Assuming they had acquired it in the first place.
And how much signwriters' work do you see these days?
I tell 'e - the whole wyrld is going to pot as folks choose cheapo floss an' gloss, instant gratification and sacrifice quality for quantity.
At least with Xara we can still produce animated gifs which is the closest one can get to Disney's hand drawn animations.
While the new flash export is a great feature, I still prefer gifs - far more satisfying work.
I despair for the future - already many women think cooking involves no more than transferring summat from a freezer to a microwave oven while their husbands think being able to assemble cheapo laminated chipboard furniture makes 'em skilled joiners.
And their children think they are doing well when they pass a maths exam yet couldn't get past first base without a calculator.
Standards are almost rock bottom.
Most towns and the people who live in them are tarts - all squeaky clean glossy glitz on the surface while in truth they have no real value at all.
Bleh.
Our governments are corrupt, as are the agri-corps and the pharma-corps and the food industry and the health industry likewise - where is there any value today?
Need coffee ...
I can remember the time when we still had to burn our own coffeeQuote:
Originally Posted by Intbel
beans and than grind them by hand, and we poored our hot water,
which we heated over a wood fire and we had to find the dry branches
and grass to start the fire by rubbing sticks together.Then put the kettle
up and boil the water, nowadays you youngans have it way too easy. ;)
It almost start to sound like the scene in the movie life of brian where
he gets thrown into jail and there is a guy hanging from the wall.
Ah we probably know the scene, if not, go out and rent the Video/DVD
or download it. Search for "life of brian"
Intbel, if you start to talk like this, you know you are getting old. ;)
(Ink? ink? Man I used a chissle and hammer, and we chissled the
words out of hard rock, man since ink we are loosing our skills. ;) )
You had chisels? Wow. I'm impressed. We had to make do with flints.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Intbel
Did he mind that you'll used his tools?:p
Still if you hand letter it with a pressure sensitive pen with a custom stroke, alas, with making my own brushes in Xara, haven't managed to make the plain like pressure sensitive nor is it happy to add one the way I want. Am I missing something.
The closest I've found is the italic lines I can use in CorelDRAW, you can draw swashes all day, and though I hate to say it, Adobe Illustrator has some nice lines for that purpose.
With my new tablet, I have pressure sensitive strokes and a little program called "Office Ink" which lets you twiddle away, then I can enter it in DRAW and have it do a trace of what I did so I get some pretty nice lines that way too. Just have to tell it how much smoothing vs. detail you want. Haven't tried this yet in Xara, will have a go with it tonight.
Yes, it seems that the quality of the individual has indeed gone down. And there are a lot of people who really seem disconnected and not really able to interact in the ways most important to being a whole human being: namely intellectually, emotionally, spiritually and psychically. Indeed if you find another person who is top notch in all of the above, never let them go, they are indeed at a premium these days. Fortunately the rest who have been raised by mothers who had to leave them with baby sitters to go to work, do not know what they missed. They even consider such individuals not quaint or eccentric but rather distasteful and rude. There is a definite difference that a quality stay at home moms give to kids that nothing else does. Not to say that a father cannot do that, but lets face it, quantity of time is what is truly lacking in the raising of our youth. And as housing and all the costs of living is so high, what else can people do unless they prefer to be homeless. They don't let you pitch a tent anywhere you know. With kids quantiy of time is what really makes the most lasting impression. As would you be able to survive on one bite of sirloin steak when you could eat three meals a day of common fare?
Quote:
...Standards are almost rock bottom. Most towns and the people who live in them are tarts - all squeaky clean glossy glitz on the surface while in truth they have no real value at all...
I urge you to not get too negative. After all, it was your generation and the generations before that helped get us to this state, by urging their children to go for the money, and disconnecting from their children in their own ways. These problems will only be overcame when all of us face them together, and see both the good and the bad. To overcome them, all of us will have to focus on the positive. We will also have to acknowledge the negative, but the focus must be positive, or we will just bring more troubles to ourselves.Quote:
...Yes, it seems that the quality of the individual has indeed gone down. And there are a lot of people who really seem disconnected and not really able to interact in the ways most important to being a whole human being...
Some positives I see are that the standard of living is very high in many portions of the world compared to even a century ago. We have things our ancestors couldn't even have dreamt about, such as computers that allow us to create things in almost unimaginably short time periods compared to what it would have taken without them. In its way, our world is magical in its technological achievements. Now let us take that magic and spread it around to all of us, and remember that we are all children of God, as it were. (Even the ones you don't like. They are good at heart, they are just showing us the problems with our older beliefs plainly, so in a way, they are doing all of us a service.)
Maybe I shouldn't have written this, but so be it. So much for the true topic of this thread. To address that, Ray - your image is fantastic. A family would be proud to hang that on their walls. Thanks for posting it.
Best wishes to all,
David
<gets off stupid preacher stool, and back to work again, hoping I didn't come across as an arrogant _____. Unfortunately, this is a subject I feel strongly about. We must start being constructive rather than destructive if we want to overcome these problems.>
And as a pen and ink cartoonist myself [still] may I draw the attention of those interested in animation to Toon Boom software which does not tween and [relatively speaking] is not that expensive.Quote:
Originally Posted by Intbel
vive l' 'belleville rendez-vous' - someone can still do it... just takes too long and too many people to do it all by hand these days ..[!]
There are still high-quality calligraphers out there. Unfortunately, I'm not even close to being one of them.
I was born at a time when all children were forced to write with their right hands. Being a natural lefty, this was extremely difficult. But to this day, I still write --- badly though it may be --- with my right hand.
I am actually paying for someone to do calligraphy for me...
I have a 12-line poem that is being done as a Celtic illuminated page, and the calligrapher is doing all the knot-work, animal illustrations, etc., by hand, topped off with gold leafing.
Could I do something similar in Xara? Of course. But Raymond and you others are correct. There is nothing like something created by hand!
---
Will
Not the gold leaf you couldn't :pQuote:
Originally Posted by WolfMoonHP
interesting thread...
Nice work, gbpatriot... despite your reservations.
i have posted a followup over in Off Topic where i can blather to my hearts content.
"And as housing and all the costs of living is so high, what else can people do unless they prefer to be homeless. "
Sally.... some of us DO so prefer. To lower the cost of keeping myself alive so that i can spend the remainder of my days doing something (writing, drawing) that i actually enjoy and think worth doing.... i gave up my home and live in a motorhome (caravan, to some). it is worth it.
geo.
In some countries that option is not available, I would love that optionQuote:
Originally Posted by GeoBen
but in our little overcrowded country, you will brake the law.
Ray that is excellent. You and the recipient should be proud.
Calligraphy was a hobby that often provided some extra income when I was attending school and college back in the dark ages of the 1960's :D
Given the choice of creating similar work by hand or using Xara Xtreme Pro....give me Xara every time :)
well, ankhor,
it is only legal here because of the vast numbers of involuntarily dispossessed that they would have only that many more people living in doorways.
Still, many communities here are passing laws restricting the practice to the point of outlawing it completely (try living in yer RV in Beverly Hills!).
but, it is actually a pretty cool lifestyle.
Boondockers Unite! You Have Nothing To Lose But Your Home.
geo.
Oh I agree, they want it to make it impossible to be living outside the system.Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoBen
I think they like the control it gives them, I sometimes get the feeling that I am becoming somebody elses property.
The people of which I speak would be considering themselves rich who have a blanket and shelter in a dumpster enclosure to have a motorhome. That is not homeless, that is warm and dry, you have a shower you can cook. People who are homeless who have only a car to sleep in to those who sleep in refrigerator boxes. And people fight over them. Sadly, children are often among the homeless. The state when it finds out will take the children away to put them in foster care who gets thousands of dollars to care for the kids, but the state will not give that to the parent who is homeless. This makes no sense. Among homeless people are veterans who live on the streets. There is quite a problem in my area as it is the north east corner of Los Angeles county. Downtown Los Angeles did a clean up and bussed the homeless from downtown L.A. to where I live. They are all over the place.Quote:
Originally Posted by GeoBen
I am observant, I do read the papers, and I am not ont to make this up, nor exaggerate. It freezes here often at night. Not so in downtown L.A. So there was a shortage of beds for the homeless in severe weather before this bussing happened. Now there is a big problem. My husband works for a school and they have people sleeping in the trash bins every night foraging for food. Is he making that up or he tells it how it is, I am getting it wrong because I am over-excited and not stating it right?!?! Stop patronizing me! The U.S. spends a ton of money on helping refugees every other place than in the U.S. It is a growing problem. That coupled with the explosion of minimum wages jobs, there are more and more sleeping in their cars. And no, they do not have heat when they sleep.
They did not sell their home to adventure in the great beyond, they live on picking up cans and bottles, they do not have any money, these are the ones who don't work, the state of those who do work is slightly better. At least they do use the YMCA for showers, if they are parents and seek help, their kids are taken from them. So many of them do not get help and keep their kids out of school so they do not lose their kids. If you haven't owned a home before the chance of ever buying one is slim and none.
If this is a laughing matter, I am not laughing.
Reminds me of one city in particular which has a high number of murders where folks boast about the courage of their lads who have volunteered to go killing in Iraq while being too scared to name to the cops the killers in their own neighbourhood.Quote:
Originally Posted by sallybode
Ahhh.... That's way off topic.
This thread is about Ray's illustration, not politics and social issues. If you have anything further to clarify, please take it to PMs. (2 posts after Egg's note has been removed).
Risto