Why?

Because I’m left-handed.

When I took calligraphy in high school my teacher was good about trying to teach me techniques to compensate but I don’t even hold my regular pen the way a leftie “should”. So instead I just made do and kept blotting paper close by. The side of my left hand was often stained and I had to re-do quite a bit of work. I can get away with calligraphy markers because the felt nibs are forgiving of my nontraditional hand position.

So today I broke out an old copperplate nib and barrel as well as a parallel pen and fountain pen.

It’s been a number of years and I think it shows. I had a hard time mixing the gouache to a good consistency and I didn’t line my paper so my letters are dancing quite a bit.

If you’re a real calligrapher you might want to look away because you will shudder at the way I hold the poor parallel pen.

Then I played with an inexpensive Plumix fountain pen from Pilot (the only thing I could find locally). I like it, the ink flows well but it isn’t a pointed pen, which I prefer, instead it is an italic (or flat) nib. It writes well but not as fine as I would want (so I’ll be ordering a Noodler’s).

I can’t wait to see what she has in store for us next… hopefully my Amazon gift cards can handle it.

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