My Word!

I recently stumbled across these instructions for making a calligraphy pen from a soda can, and had a go at it. It's very easy to do and fun to use! Here are mine (they ain't pretty, but they do the job):

They're best for doing BIG letters, I've found, and produce beautiful results when you have room to make a grand gesture with your lettering arm. Unfortunately, not so good for using on jewelry! I made the smaller pen in the hopes that I could get the same freedom and beauty the large pen allows, but on the tiny scale I use in my work. It hasn't worked out yet; even the smaller pen makes only relatively large letters. It makes me want to do enormous wall art!

My compromise was this artist card (ACEO), lettered with the smaller soda can pen. The language is Kisi, spoken by around 10,00 people in the Lake Malawi region of Tanzania. It's an ideophone (kinda like an onomatopoeia) that means 'the sound of rain falling softly'. The marks above the vowels are tone markers, again. The effect is an accent on the i and a gradual falling tone for the a's. Thought it was very evocative.

Some jewelry in Kisi coming soon.