Calligrapher for Team USA - 2016 Rio Olympics
Houston calligrapher and wine bottle engraver
This bride wanted a sample for her wedding invitation envelope addressing that would include illustrations. She wanted "something awe inspiring, but not too much". I figured let's combine a little bird with a cartouche at the back. She approves! Looking forward to starting this project for her. Here are the samples that I provided her.
This bride requested Spencerian/Ornamental Penmanship w/o major flourishes. She wanted clean, but slightly fancy. I love this. In my opinion, Spencerian writing is the epitome of clean, gorgeous calligraphy. (The numerals have been digitally removed from these photos to protect the addresses.)
I always love to see ladies participating in a traditionally male sport. With that said, imagine my elation when a female golfer requested to have a club engraved. Thanks, Gabrielle!
This client wanted something dramatic to set the tone for her plans with the wedding. I can do dramatic on paper :).
Just received a new custom designed straight penholder from my pensmith, Brian Smith. I told him that I wanted a burgundy flame foot with a beige grip surrounded by mother of pearl accents and a burgundy flame tail. Mission accomplished! She's a thing of beauty!
I love writing in white ink on dark paper so I'm testing out German Ingres Black paper with a thank you letter to a friend. Not my preference for pointed pen so far. Still on the hunt for the smoothest colored paper....
Quite often, I am asked exactly how I hand engrave wine bottles. I made a video about it. If you'd like to see it, here it goes!
It's so nice having penpals. This is what calligraphers do when they have a free moment. I'm in love with white ink on either black or dark gray paper. It creates a striking, but classic look.
If you know anything about me, you know that Bordeaux wine is dear to my heart. Bordeaux was my introduction to French wine and it swept me off my feet. Of course later came Burgundy wine, which is where my heart lies, but my first French love was Bordeaux. It's like that boy that you kissed and thought "so this is what I've been missing". Between the earthy nose of barnyard funk and the taste of dark berries on the palette, it's just beautiful especially with age. AND especially a first or second growth Bordeaux…..
So imagine my elation when a client contacted me for wine bottle engraving and walks in with a 1966 Chateau Ducru-Beaucaillou. I was as giddy as a schoolgirl when I saw this bottle. As soon as we parted ways, I couldn't wait to get it back to the studio to engrave it! Now if only I could be around when it's opened. Cheers!
Ornamental penmanship is the art form that sprang from Spencerian writing in the late 1800s to early 1900s. This was where we began to see phenomenal penmanship trumping each other in their correspondence with seeing who could be the most extravagant in their writing.
You can take lessons in ornamental penmanship and learn the art of how to script these letters in different fonts. You can even make a business out of it. It's my favorite writing form. Here's a quick example by yours truly and a practice sheet. The "O" was my favorite part.
So golf clubs have become my latest fun thing to engrave for a few simple reasons. 1) The metal is predictable & easy to work with. (Unless it's graphite….no graphite please. It's very soft and messy compared to steel or titanium.) 2) Sparks emit from the club during engraving. Pretty spectacular to see actually. This golfer wanted his name on the upper portion of the shaft. I like it!
It is extremely difficult to get great pictures of the clubs due to the high level of reflection, but here we go!
As you know, this is one of my passions. Engraving brings a personal touch to the joy that will be found inside each bottle. During my last event, 73 bottles were engraved over the span of a 4 hour event! These were engraved to order as customers waited roughly 3-4 minutes/bottle. Next time, I look forward to engraving even more bottles. It was a ton of fun for myself and everyone involved. Cheers!
So anyone paying attention will notice that some of my work is of a different style from most other calligraphers in Houston. The difference that you see is called Spencerian calligraphy, which was the first American handwriting/calligraphy form started in the 1800's by Platt Rogers Spencer. This writing form evolved into a fancier form called Ornamental Penmanship. The greatest talent known for Ornamental Penmanship during the Golden Age was Louis Madarasz. As his family was exiled from Hungary, Madarasz was born in San Antonio, TX.
This is where my calligraphy passion lies as it is exhibited quite heavily in the website gallery. Below is my first attempt to imitate this particular specimen of his. HIs specimen is on top and my partial attempt is at the bottom. It's not his work by a long shot but closer than I expected to get for the first try.
This piece was commissioned by a client for his wife. I receive requests for commission pieces quite frequently. However, this one was special because the client wanted this piece to have a vintage feel. With that in mind, he purchased paper with an antique appearance and I carried on with the theme and used walnut ink. It came out beautifully. Now it's time to go back and erase my graphite lines :).
I like to change things up a bit. This is an option for either casual correspondence or formal correspondence with a flair.
Sometimes it's nice to change things up. Let's place part of the address on a slant!
This company is sending engraved wine bottles to their clients. Love it! Who couldn't use a little sauvignon blanc?
The tine split and folded upon itself!
