,

thrive
where
havoc
crosses
harmony

I finished this piece ten days before prepping the scan for upload. Plenty of time to forget the exact wording before final edits in the computer. So I came up with “better” wording, dragging me back to the drawing board. I didn’t like the initial version (with the cursive harmony O) so I tried again with the heavy O.

Two extra trips to the drawing board before remembering the original wording and realizing that the alternate version only has 4 words.

That’s why it’s important to write things down!

harmony
hides
in
havoc

,

aesthetic
without
rigor
is
nothing

5WP as a math problem.

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vibration
animates
all
under
heaven

Inspired by the occasional reading of old Chinese philosophy. The piece felt a bit dry after graphing, so I added splatters. Ideally the page would be energized by the graphs themselves, but I need a lot more practice with brush cursive. Until then, I’ll shamelessly rely on gratuitous noise.

,

abstract,
there is nothing else

I love using the heavy black brush over busy backgrounds. But that leaves the problem of getting the other four words readable within the noise.

,

aequaminitas
just one last snack

This one flowered into a bunch of variations, which is fitting for this 5WP.

Aequaminitas means equanimity. I first took it as the disappointment that always comes after completing a piece (even though I quickly recover by jumping into the next piece). Playing with the wording led to the realization that calligraphy always tantalizes the practitioner that the next graph will perfectly match the vision.

This hobby is such a tease!

,

gratitude
now
is
a
present

At first I tried using the words as ribbons but my script skills weren’t good enough. I settled with a flat brush and then going white over it. Turned out to be a nice recall of the first word of Callivember 2024, with “flow” written in mastic.

,

It’s been sixty-one days of a part time job where the pay is a pile of (hopefully) pretty papers and approximately one thousand digital hearts. And the skill to do it better. I’ve often told young architects you get paid in money and experience. In this case, $0 and a ton of experience.

Moving forward, I’m going to keep hitting the drawing board, but I’m not grinding to produce something every day. The holiday season is here, gotta wrap presents, bang out Christmas cards, tidy the abode, only to jump into tax season.

But as with all my hobbies, we’ll see where it goes. Hopefully it keeps growing as a meditative creative practice, but history predicts a slow fade as soon as something else catches my fancy.

In the meantime, I have a growing backlog of Inktober 52 pieces so there’s enough to

Cya next week!

,

PS

five
dandelions
in
a
row

While working on aequaminitas I was inspired to graph a dandelion. As always, it took a few tries to get the composition right. As my habit, I took a few extra shots for good measure (I’m rarely happy with the results at the table). The morning after, I had a hard time picking the best version so I chose them all (using multiply layers on the opacity function). This turned a single word into a 5WP.

,

PPS

three
sprawled out
reading worms

The kids and I spent the other night reading books, all sprawled out in the bedroom. Mama would have yelled at us if she walked in before I fell asleep. The next morning, I found out that a Substack buddy just reached 333 subscribers, celebrating with this song. The coincidence was too much, I had to celebrate too.

This first attempt was written on an 8-year old printout of Toni Morrison’s essay No Place for Self-Pity, No Room for Fear.

,

That version was good enough to post in the moment, but I was unsatisfied with the composition and wording. It was originally oriented as a horizontal piece, but given the power of the background words, I pulled it vertical, but it felt off. Plus, I had gotten too cute by choosing “reading” instead of the obvious “book” worm.

So I went back to the drawing board.

three
sprawled out
book wurms

.

More digital manipulation this week. More subtle than last week, but still not “raw on page”.

Of course, I prefer to get things right on the paper, but 99.999999% of viewers will only ever see it on their screens. So I don’t feel obligated to physical reality after it’s been translated into 1’s and 0’s.

Even so, I generally avoid pushing digital limits, unless the piece demands to go hard in the computer. Always listen to the work.

,

kiss
the
soft
divine
pulse

Given the constraints, the circles weren’t perfectly centered on the page. With a white background, it’s easily fixed in the computer. Then, digital space insisted on a funky paper space. I obliged.

,

space
turns
letters
into
song

I’m not sure that letting the “p” descend below the white page was a good idea. Experiments can fall flat if the payoff isn’t worth breaking convention.

,

art
becomes
our
delicate
sledgehammer

I merged the handle from my second attempt with the hammerhead from the first attempt. Interesting that I started the week with three digitally manipulated 5WP’s. Last week, my wife convinced me to stop using the back of old printouts for these pieces. Default white backgrounds simplifying digital play might be an unforeseen consequence this change.

,

ain’t gonna find wisdom online

Sometimes you think the flashier version might work but ultimately upload the simpler one. The good thing with simpler pieces is that it’s easy to try a lot of variations on paper, especially if an early shot is “good enough”. After that you’re playing with house money.

In the moment, it’s hard to tell which version is “better”, but time sorts things out. Often, the winner is an early attempt (maybe even that first “good enough” shot). If I was a professional with billable hours, this dynamic would be a problem, but amateurs can afford such luxurious whimsies.

,

don’t be your worst boss

I still need to learn control over a ruling pen for deliberate scripts, but I’m now comfortable with being primitive using this tool. Being unpredictable is the point using a ruling pen, but it can’t be totally out of control.

And yes, the last two versions were from the same scan, I upsized the inner circle to see how it would feel. But my wife is right, it’s cuter with the donut.

,

when
in
doubt
add
textures

My personal mantra has been “when in doubt add noise” but the prompt “textures” is close enough. For this, I went back to my simple five line 5WP format. With this much texture/noise, no need to get cute with the composition.

,

These compilation posts have become a journal on my social media meanderings, so hello Bluesky!

I’m really happy with how I’ve trained the Substack algorithm—a wide variety of interesting art, photography, essays, and poetry, and no politics. It’s a vast garden of delights.

But FOMO is the demon of our age, so I’ve joined the crowd checking out Bluesky. A couple of the folks I met on Post had migrated there, so it is nice to catch up with them.

But I’m weary of establishing beachheads on yet another platform. At the moment I’m just cross posting the images I upload to on Instagram. Maybe Bluesky will grow into something interesting. Or maybe I’ll stop and my profile will just be a snapshot in time.

If I had to bet, I’ll most likely keep Substack as my social media home, visit Instagram as a gallery of gorgeous calligraphy and participate in occasionally group challenges, and go dormant on Bluesky.

But that’s tomorrow’s problem. Time to wrap up November and get going on the holiday postcards.

Cya next week!

,

PS—One last studio photo of our washroom across the hallway. I suspect that this tract home had an upgrade option for a second lavatory in this counter. Thankfully, the original buyers declined, leaving a big workbench for spreading out out my tools. This sink is also integral to the surface, so no seams. It’s a perfectly clean setup!

Of course clean is a relative term. My wife generally puts up with my hobbies, maybe because she knows they are always a passing phase. At least this one doesn’t take up a ton of storage space (unlike board games).

,

PPS—The boy said this in October, but I just scanned it yesterday.

.

A cohort of 31 fiction authors and artists released stories on Substack to celebrate the anniversary of the first airing of the Twilight Zone on 11.24.1968.

I’m a sucker for internet moments, so here is a little something to celebrate with a 5-word microfiction.

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he made me dinner.
awkward!

This 5WP is based off the Twilight Zone episode “To Serve Man”. As a kid, we didn’t watch much TV, but I saw this episode on Nickelodeon at my cousin’s place. In a pre-streaming world, this was a completely random occurrence. As luck would have it, the only episode that I’ve ever watched turned out to be one of their more famous episodes.

,

Physically, this was the drawn and formatted as a foldy comic. If you’d like to read this book as designed, download my PDF.

While you’re at it, download instructions to make your own foldy comics by Matt Madden!

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I initially graphed the piece with a ruling pen on a single page. After scanning it in, I realized that shape and order of words was perfect for a foldy comic. Plus it would be a special way to fete this event.

,

Congratulations for Sean Thomas McDonnell and J. Curtis for coordinating the…

Enter!

.

I was indecisive with several of these.

<Insert insincere self-deprecating apology for uploading too many versions>

,

symmetry
hobgoblin of small minds

I first heard the Emerson quote “consistency is the hobgoblin of small minds” at Rogers+Labarthe Architects. We were hung up on the lighting layout in a hallway (a trickier task than it might seem). One of them whipped out this line to keep things moving.

The top image is more or less how it looks on the page (after darkening the orange). The lower image uses the same ink, but with the contrast pushed hard. This blue is from a wash bottle where I salvage cool colored ink from pens and brushes before rinsing the tools.

,

wild style
takes
boring
practice

I used a grey-ink wash bottle for the liquid to activate the watercolors on the top image. I need to explore this further, but the dirty colors were not the right fit for this word. I should have pushed the saturation harder on the lower image, but I already went heavy on the digital pushing on “symmetry” and “glow up” (last week), so I let it be.

,

find your center inside
chaos

Super-graphics are tough because they have to be both expressive and “right”. I often use old sheets for test runs. With chaos, it was natural to appropriate such backgrounds for finished pieces. Normally, the background noise makes the smaller words unreadable, but this prompt frees you splash heavy with the opaque ink.

,

synchronicity
everyday
when we wake

I miscounted the letters when I decided upon with the clock-face concept. Didn’t realize there were thirteen letters until my second try! Oh well, a compound word is a bit of a cheat too.

,

culture
swings
via
any
tongue

After taking fifteen shots, you’d think I know how to spell tongue, but I just mistyped it a second ago. This poem was inspired by the prompt “култура”, but I wasn’t about to learn Bulgarian.

When studying flourishes, I realized that there is quite an art to it. Since I had no idea what I was doing, I went overboard. As a beginner, it wasn’t going to look good, so going heavy at least made it appear possibly intentional. (I posted the middle version for Instagram—Goldilocks would be proud).

,

freestyle races
along ghostly ruts

I could not envision a good composition, so I finally settled the concept of tire tread marks. That didn’t look good on the paper, but it had promise, and the computer came through. It took time, but this was the fun type of digital manipulation.

,

One Saturday, I went on a streak of truthy remarks on design.

The hard part of being a professional is knowing when to trust your personal tendencies and knowing when to do exactly the opposite. Actually, the hardest part is just doing the damn work.

I’m not a great design architect. But I have become more fluid at switching gears when I slam into a wall. Sometimes you need to brute force a problem, but it’s usually more efficient to step laterally and approach the question from a different angle with a fresh technique.

The creative life is a cycle of expansion and refinement.

I was given this nugget in grad school before embarking upon on my master’s thesis. There is a tendency to stay in high level to avoid tackling the project. Maybe this applies with my continued emphasis on pushing out new 5WP’s instead of focusing on specific skills.

When picking between two good versions to publish, bias towards the one that you fear the audience will dislike. (You could say “challenge the audience”…but that’s not properly scary sounding for such a moment).

I’m a huge fan of default biases, “rules of thumb”. For this, I’m worried about the subtle effect of algorithmic Instagram metrics in shaping my instincts. So whenever what image to post, it’s best go against such subconscious Meta-training (unlike these newsletters, I only post one image per prompt on IG).

Congrats on the new job! If you think it’s time to change, you were way overdue!

Fear prudently keeps us from making rash changes, but don’t waste your career staying comfortably miserable.

Selling writing courses on Substack is that “selling pickaxes to gold miners” phenomena….miners who love to stare at their navels and talk about it endlessly.

Including me, right now!

Cya next week!

,

PS—After mentioning my old ink bottles for pre-rinsing tools, here is a photo of the bottles that stay on my work desk (most of my proper ink bottles are stored elsewhere)

Doing a cycle starting from the front left:

1. Sheaffer Sepia (with the blue rubber bands). Purchased before college, I use it for trial compositions. The ink is light enough that the paper can be reused for future tests and as a brown, I’m not worried about the ink color getting contaminated. But unlike my wash bottles, this handles as real fountain pen ink.
2. Speedball Calligraphy. This was a recent purchase to feel how a new bottle of india ink is supposed to act.
3. Speedball Super Black India. A late college purchase, the ink had gummed up after decades of non-use, Happily, it was revived with a little water.
4. Sheaffer Red Ink bottle (the original red was finished last year). I use this bottle to wash off tools that used warm colored ink.
5. Higgins Bottle (with the masking tape). I use this bottle to wash off tools that used cool colored ink.
6. Higgins White. Bought during college, I’m finally using it. I suspect that white gouache would be more opaque, but gonna use this up first.
7. Stacking containers of various ink and gouache mixes. It was a cheap purchase from Walmart, but surprisingly airtight. These little mixes haven’t dried out in the past few weeks!
8. Higgins Engrossing Ink. This bottle was totally gummed up, but revived decently. Not as nice as my old bottle of Speedball India Ink, so I’m using this up first.
9. Birmingham Magma. I bought big bottle of this awesome ink. Took a little of for an empty Parker bottle.
10. Higgins Pen Cleaner. I had been using this for Noodler’s Lexington Grey, but now it’s a fresh a pen wash for black ink, so that I can let the other two colored washes bottles stay more brighter with their inks.
11. Birmingham Salted Sea Breeze.
12. Birmingham Blossomed Lotus. It’s always nice to have a light blue and a pink on hand. Plus these two are a little too tall to fit the art box that contain the rest of my my inks.
13. Honorary non-ink mention. The sheet on the light table has a circle on one side and rectangular template on the other side. I have used it for about a quarter of Callivember.

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PPS—My Substack buddy James Hart just had a new bunny move into their home. He composes real poems with nice calligraphy. Cheers!

Moki
harbinger
of home
destruction

.

I stole the boy’s watercolor set after reading Modern Calligraphy by Molly Suber Thorpe. I fear that I’ve now exhausted all the easily accessible toys. The hard part will be sticking to the practice long enough to get decent with each of these mediums.

,

clarity
lies on a spectrum

I discovered scratchiness with this exercise. I realized that I can run the ruling pen multiple times to over the same letter for a frenetic quality and I played with the angle of my Parallel to get the splatters.

One morning, I also messed with Clarity in a notebook using basic fountain pens. As always, it took multiple tries to get “right”.

,

cradle the infinite five words

After multiple attempts, I gave it one last go on my first initial test sheet. It’s a nice return to my early technique of layering poem drafts for visual texture on the page. I borrowed this method from the great architect Carlo Scarpa and I always wonder why it isn’t used in more art.

,

glow up
more cowbell

His crayola’s are now mine!

These images are slightly deceptive. I pushed the saturation and lightness of the scans to achieve the fluorescent effect. I haven’t gone this hard with the digital manipulation before, and I hope it doesn’t become a regular practice. But if it looks right on the screen, then I gotta respect the actual medium of communication.

,

breathe
slowly
manifest
supreme
fluidity

After testing a few scripts I settled on this composition. It was fine but lacking. On the day of the upload, I saw several folks use the liquidity of ink to add texture to their compositions. My first tests were way overboard, but I salvaged one by rewriting the words. The sweeping brush stroke worked out nicely as well.

,

make
pretty
on
a
leaf

A simple composition, inspired by a book of flourishes by Arthur Baker, drunk Taoists in the forest, and recent art by Ann Collins.

,

wholeness
is
not
just
collecting

Over these twO mOnths, I’ve fOund that is that big O’s are sOOOO enticing!

,

These six weeks have really pushed my range, but at the cost of practice. In the few days between Inktober and Callivember, my Copperplate progressed quickly but stalled out once I started producing daily pieces again. It’s time to tackle one skill at a time.

Practice is a balancing act between expanding the field and focusing intently. But more important than the specific, it’s most important to keep working! With infinite games, you always winning if you’re still playing.

Cya next week!

,

PS—This came on an early morning commute as I watched the sun rise above a crescent moon. Pair it with a fortuitous drawing and here you go (after several other attempts).

chase the golden crescent sun

.

We’re now into #callivember! Things are slightly less stressful because I’ve learned how to handle these daily challenges, but there’s no super-easy button for publishing once a day (thoughts and prayers for newspaper cartoonists!).

,

flow
feeds on quiet practice

It’s wild when an sketch plays out like the concept. Of course it’s not that easy. This took multiple attempts (beyond these examples) and chewed up half a day. Still super happy with how it played out, worth the brush that was ruined in applying the mastic.

,

in one transformation the universe

Sometimes it just falls into place. I started with a totally different concept that quickly slipped into this composition. I didn’t even have to tweak the 5WP. Magic happens on the desk.

,

golden ratio
my big fart

Like many, I am enchanted by the mathematical and geometric properties of the golden ratio. However, I’ve always been skeptical about its mystical power in design.

,

expressive
words depend upon contrast

I went counter on this word too.

,

each
beat
the
next
rebirth

My original concept was the upper version with alternating lines. It came out fine but I often take additional shots to see if I can execute better. As I started the second word on the next one, I made a mistake with the line spacing. Rolled with it and changed the composition.

,

geometric
journey to delights uncharted

I used ruling pen again for “real” drafting (with the corner of the Parallel for the flourishes). I don’t think either set of flourishes came out great but didn’t have the energy to set up another sheet. On intensive pieces like this, I make progress prints to practice the final touches, but it’s never the same on the real, final gamble.

As aggravating as it can be, such moments are a thrilling part of calligraphy. This art has room to grind (see all the messy compositions), but it also includes the adrenaline rush of a performance, as the ink kisses the paper.

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It’s been fun to follow other word artists on Callivember, all wrestling with the same prompt every day. This is totally worth risk of being on Instagram. Digital platforms are power tools. They can foster powerful connections and will totally mess you up when used carelessly.

I don’t like being competitive, but such sentiments are unavoidable with numbers in social media. The most fashionable gets all the attention, and the algorithm nudges the rest of us towards envy. Fortunately, the Callivember cohort is much smaller than Inktober. I’m nowhere near the upper tier but am now comfortably in the middle class. Shrink the field and they have less fodder to feed my insecurities!

Cya next week!

,

PS: An airport manager gave us tickets to HallOVeen at Opportunity Village. We drew up this thank you card. It’s fun to get this calligraphy into the wild.

.

This week started chill because I finished Inktober the previous Sunday. Without pressure to produce, I practiced Copperplate script. But on Wednesday, I found out about #Callivember. Practice on pause, back on challenge!

,

camera
frozen wisps
amber waves

The lower 5WP with the ruling pen (used as a drafting tool!) was so different from previous pieces that I uploaded it to IG. But I’m also fond of the upper drawing’s nod to the lens aperture. It’s rare when one concept falls into place, much less two!

,

five words for the road

The “driving scene on Peppa Pig” concept landed quickly, but it took a few attempts to get right. Like architecture, each decision leads to more choices. The small details and the big concept are all interconnected. And then execution. Everything can be refined. More! More! More! Then you run out of time.

,

jumbo jet
crossing Orion’s belt

After omitting 75% of “road”, I took the next step and dropped the theme word altogether. I posted the jumbo-er “JET” on IG, but the lower version feels better composed. Maybe I need to try an extreme crop on the top version.

Before, I might soothe myself by planning to return to the these files. But time is much more expensive after kids, and I’d rather take a shot at a new composition. Oh well.

In architecture you also learn to live with the mantra “on to the next one”.

,

lost
in
circles
missing
navigator

I planned on a series of random overlapping circles, but concentric rings were just too friggin’ awesome. Take the win and run.

This piece also crystalized a nascent realization that readability is only one criteria among many for calligraphy.

,

a duet between
two violins

I really liked the font on the top drawing, but the lower one felt properly confrontational, thus getting the IG nod. The wording on this poem changed quite a bit as I worked on the composition for the visual pun. So I’m annoyed that I chickened out at the last letter and didn’t re-word it all the way to “duel”.

,

landmark
thirty-one
days of glyphs

Apologies for indulging in three versions of the the same image. The top two backgrounds were drawn by the boy last week while messing around on my desk. The bottom one was from Easter 2023, maybe the 2022.

And yes, this was inspired by Baskin Robbin’s old logo, even though I’ve never been there. They should have stuck to this classic 1991 BR logo. I understand why they updated away the original overtly western vibe, but the latest versions muddy the identity without injecting any new energy to the brand.

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glove stuffed with seven fingers

Before finding out about Callivember, I started to work on the backlog of old prompts from “Inktober52”, a weekly challenge to encourage folks to keep drawing outside of October. This one timed nicely as a slightly horrific 5 word flash fiction for Halloween.

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This closing section should have been reflections from completing #Inktober. Instead, I spent the weekend getting ahead on #Callivember to minimize the pressure during the workweek.

But the first month’s experience has been helpful. I’m tired, but now that I have a good rhythm, so I’m less stressed than two weeks ago. I doubt I’ll embark on a full 2-month challenge next year, but I feel comfortable with this year’s choice to keep going.

I’ve been lucky that fun ideas keep showing up with each prompt. The poem kickstarts the brain. Then the hand inserts feedback as ink hits the paper. And viola! something shows up, one or four hours later. Hopefully, my skill will increase next year so that I won’t have as many failed sheets for each word.

But hey, it should be about the process! So hopefully y’all enjoy the images, but selfishly, I’m #winning cause get to wander this journey.

Cya next week!

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PS. This is my first practice page of the basic strokes for Copperplate over the week. It was nice to focus on not-producing for a few days.

,

PPS—We finally made Jack-o’-lanterns, lit with cell phones.

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I kept pushing the graphics this week, to the point of dropping letters and even a word. I enjoy the visual puns, but this pace is not sustainable. Then again, we’re two-thirds through, so maybe I’ll just rest in November.

,

horizon
beyond
horizon
beyond
horizon

This was a frustrating composition. None of the various schemes felt right. I eventually settled on this because I ran out of time.

After posting this composition, I read Alan Furber’s short book Layout and Design for Calligraphers. It’s absolute gold. It energized the practice for the rest of this week. Total recommend, especially since it’s cheap on the used market.

,

range
rove
ramble
go
roam

I thought the Furber book would lead me to simpler compositions to execute, which was an accurate prediction for two days.

,

the
guidebook
ate
our
dog

I started with the trope “the dog ate…” but the page hinted at this vastly better poem.

,

greasy
groggy
gritty
grungy
grainy

I made a couple mistakes on the first version, which was corrected with black ink. While doing that, I realized that the red “gr” and “y” were unnecessary. A fortuitous mistake that led to the second version.

I used a ruling pen for GRUNGY. I’ve had one for years as part of a compass set, but had no idea what it did. With YouTube and Instagram, I am now cognizant of its capabilities but completely unable to write the lovely flowing script highlighted in those videos. Something to study after Inktober.

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journal
recenter
remind
reframe
relive

Between the two options, I made twenty-two attempts (and more if you include unfinished failures). I’m happy enough with both schemes, though neither one matches what they could have been. It’s the Ira Glass notion about the gap between your taste and your skill.

For the vertical “journal” I quickly learned Neuland to contrast against the main text. Funny how calligraphy betrays uncertainty and rawness, even in the most blocky forms. (BTW it was wicked tough to avoid spelling errors when writing backwards and skipping a letter in each word).

Both of these final images came from early attempts. Even so, I wouldn’t say that those four hours were spent in vain. Sometimes you have to go overboard to realize the limitations of your skill.

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drive
through
fear
glee
toil

These also took a ridiculous number of attempts to get “right”. Even then, I had to digitally edit the top version (shifting the page) and bottom version (correcting a mistake on “toil”).

It was fun to work in big caps using the 1 inch brush. But always nerve wracking to invest time on a page for a risky blowup on the final last loose word.

“DRIVE” is written with an informal version of my architectural lettering. I would be more tight on drawing sheets, but would use this hand when writing thank you notes after an interview (to remind prospective employers that I was a legit hand draftsman). Beyond that, I also drew guidelines on the sheets, instead of using my printed AutoCAD templates over a lightbox. This exercise was a nice throwback to the old days.

And I finally used the ruling pen as intended—to make thin straight lines!

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along the
ridge
of moons

along this blue ridge crescent
 

numbers line along a
ridge

This poem was an image first—a flowing script with a counterpoint of small text. I then burnt through sheets of paper trying to write a decent “ridge”, eventually settling on a pointed brush. Kill enough trees and you’ll eventually stumble into a few decent options.

After that, the 5WP’s were informed by the placement and execution of each “ridge” on the page. There are six other 5WP’s that aren’t shown, along with twenty+ sheets of now-scrap paper. I wonder how many IG postings by other folks are also from their thirtieth shot. Part of the anxiety of that place must stem from the seductive assumption that everyone else is sharing their single-shot perfection while I clumsily stumble through my endeavor.

,

I don’t have many deep thoughts on this week, aside from being tired.

Social media comes with the pressure to constantly to beat your previous best. That dynamic might be beneficial for a month-long push, but it must grind artists down over the long haul, especially with the casino gamification of the algorithm.

I’m not sure how artists can sustain a long term career, then again we’ve had the starving artist trope in our society long before Zuckerberg and OpenAI ate the internet.

Thoughts and prayers to all the real ones out there.

Cya next week!

,

Last weekend, the boy asked me to script this up. We’re no 2nd Amendment family, and we barely watch TV. When I asked him how he came up of the original sentence, he quickly added an adjective.

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