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Good embossing begins with good, fine
tracing. This does not always depend on the size of the nib but
the angle at which the pen is held. Hold the pen upright, touch
it to the paper and 'skate' it over the surface. Using the pen
in the normal writing position gives too much pressure and
splays the nib, giving heavier lines. Try on a scrap of
parchment first to make sure the ink is flowing, and to avoid an
initial blot.
New nibs can be dipped in
hot water or wiped with spirit and washed before use.
Roll or shake the white
ink well, dip the nib just half way and, when you run out of
ink, don't re-dip without rinsing and taking off the water with
kitchen paper. Some prefer to wipe the nib on a damp sponge to
remove the ink. White ink is a chalky substance and can soon
build up a heavy deposit on the nib, which makes it difficult to
achieve fine lines.
Traced lines, most of the
time, should vanish into the embossing. Depending upon the
design, there will be times when the outline is part of the
effect.
When starting to trace,
look at the design, not to see how much you can trace but how
much you can leave out. Connecting lines, veins in leaves,
stamens, etc., can all be put in afterwards with a stylus,
extra-fine point, scriber or one-needle tool. This way you are
tracing and embossing at the same time and it gives a much
crisper look to the finished piece. If you trace fine lines and
try to emboss over them afterwards, you invariably wobble away
from the line and it looks messy.
Frames and borders can be
done without tracing, by marking the ends of lines or corners
with a dot of white pencil, turning over the parchment and
joining the dots with a ruler and embossing tool.
When embossing remember
that the parchment is your darkest shade and use it to help give
shadows. Don't over emboss so that it all looks the same.
Practice using all your tools doodling, to find out what they
will do for you. The base of a tool and the new shaders will
give a greyness or a very soft white. Going up through the sizes
to the finest, the tools will give you varying degrees of
whiteness and fineness of line.
Begin your embossing with
a large-ball tool or shader to soften the parchment and start to
stretch the fibres. Then work up through the different sizes,
going over the work with varying pressure to give you light and
shade. Put more pressure towards edges that overlap to make them
stand out, trying not to emboss so heavily on the part
underneath which will give the shadow.
Sometimes your embossing
will benefit from letting it rest before embossing again,
especially the parts that need to be really white.
The dots or spots in
lacework have to fill the space and if you just go round and
round you will find you have a grey spot in the middle, which
you can't get rid of. To avoid this, work from side to side, or
up and down, as if making a square and then round the edges to
finish off.
Various textures can be
produced with stippling (on a hard mat) cross-hatching with a
single-needle tool and soft shading. Shape and depth can be
given by embossing from both front and back.
When you think you have
finished you may be able, depending on the design, to use a
stylus or scriber to crisp up small details such as the tips of
leaves and petals.
It should be noted that
White pencil
is now used very often for tracing white work, which helps to
reduce harsh outlines, but ink tracing is required for parts of
the Guild exams and so fine tracing needs to be mastered.
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