Fun with Quill Grips Part III

by Ariela

Quill grips knitted by Terri

Back in May I wrote about the discomfort I was experiencing as I started to write with a quill due to the shaft being narrower than was comfortable for me to grip. Terri knitted two quill grips for me to use, proving that she is a wonderful manager and best friend and sometimes just as inclined as I am to do weird stuff just because the idea is there.

Alas, I discovered I have a tendency to get ink on them. And when you get ink on yarn you are gripping firmly, it comes back out. Sometimes I just got it on my fingers, sometimes it dripped, and sometimes it gooshed out in truly unfortunate ways. No photographic evidence of this part exists, because whenever it happened I was occupied with grabbing for blotting rags rather than reaching for a camera. I refuse to attempt to recreate it for the interwebs - I have some dignity to maintain.

So I turned back to the Rainbow Loom grip that I made. It is significantly less comfy than Terri's knitted ones, but rubber bands have zero absorbance, so I just wiped it off whenever I got ink on it. It did not get quite as sweaty as I had feared it would, but the knobbiness got to be a problem if I wrote for more than an hour.

Around the same time that I was inspired to upgrade my nib organization, I was similarly inspired to look into solving the persistent irritant of my quill grip. I knew that what I really wanted was molding rubber, but that I also didn't want to deal with making a mold. Fortunately for me, other people have also had a similar desire, and some time spent googling around introduced me to Sugru.

I ordered some Sugru and after a number of delays I finally got it. Based on all the images and gifs I have seen of people putting it on wires and showing how bendy it is I assumed it would have a decent amount of squish to it after it cured. Between the formulation of that sentence and the photos of people using it to hang pots on the wall, you have probably guessed that this did not turn out to be the case. Yet somehow I failed to reason that out. So I wrapped the entire packet around it in an effort to increase the girth of the quill as much as possible to counteract the assumed squish. Turns out, Sugru is only bendy when small amounts are wrapped around other things that are bendy. When you wrap a chunk around something that doesn't have a heck of a lot of give to it, it's pretty solid.

The new quill grip made out of black Sugru. I chose black so that it won't show any staining from the ink.

I've been busy with other projects since I did this, so I haven't had a chance to test out the new grip for an extended period, which is always the proving ground. I may trim it down, or I may use another packet to make a narrower grip, perhaps with a bit more contouring, though I have never been a fan of those super-contoured pencil grips they make. But I think that Sugru is probably the solution I have been looking for.

Upgrading Nib Organization

by Ariela

When I feel like I cannot control what is going on in my life, one of my coping mechanisms is to clean and organize. Clutter makes me tense, and it acts as a good proxy for things I cannot actually control. Last year, during a particularly bad couple of weeks at work, I labeled every ten-inch span of the shelves in my pantry.

A few weeks ago, inspired by I am not sure what, I decided that I needed to upgrade my nib organization system. I mean, I know why I needed to improve the situation, I'm just not sure what prompted me to decide that now was the time that it needed to be fixed.

 This was my old organization system:

One box with slots, seven little envelopes, three little plastic bags, and one box labeled "random nibs" with utter chaos inside.

The plastic case with the different slots for 10 nibs, a piece of magnet, and reservoirs, was originally a set of Manuscript nibs that I bought years ago in a state of naivete. (I have since learned that I hate Manuscript everything, from their nibs to their cartridge pens.) I moved the Manuscript nibs somewhere else and put my primary set of nibs, right-handed Mitchell Roundhand nibs from John Neal Booksellers, in there. It's not space efficient, but it meant that I could find the correct size nib easily.

Not so for the rest of my nibs. My left-hand Mitchell nib set, used for certain Hebrew hands that require a different pen angle, I continued to keep in the little envelope John Neal sent it in. Every time I wanted a nib, I had to dump out the entire set and sort through them to find the right size. Ditto my backup sets of nibs for both right and left Mitchell nibs. All my other nibs were jumbled together in a small box held closed with a rubber band.

I thought about trying to get more cases like the one my Manuscript nibs came in, but it's not particularly space efficient.

The two nib organizers that don't meet my needs.

So I googled for "pen nib organizer." I came up with surprisingly little. Artbin has a container similar to the Manuscript one, but it has several compartments in which to put multiple nibs, which would still require a bunch of sifting through a bunch of nibs to find the right one. There was also an Etsy listing for a block of wood that would store the nibs pointing upright, perfect for stabbing yourself when trying to get the next nib over. But the second image result led me to this blog post from Studio Chavelli.

Where has this been all my life?!!?!? #OrganizeYourPenNibshttps://t.co/8RtcJ7YZu3

— GeekCalligraphy (@GeekCalligraphy) January 26, 2017

So over the following weekend, I made my own. I continue to be terrible about taking process photos, but here is my finished Nib Organizer Wallet:

Head-on view of the new nib organizer wallet, with my hand

Side view of the open nib organizer wallet

The first two rows or "pages" of nibs are both Mitchell Roundhands, righty nibs in front with the yellow paper, lefty second with the purple paper. The two remaining rows behind are both covered in white paper and contain my Brause poster nibs, a selection of Hunts, aka Speedball, and two random singletons with space for more at the back. Each is labeled, but the color and order tells me at a glance what is where.

The inside of the organizer is all corrugated cardboard, but I wanted the outside to be more durable. I used a different kind of cardboard that is much denser but also thinner and taped both a front and a back on just like extra pages. I added two additional pieces to create a top flap that lapped the front over. I covered it with some tan pleather I had lying around, gluing it in place with PVA glue. Then I cut a small notch in the front of the outside cover so that I could settle the socket half of a large snap in place. I then sewed the snap down with doubled button thread. I used a piece of durable blue fabric leftover from a bookbinding project to cover the inside of the front cover; cut it to size, pinked the edges, and then glued it into place with PVA. The blue cloth covered up the edges of the pleather and the ugly side of the stitches on the snap socket.

I cut a piece of the same blue cloth to cover the inside of the back cover next. I sewed the stud half of the snap to that fabric before pinking the edges and gluing it into place to keep from having to sew through the cardboard and leave the stitches showing on the other side of the pleather. I glued the pinked fabric with the snap sewn in to the inside of the back cover with PVA. And that was it.

I brought the new nib wallet with me to Capricon where I was doing some art demos. I could tell when a fellow dip-pen user walked by because they would stop and goggle at the open nib wallet next to me. I got nearly as many exclamations over the nib wallet as I did over the calligraphy in process. Clearly I am not the only one who has felt the absence of such an item in their life.

Con Schedule: Capricon with Bonus Boskone

by Ariela

Image shows the Capricon 37 flyer
Tagline: And the Children Shall Lead
Author Guest of Honor Beth Revis, Artist Guest of Honor Nilah Magruder, Fan Guest of Honor Meg Frank, Musical Guest Tim Griffin

I am off to Capricon this week!

Capricon 37
February 16-19
Westin Chicago North Shore
Wheeling, IL

In addition to hanging art in the show, I will be sitting on a number of panels.

Friday, 1:00 PM:  Theology in SF
Room: Botanic Garden Ballroom A
Panel # 96
How are real world and fictional religions portrayed in SFF? What authors get it right, and how does it go wrong?
Note that this panel will definitely cover Fantasy as well as Science Fiction regardless of the panel name. How do I know? I'm the moderator, that's how. Mwahahaha.

Saturday, 1:00 PM: BFFs in SFF
Room: Botanic Garden Ballroom B
Panel # 100
Our panelists explore the power of female friendship in fiction, media, and gaming.

Saturday, 5:30 PM: Art in the BEFORE TIMES.....
Room: Birch A
Panel # 10
A look at the way art was produced before digital tools were readily available.

Sunday, 10:00 AM: Getting Started in Costuming and Cosplay
Room: Birch A
Panel # 110
Is there a better way to show your love of a character than to cosplay as them? We don't think so. Creating original costumes is an amazing way to express your creativity. Panelists and audience exchange costume creation tips.

Sunday, 12:00 PM: Diversity Programming
Room: Birch A
Panel # 26
What does diversity programming mean? How do we move from being purposefully diverse to organically diverse?

I will also be doing art demos at the art show at X times. Come stop by!

Bonus art show: Boskone!

In addition, we are sending art to the Boskone 54 Art Show, February 17-19 at the Westin Boston Waterfront in Boston, MA. Terri might stop by on Sunday, but no guarantees. If you were not able to snag a piece of art you wanted at the Arisia show, stop by Boskone, it might be there!

More Advice for Artists: On Contracts

Including Sample contracts for Ketubot and Teaching Workshops

by Ariela

In addition to the "Judaism's Influence on SFF" panel, I also sat on a panel on "Consulting & Contracting: How To Make (For) Money." We covered a lot of practical advice, ranging from answering specific questions from the audience to general advice (Find a nice person to do your taxes for you, they are worth every penny!).

This is what a sample of the first page of Ariela's boilerplate contract looks like.

One of the "brass tacks" sections that I insisted we cover was the basic parts of a contract. For me, they are:

• Deliverables - make sure everyone understands what is being promised and what is not within the scope of the project.
• Timeline, Breakdown, and Deadlines - make sure everyone knows what has to happen first and that deadlines work both ways; you cannot deliver the product on time if you don't get the necessary answers and pieces on time.
• Copyrights, etc. - lay out who holds the rights to what once the project is done.
• Payment - set the payment schedule and the projected cost, with a caveat that changes to the scope of the project along the way will change the price, probably increasing; include late fees if possible.
• Provision for changes - lay out the process by which a party can request changes to the deliverables or contract, plus cost renegotiation.
• Escape Clause - how can the contract be canceled?

We also talked about finding contract templates online. There are lots of them available. The Graphic Artists' Guild has some good examples. However, I mentioned that since my commission work - ketubot (Jewish marriage documents) - is so niche, none of the samples I found really covered the particulars I needed. At which point the other panelists turned to me and asked "Have you put a sample online for other artists?" And I went, "Oh, yeah, that would be a good thing to do."

So here: Sample Contract for Ketubah Art and Calligraphy

Please feel free to download it and alter it to suit your needs. It is not watermarked and does not have the Geek Calligraphy logo on it, and you should feel free to remove the attribution at the end when you adapt it for yourself. I want this to be as widely available as possible.

You may notice that it is long. Many sample art contracts are just one page. This one covers a lot of specifics to the ketubah trade, and there are many fiddly details to be worked out when the contract is to produce another contract.

While I am at it, I also want to make available my other mainstay contract, the one for teaching engagements. I mostly teach in my safrut (Jewish ritual scribing) hat, but I am available for teaching regular Hebrew or English calligraphy as well. And I won't teach without a contract.

Sample Contract for Teaching Engagement

This one is a lot more generic, and there are plenty of other sample contracts for teaching isolated gigs out there. Find one that covers your particulars.

Some Words of Warning

Now remember kids! Don't ever work without a contract unless you are willing to be stiffed completely for the project.

Unfortunately, even having a contract is not a guarantee of getting paid. Sometimes just getting a lawyer to write a threatening letter on official stationery is enough to inspire a client to pay. But then there are times you have to make a decision about whether it is worth contacting a collections agency or taking the client to small claims court to get paid or just needing to eat the loss. But if you don't have a contract, the chances of not getting paid are much, much higher. I know this from experience. And if anyone balks at signing a contract run away fast.

This goes just as much for work you do for friends and family as it does for work you do for strangers. Many friends are lovely and respectful about it, but others turn out to be nightmare clients. Spend some time on Clients from Hell and you will see complaints about people whom you thought were close to you expecting hours of free labor by dint of relationship. Your work is valuable and people do not have a right to impose on you just because they are friends or family.

While we're talking about the worth of your work, a topic on which I have expressed strong feelings in the past, let's talk for a moment about pricing. I won't go into specifics because I can't even begin to create a price chart for my own work, nevermind for someone else's, given the number of potential variables. But don't think that just because you are new to professional art-ing that you shouldn't get paid. Particularly please do not think that you are doing other, more experienced artists a disservice by charging. When you charge too little, you a) set up expectation that your prices will be too low in the future, and b) you cut the market out from underneath everyone. So for the love of whatever higher power you embrace, please charge what your time is worth and get a contract signed.

Judaism in Dialog with SFF Fandom

by Ariela

On Saturday, January 14, I sat on a panel at Arisia entitled "Judaism's Influence on SFF." The irony of the timing aside, the room was packed beyond capacity and it went very well. The last question the moderator, Michael Burstein, posed was not about SFF stories, but about fandom, namely "How has Judaism influenced your fandom?" This is the substance of my answer, expanded slightly and with added context.

Judaism has influenced almost every aspect of my life, and fandom is no exception to that rule. In fact, I sometime refer to Judaism as my first and primary fandom.

The Jewish culture in which I grew up bears some striking resemblances to fannish culture, and perhaps it prepared me to move into fandom by dint of familiarity. For context, I grew up in an observant but gender egalitarian household in Boston. My parents are Ashkenazi, meaning we are of Eastern European descent, as were the communities in which we lived and participated, though not all of our communities were gender egalitarian.

Here is a short, non-exclusive list of things from my Jewish upbringing that is also true for fandom:

Part of the Oz VeHadar edition of the Babylonian Talmud. Image from zolsefer.co.il.

• Books. Books books books. Did I mention books?
• Learning the contents of those books well is not only encouraged, it is a means of accruing social status. People who can cite wide swaths of text to back up their opinions are given social points. Points, too, for being able to recite large portions of text from memory.
• Books are also used for social display. More books is better, and buying expensive multivolume sets of Talmud and Codes is considered a laudable expenditure.
• Debate is an enormous part of the Jewish body of texts, and is still enthusiastically practiced today. Debate over minutiae is encouraged and debate over ridiculous hypotheticals is practically an art form. Again, social status awarded to those with the best arguments, eloquence a plus.
• It's expensive. Kosher food is expensive. Jewish education is expensive. All those books are expensive. More money makes participation easier.

So Judaism made fandom more accessible to me through familiarity. But what about the other way around? Has fandom enhanced my Judaism?

I have not found that my personal observance or my spiritual life has been advanced by my fandom. However, I have discovered that fandom is a wonderful vehicle to explain my Judaism to my fannish friends.

Being an observant Jew means that Judaism affects almost everything about my life. From taking the holidays off work to saying a blessing each time after I use the bathroom, Judaism is not just something I think about but something I am actively doing all day, every day. For friends who mostly grew up with some flavor of Christianity, whether they adhere to it or not, this isn't something that's easy to process. To them I explain, Rabbinic Judaism is a 2000 year long LARP.

This sounds like a flippant thing to say, but bear with me; I say it in all respect with the intent to convey some of the important aspects of how living an observant Jewish life is a lens through which we view the world. Also, here is the disclaimer about this being an analogy and not being or trying to be a perfect representation of Judaism.

Rabbinic Judaism is not the Judaism described in the Torah. In this analogy, the Torah is more like the list of books that you see when you open a DnD manual, the ones that you loved so much you want to participate in them, the ones that inspired you to start playing but don't actually give you any mechanics by which to play.

Our first attempt at a set of rules was the Mishnah. Like the first edition of DnD, it was incomplete and buggy. (In fact, it wasn't actually a rulebook at all, but a selection of legal discussions, in the course of which some laws are decided. Details, details.) No one uses it now, but it was the place where the project started. The rulebooks expanded out from there, the Gemara, the Commentaries, and then out to the Codes. Along the way we get significant geographic variations in our rules, as well as extensive discussion about said rules ranging from polite to vitriolic. The flame wars, ooooh, the flame wars we have.

Where the comparison really becomes useful is to explain how we use these laws to govern our daily lives. Halacha, Jewish law, is our world mechanics.

Take, for example, the prohibition on mixing milk with meat. On the surface that sounds simple enough. But what counts as mixing? Answer: we have rules for that! Let's say you accidentally get something meaty into your dairy dish, doesn't matter how. By Jewish law, it's okay to eat as long as you cannot taste the meat in the dish. But what if you taste it and discover that you can taste the meat? Then you will have violated the law? The obvious solution might be to find a trusty Gentile friend, who has no such prohibition, and ask them. But what if you have no trusty Gentile friend available? For much of Jewish history, we couldn't count on having non-Jewish neighbors who would be friendly or accessible, so a heuristic was developed: if you have a liquid dairy dish, as long as the meaty thing that was accidentally dripped in comprises less than 1/60th of the total volume, you can assume that it doesn't affect the taste. There are different rules for solids. Being hot or spicy is also taken into account. There's a whole decision tree. Are you starting to see the parallels between this and rolling a Diplomacy check when trying to convince the guard to let you into the city?

Extrapolate from here. Whenever I run into a situation where Jewish law applies, which is extremely often, this is the sort of check I run in my head. We have Jewish law on business, ethics, food, charity, clothes (there is a preferred order of operations for putting on shoes with laces). These are the mechanics by which I engage world.

Of course the purpose of a LARP is for everyone to have fun and the purpose of Jewish law is for people to lead a moral life in accordance with the commandments of G-d and improve the world. The analogy only goes so far and the ethical monotheism component of Judaism is neither trivial nor optional. But when trying to explain to my fannish friends how Judaism influences my life when I am not having theological discussions, it's a useful analogy to make.

Ben Zoma said: Who is wise? One who learns from every person.
-Ethics of the Fathers 4:1

Back on Wednesday

by Ariela

Terri and I are in the throes of the final day of Arisia and expect to be Ded of Con this evening. We will be back on Wednesday with our January product release.

Ariela is a bit drained.

Will we see you at Arisia?

by Ariela

Arisia Logo

For the first time since the official founding of Geek Calligraphy, Terri and I will both be at the same con! We will both be attending Arisia later this week, January 13-16 at the Westin Boston Waterfront.

Much of our website inventory will be hanging in the Art Show, so if you have had your eye on a piece of art but didn't want to pay shipping, stop in and see if one is to be had! While all the prints on our site come matted, some will come framed at the art show. There is also a bonus, con-only piece.

We can't fit one of everything or all sizes of everything in the show, but we will have a bunch of stock with us that isn't hung. Please tweet at us @GeekCalligraphy or text us at 805-399-2244 if you would like to ask if we have something not on display. Be aware that we will not answer on Friday night or Saturday until 6:30pm, though, due to Sabbath observance. (Arisia's art show gets its money from panel fees rather than commissions, so we are not shorting the con any money. We wouldn't do that.)

Con Schedule

Mark your schedules!

I will be sitting on a number of panels at Arisia this year.

Friday, 8:30 PM:  Practical Considerations for Costumers
Room: Douglas (3W)
Panel # 310
Our panel of veteran costumers talk about everything from pockets, to footwear, to how to wear your badge in character. They'll address costume and prop transport and storage, ways to increase your own personal comfort in costume, and safety tips for costuming in crowds.

Saturday, 10:00 AM: Funding Your Muse
Room: Marina 3 (2E)
Panel # 541
We all dream of making a living doing what we love. How do you make your art profitable without losing your inspiration? Several artists who have managed it talk about choosing a direction that satisfies both needs.

Saturday, 1:00 PM: Judaism's Influence on SFF
Room: Adams (3W)
Panel # 621
Jewish theology and culture permeates science fiction across all mediums. What effect has Judaism had on the development of SF/F and fandom in general?

Saturday, 10:00 PM: Consulting & Contracting:How To Make (For) Money
Room: Marina 3 (2E)
Panel # 533

Sunday, 10:00 AM: Well-Behaved Women Rarely Make Fantasy
Room: Marina 2 (2E)
Panel # 172
From Susan Pevensie's lipstick to fan-hate for Sansa Stark, feminine characters often get shortchanged by fantasy authors and fans alike, losing out in comparison with the Strong Female Protagonist archetype. Why does this happen? Which feminine characters manage to succeed against this stereotype? Is the trend changing, and why?

There are Friday Night Services at Arisia this year that are open to anyone who wishes to attend. They will be held at 5:30pm in Alcott (3W). We will both be in attendance.

And you can always tweet at us (we just won't be looking at Twitter from Friday afternoon to Saturday at 5:30pm).

Can't wait to see you there!

ETA: The official Art Show Opening reception will be at 10pm on Friday night, and we will both be there, wearing green and purple to match our company colors. Come say hi!

Year in Review

by Terri & Ariela

"Well, that was interesting*." ~ Just About Everyone

It's been a year. There were plenty of highs and just about as many lows. We released 14 products, discovered that Ariela is eligible to be nominated for awards (more on that later), did our best to keep Combover Caligula out of the White House (didn't succeed on that one).

Picture shows chibi Terri and chibi Ariela toasting with champagne flutes. Terri is giving the thumbs up.
Not pictured is the next frame, where Ariela is passed out after drinking half a glass of champagne.

Some important numbers from Geek Calligraphy in 2016:

• Got our 1st business license (in Chicago, you need to renew every two years, so this is the first of many)
• Launched 1st ecommerce website
• Launched social media presence on 3 platforms: Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr
• Released 14 new products since launch
• Donated items to 2 charities, raising a total of $196
• Hung art in 4 art shows in 3 states
• Ariela started scribing her 1st sacred text (Megillat Ester/Scroll of Esther)

We now have 14 art prints, 8 greeting cards, 5 ketubah designs, 3 miscellaneous Judaica products, and several small add-ons.

When Ariela was first signing up for our website platform (we use SquareSpace because of our ketubah form needs), she was debating between two service packages, one which allowed a maximum of 20 products and a more expensive one that allowed for unlimited items. We're rather thrilled that we need the latter.

Before the nomination period for the 2016 Hugo Awards closed (back in March), Terri noticed something very interesting. Well, first off she noticed that the Artist categories delineated by the Hugos were rather antiquated and no longer reflect the SF/F art landscape. But in her examination of the categories she realized that because our art has been shown at convention art shows, Ariela is eligible for the Best Fan Artist** award. Due to yet another instance of #Puppygate, a last minute campaign did not get enough nominating ballots to put Ariela on the list. We are hoping that in 2017, the air will clear some. 

Since Geek Calligraphy art has been hung in convention art shows in 2016, once again Ariela is eligible to be nominated for the Fan Artist Hugo. If you are in a position to nominate, we hope you will consider her work.

It's been a good first year for Geek Calligraphy, PCA (present circumstances aside).

Our efforts to make the world a better place continue.  While we were blindsided by the results of the election in November, we have both gotten back up and are doing our best to keep fighting. Each of us has our preferred social justice avenues in our private lives, but here at Geek Calligraphy we will continue to make art. We hope it will inspire you, help you feel less alone, and help you to keep getting up each day. And we're gearing up to meet 2017 head-on.

*The sort implied in "may you live in interesting times," or "Oh god, oh god, we're all gonna die!"

**"But wait," we're hearing the peanut gallery declare, "Ariela and Terri make money from the art. Doesn't that make Ariela a professional artist?" NOPE! The Pro Artist category requires your art to have appeared in a for-sale print publication (magazine/book cover, book illustrations, etc). This means that you could be making a primary living from art, but unless you've been published that year, you're just a fan. Hence the reference to antiquated categories.***

***TERRI'S NOTE TO SELF: We do not have time/bandwidth to submit a proposal to the 2017 WSFS Business Meeting. We do not have time/bandwidth to submit a proposal to the 2017 WSFS Business Meeting. We do not have time/bandwidth to submit a proposal to the 2017 WSFS Business Meeting. We do not have time/bandwidth to submit a proposal to the 2017 WSFS Business Meeting.

Ariela's Love-Hate Relationship with Her Computer

by Ariela

Surface Pro 2, image courtesy of TechSpot.
It's ... okay ... I guess.

In our comedy of chibis last week, I revealed that I grudgingly use a Surface Pro 2. I feel some amount of shame over this. Between my membership in the graphics community and the tech community, I have been strongly inculcated with scorn for Windows. So this is me justifying my choice publicly, and also griping about the situation that led me to it.

Before I left NYC in 2012, I had an iMac desktop and an Ubuntu laptop. I used the Mac for image processing and the laptop for when I was on the go. I had an Intuos II 4"x5", but I did a lot less imaging then, so the tiny work surface wasn't such a hardship. I'd gotten the iMac secondhand as a discard from my uncle's office when they upgraded, so by the time I moved, the cost of packaging it properly to keep the screen from breaking would have been far greater than the value of the computer. Also, when moving to Chicago I started telecommuting and my day job set me up with a workstation at home, and two desktops for one person seemed ridiculous. So I left the iMac with Terri and went to Chicago with my Ubuntu laptop as my only personal computer.

By the time the laptop began to die, I was convinced that running PhotoShop in WINE wasn't going to cut it for me. While I know GIMP has its enthusiastic supporters, it doesn't work for me and I loath using it. I also wanted to get something with a touch screen, since my tiny Wacom tablet was getting cramped, and I prefered the idea of a display I could work on directly.

I was all set to get an iPad and ditch the laptop entirely until I discovered that iPads can't run the full version of PhotoShop. Print resolution for me is 800 dpi and I sometimes work as large as 18"x24". PhotoShop Express maxes out at 72 dpi and 1000 px x 1000 px. So I abandoned that idea and began looking for computers with touchscreens built in. I didn't want to have to get a box and then also an expensive external display.

With Apple making nothing with a full computer operating system and a touch screen, I began looking at PCs. Reviews quickly made it clear that the most sensitive touch screen was on the Surface Pro line. The Surface Pro 2 had come out a few months before and I decided on that. I named it Yang Guifei, a joke which no one has yet gotten, but pleased me.

It came with Windows 8.1 64-bit, and ... it did what I needed it to do. Which was what I had aimed for, but other than that it had a lot of annoying quirks. It also didn't recognize different levels of pressure from the stylus in PhotoShop, which infuriated me at first, but then I found a driver online that fixed that, and after that, the only problems were those that inveitably resulted from an OS that was trying to be both a laptop and a tablet simultaneously and managing to be neither particularly well. Windows 10 eliminated some of that jankiness (the onscreen keyboard no longer pops up every time I put my mouse in a text field despite having keyboard cover attached), but brought with it all the problems that everyone knows and hates about Windows 10. It still reboots unpredictably for no reason I can find, so I have been inspired to save obsessively, which isn't a bad habit, but I shouldn't have to protect myself from guerilla rebooting. And as with any Windows machine, its primary purpose seems to be to run Windows updates.

My Surface Pro 2 is 3 years old now and is beginning to show its age, so I am starting to watch tech news again to see what I might want to get next time. Apple just unveiled its newest laptops, and still hasn't added a touch screen, which has me and a lot of other graphics people I know scratching our heads. (I remain uninterested in buying a computer and an external touch screen, so AirDisplay and Duet's promise of being able to use an iPad as a touchscreen monitor for another device is not enticing to me at all.) Then, as if we don't already have enough proof that 2016 is the year Normal decided to take a leap out a window, Microsoft came out with the Surface Studio, which has impressed the heck out of most people I have spoken with.

I'm hoping to eke at least another year out of this computer before I have to shell out more money. I'm hoping Apple will release a MacBook Pro Pro with a touchscreen before then, but chances are good that I will wind up with a Surface Pro 5.

A Short Guide to the Artistic Process

by Ariela

It's been a fairly productive year here at Geek Calligraphy. In addition to the launch of our website, we put out 13 new products this year (number 14 to come out in December). We have noticed that our projects all tend to fall into the same pattern. So, we present to you, The Artistic Process of Geek Calligraphy, A Comedy.

Dramatis Personae:
Chibi Ariela - The Artist, identifiable by her black driver's cap with a copper badge.
Chibi Terri - The Manager, identifiable by her purple everything and green eyes.

Stage 1: The Idea

Most of the time, a project starts out like this:

Image shows Ariela and Terri at their respective computers.* Ariela is saying "I have an idea!" and Terri responds "Great, let's put it on the calendar."

*Terri is a Mac user. For her sins, Ariela has a Surface Pro 2 by attrition.

Sometimes, though, Terri is the instigator:

Image shows Terri and Ariela on the phone. Terri says "Have you ever considered doing something with $_idea?" and Ariela responds, "That's really good. I must go do it Right Now!"

Stage 2: The Honeymoon Phase

Most projects start out with starry-eyed idealism, as I am convinced that this project where everything will be perfect.

Image shows Ariela sketching at her drafting table saying to herself "This is going to be the best thing ever. Having so much fun!" Appallingly, she is humming to herself.

Unfortunately, this stage doesn't last.

Stage 3: Reality Intrudes

Image shows Ariela at her drafting table, brow furrowed, saying, "Hmm maybe not quite as easy as I thought."

As with all plans, they don't tend to ever come off exactly as they are on paper. Or, in this case, they don't make it to paper exactly as they were in my mind.

Stage 3 can last a short time or a long time, but it is invariably followed by...

Stage 4: Despair

Image shows Ariela headdesking at the drafting table, eyes squeezed shut, wailing, "I ruined it forever, it sucks, I suck, why did I ever think I could do this, I need to go throw my drafting table out the window..." Terri, in a speech bubble emanating from Ariela's cell phone, says, "Babe, you're done for the night. Have a cup of tea and stay away from the art for a few days." Terri is knitting a rainbow shawl and has her headset in like a sensible person.

Every project has a stage where you get lost in the weeds for a while. When you hit this point, continuing to work through it is frequently a losing proposition. The best thing to do, if you are not on a looming deadline and have the luxury, is step away and do something completely different until something clears out in your brain and you can resume work without whatever brain lactic acid buildup was putting you in a funk. Many artists have to do this for themselves, but if you are lucky you have supportive colleagues or a Trusty Artist Wrangler (TM) like Terri to take the pen or brush from your clutching fingers, take you gently by the shoulders, and propel you away from the art for a while so you can recharge and return.

Stage 5: Determination

Image shows Ariela, looking unenthused, working at her drafting table saying "I guess I haven't ruined it entirely."

After some time away, it's usually possible to come back and resume work, even if it's not quite so enthusiastic as at first.

Stage 6: Fed Up

Image shows exasperated Ariela working at her drafting table saying, "I just want this to be done. I am sick of it."

By the time I am close to finishing a project, usually I am heartily sick of it. Since most of my art maxes out at 18"x24" and four months' active work, I can't even begin to fathom how writers work on a manuscript for so much longer. Writers, I tip my hat to you.

Stage 7: Finish Up

Image shows a resigned Ariela, holding a paper at arm's length, saying, "*Sigh* I guess this is as good as I can get. Or as good as I can stand to make it. Whatever." She has her headset in. Terri also has her headset in and is saying, "Babe, it's fine. No one will see those nitpicks unless you keep pointing them out. She has made progress on her rainbow shawl.

I had a wonderful mentor in my high school English teacher who told me, "Art isn't finished, it gets abandoned." This was wonderful advice, as it gave me, an obsessive perfectionist, permission to stop. I'm never quite good enough to bring something from my head into the world exactly as I see it. I've gotten much better over the years, but it never happens. At some point I say, "Well, I can't stand to look at this anymore, so it will have to be good enough."

Alternate Creative Process

Sometimes the creative process doesn't follow the above pattern. When it does, it goes like this:

Image shows Ariela and Terri at their computers again, much like in Step 1. Ariela says, "I have a great-" and an exasperated Terri cuts her off saying, "No."

Ariela: I just-
Terri: No.
Ariela: But-
Terri: NO.
Terri now has her arms crossed and a vein throbbing in her forehead.

Image shows very peeved looking Terri saying, "You currently have 3 projects in various stages of production. And you had 2 new ideas already this week. Last I checked, you still had a day job, an apprenticeship, a spouse, and a biological need to sleep and go to the bathroom. When were you planning to do this?:"

Image shows Ariela looking sheepish and somewhat downcast saying "Right." Terri responds "Make a note of it and we'll talk about it when your docket clears a bit."

Alas, not every idea can be executed immediately. This would be the reason why Terri sometimes says that her job description is "Artist wrangler and professional killjoy."

Historical note

The above comedy is a dramatization of real persons and events. Liberties have been taken with dialog, order of events, and even the outfits of the people involved (Terri does sometimes wear things that are not purple).

On a more serious note, I am not actually all id when producing art and Terri is not all superego. There's a lot of give and take in the process. Sometimes I take both parts in the process, because, you know, that's what being an adult and a professional artist is about. But I like to outsource as much of the calendaring and reality-checking to Terri whenever possible. It makes it easier for me to maintain a sense of wonder about the art and keeps me from burning out too frequently. It also frees up my time to spend more on the artistic side of the business.

While I could do this without Terri, I am very, very grateful not to have to. For artists who do not have their own Terri, a network of supportive colleagues is crucial, to help you out when you're stuck in the despair of Stage 4 and to remind you that it really is important to say no to some ideas and opportunities.

Finally, while I speak in generalities about The Artistic Process, nothing here will be true for everyone. Your process may be radically different, doesn't make it any less art. I am not Speaker for the Artists.

And if you are an artist who never experiences the despair of Stage 4, please contact me ASAP to tell me what your secret is.