How to Set Up a Calligraphy Workspace

Video Transcript

"Hi, I'm Joanna Joseph, for Expert Village, and I'm here to talk about Calligraphy. But I lay down a towel that I don't care about keeping nice because it might get a little ink on it. I lay that down first to protect my clothing. I can't believe I'm wearing a white shirt frankly, and then I have another cotton cloth and this one's been around a long time too, you can tell. That I'm going to, you'll see me knock my pen into it after I've used it. I rinse it in water and knock it on here, and dry my pen with it. So that's that. Then on my table I have what I call a dump sheet, right here on the left. That's to pull excess ink out of my pen before I actually start lettering. I also have a stack of paper and a pencil over here on the right to think with because thumbnail sketches are a very important part of the calligraphic process. One more thing is a guard sheet. Our hands, our skin does have oils and sweat that we don't want to get on the paper because it'll effect the paper. Even if you're not touching the ink, by the time you do start lettering down here, if those oils are on the paper it'll react differently. So, I have a sheet of paper and I actually take a sheet of paper and fold it. There's something about two layers that just glides a little easier. Now, I'm set to go."