S is for Sea-shells, scrolls and spirals

Hello everyone! We are nearing the end of the alphabet so fast; these weeks are just flying by!  I hope my tag this week will remind you of the seaside and take your mind off the rather depressing weather of late!

My tag was inspired by some drawings of shells I found while sorting out my old artwork.

I wanted to write something in a calligraphic Spiral ~ beautiful writing that forms a continuous curve around a central point or axis. Having found my shell drawings, that old tongue-twister ‘She Sells Sea-Shells’ sprang to mind:

She sells sea-shells on the sea shore;

The shells that she sells are sea-shells I'm sure.

So if she sells sea-shells on the sea shore,

I'm sure that the shells are sea-shore shells.

The whole rhyme made rather a large spiral which was difficult to read, so I just used half of it and wrote using spiral guidelines on one side of my shells.  Start reading from the center.

 

Here are the spiral guidelines I use:

To decorate my tag I made a mini scroll.  I wrote on the paper using my scroll nib pen.

Scroll nibs are double pointed nibs which make double lines, they are ideal for decorative writing, shadow writing, borders and lining a mount.

I coloured in some of the letters using coloured pencils then rolled up the paper into a scroll.  I had one broken scroll nib, so bound it onto the scroll with a length of embroidery thread, making a tie to match.

I did some more shadow-writing using the scroll pen to go with the other shells in my Calligraphy Abecedary.

I have had such fun this week for this tag! Thank you for looking, and for all your sweet comments.

Looking forward to seeing all your creations this week,

Bye for now

Jane xx