Day 48: 2013 Correcting lettering in a journal

When I asked Cathy Johnson for permission to quote the blog.....
There's a correction: this wonderful suggestion is from Pam Johnson Brickell and her wonderful work. Sorry Pam that you didn't get the initial credit but I'm hoping this will make up for it?

I follow this wonderful blog on keeping a watercolor journal - "Artist's Journal Workshop".  I can always dream of being able to keep a beautiful journal like Cathy Johnson or maybe Brenda Swenson can't I? Cathy is a generous teacher of journaling and workshops and how to's.

In today's blog, which I've copied whole - I did ask permission because I think this is a wonderful lesson for all of us -  she talks about making a typo on a "precious" journal page (Those Are My Words) - I would have committed hara kiri if I'd drawn that wonderful page and then made a huge typo.

I thought this was a useful lesson for all of us.

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WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 20, 2013

Correcting Lettering Mistakes

A lot of times I'll wait until I get home before adding lettering to a journal page. Mainly because of time and comfort. But on this particular day, I felt quite comfy perched on my camp stool and the 8.5 x 11 journal page in my Stillman and Birn Alpha hardbound journal was such a dream to work on.

However, on the way home, I began to wonder if this really was Harbour Town's Liberty Oak. There were two very large oaks in the heart of Harbour Town.  The magnificence of this tree, with it's sprawling low lying branches surely struck me as the one to bear this name...... Not!

Long ago, a skilled calligrapher taught me how to correct mistakes... Tip: correct your mistake before you lift any unwanted lettering.  Huh? Yes, write over the lettering on the page, then white out or lift off what you don't want.

That way the stroke of the corrected lettering will be smooth and you won't have to contend with the often bumpy texture left by white out or white ink.  I used a Signo Uniball broad tip white pen, available from JetPens.com.

I decided to turn Liberty Oak into Live Oak.  The RTY of Liberty would be taken out.  A good size space would be left between the two words.  I decided to put the tree's Latin name between Live and Oak.... a quirky fix, but it worked for me :)

Since this is a journal page and not a piece of calligraphic art, I was willing to live with a bumpy surface to write the smaller replacement text on.