iiinova — where your digital self keeps evolving

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

And, of course, everyone practiced the letterforms! I'm not alt-texting each of the pictures below. They all show close-ups of various people's hands working on letterforms, either with pen and ink, or just practicing the shapes with pencils. #Calligraphy

100 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Kevin showed off his very neat convertible pen-holder, where the flange comes out and it becomes a straight holder! He also showed off his 'one-dip wonder' magnetic reservoir, from Tom's Studio (for sale at Scribbler's and Cornellissen).

A beautiful oblique pen holder made of clear resin with silver ornaments embedded with in.

The same penholder from the previous picture, except the oblique flange has been removed and now the nib is inserted directly in the end. It's a straight pen-holder now!

The underside of the oblique holder, where a little spring is attached magnetically to the nib. This provides more surface area for ink to cling to, so the pen can write longer on a single dip.

100 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

While we were there, it turned out we have a little nest of bookbinders! So we've updated our monthly schedule to have a bookbinding session later this year.

110 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 03/10/2026

Glasgow Scribes had its October meeting today, where Fiona taught us about copperplate! She showed us her own practice and training materials, including this magnificent ostrich.

A table with Copperplate calligraphy practice pages and some beautifully addressed envelopes

$A page on which is written, in Copperplate 'The ostrich roams the great Sahara zz Its mouth is wide is neck is narra \\ It has such long and lofty legs \\ I'm glad it sits to lay its eggs', with the words circling a stylized drawing of an ostritch with magnificent eyelashes$

110 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

And the last ones! See? We're pretty good at what we do!

White capitals on a black background with a grey moon and white stars:

If you can say
'It's a braw bright
moonlicht Night'
ye're aricht, ye ken

Gothic blackletter textura quadrata reading 'The present moment', written atop a background of overlapping gothic letters that blend into a textural impression without being perfectly legible.

Gothic blackletter reading

Template
i. colour
ii. lines
iii. letters
iv. words
v. script

= Steez

written atop very pale background of the word 'template', with other notes and markings.

020 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Moving on to work from some of our other members who are not on bluesky, but still wield a mean pen:

The word 'alphabet' in Italic letters, with stylized A and Z flanking it.

Free roman capitals on a pale blue and white background: 'And God said let there be light | Genesis', with a gilded cross by the last word.

The word 'LOVE' against a decorative zentangled background, all black pen.

Brown text with lombardic versals as the head and free Roman capitals as the main text:

Miracles Occur

If you care to call those
spasmodic tricks of radiance
miracles.

The wait's begun again
The long wait for the Angel
For that rare random descent.

From Rainy Weather by Sylvia Plath
Signed HAR

130 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

In fact, in addition to the alphabets, he also made this study of Celtic design!

All four panels of the alphabets described above.

Insular majuscule script with Celtic decorated capitals S, D, B, and P. Text reads

Scimus autem
quoniam
dilligentibus

Deum omnia
cooperantur in
onum his qui
secundum

Propositum
vocati
sunt sancti

110 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

We also have some alphabet studies, still from @calligraphyoutside.bsky.social, who was VERY BUSY this year, it seems!

Alphabet in green typewriter-like script.

Alphabet of sans-serif capitals, rendered in negative space against a background of alternating blue and red panels.

Uppercase and lowercase paired alphabet in Roman lettering

Alphabet study of fun, angular letters with dramatic contrasts in line thickness, signed R. Cook

110 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Honestly I think cephalopods are underused as a decorative motif.

The full, four-panel arrangements of all the squiddies from the previous post.

110 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Next, get a load of this SQUID! SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID SQUID

Art nouveau style squid red squid with symmetrically splayed tentacles overlaid on top of some Roman capital letters spelling out Architeuthis dux | Giant Squid

Two of the squids, with their tentacles framing copperplate text reading 'There are millions of us living in the twilight, hundreds of meters below: hunting and being hunted.

A panel of the squids all tessellated to fill the space

Foundational script text reads:

Giant squid mayu grow up to fifteen metres in total length. They have eight arms, two long tentacles, the largest eyes of any living creature, and a tooth covered tongue for devouring prey. They were long known from sailors' legends and washed up remains, but weren't seen in photographs or films until this century.

The capital G at the beginning is gilded on a background of MORE of the red squiddy tessellated designs.

120 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

Next, a collection of work from @calligraphyoutside.bsky.social. First, some gilded letters:

Gilded letter S on blue background with red rose floral decorations in empty spaces.

Red capital R with pink embellishments on a gold background with green vine embellishments.

Gilded letter L on blue background with red rose embellishments.

'Sarah' in very art nouveau style green lettering, surrounded by a decorative pink and red frame with flowers and leaves and symmetrical spirals

110 0

Glasgow Scribes @glasgowscribes.bsky.social · 10/05/2026

First up, a set of texts from @ergative-abs.bsky.social! All texts originated from here on bluesky (except the bit from N+1 magazine) and are used with permission from @joles.bsky.social , @josephfasano.bsky.social, @colemanallums.net. Transcription in alt text.

White foundational script on green paper:

For the student who used AI to write a paper
Joseph Fasano @josephfasano.bsky.social

Now I let it fall back
in the grasses.
I hear you. I know
this life is hard now.
I know your days are precious
on this earth.
But what are you trying
to be free of?
The living? The miraculous
task of it?
Love is for the ones who love the work.

Spencerian script in blue and red.

But a still graver scandal of AI — like its hydra-head sibling, cryptocurrency — is the technology’s colossal wastefulness. The untold billions firehosed by investors into its development; the water-guzzling data centers draining the parched exurbs of Phoenix and Dallas; the yeti-size carbon footprint of the sector as a whole — and for what? A cankerous glut of racist memes and cardboard essays. Not only is the ratio of AI’s resource rapacity to its productive utility indefensibly and irremediably skewed, AI-made material is itself a waste product: flimsy, shoddy, disposable, a single-use plastic of the mind.

The Editors
N Plus One Magazine

(text from here:
https://www.nplusonemag.com/issue-51/the-intellectual-situation/large-language-muddle/)

Black gothic cursive script on white paper.

There is a monster in the forest and it speaks with a thouand voics. It will answer any question you pose it, it will offer insight to any idea. It will help you, it will thank you, it will never bid you leave. It will even tell you of the darkest arts, if you know precisely how to ask.

It feels no joy and no sorrry, it knows no right and no wrong. It knows not truth from lie, though it speaks them all the same.

It offers its services freely to any passerby, and many will tell you they find great value in its conversation. 'You simply must visit the monster--I always just ask the monster.'

There are those who know these forests well; they will tell you that freely offered doesn't mean it has no price.

For when the next traveler passes by, the monster speaks with a thousand and one voices. And when you dream you see the monster; the monster wears your face.

@joles.bsky.social

Black engrossers script on white paper

Teaching in the age of artiface

All the banks I love
are fog and all the work
woth doing doesn't pay.

I'm here anothre year.
But now the creature
in the corner of the classroom -- not feathered,
not soul-perched -- begs me
show it to these young ones,
let its shining body blind them,
its claws mangle and rend,
quick before it rusts
away (surely it must).

I call out for the otherwise.
Give me mist
to hide us all from the seeking eye
of enterprise. The here and now
need not be only hell.

-Coleman Allums

142 0