Ruth Korch

Thank you so much Ruth – that was a wonderful tutorial!

What a fantastic tutorial! Thank you, Ruth!

Excellent tutorial!

Very interesting! Thank you for sharing!

Back in the ’60’s, as a member of a Catholic religious community, I spent my free time doing illuminated manuscripts, with Speedball pen nibs and watercolors or acrylics. Receiving a copy of the Book of Kells made illumination quite inspiring, and amusing. The monks put a lot of strange little creatures in the margins, doing some odd things….
However as a leftie, I had problems with the speedball pens and often saw the pen nib shoot little black spots of india ink as I pushed the pen to the right! The trick was to pencil in the letters and then letter them backwards so I was pulling the pen to the left, giving the letters an odd slant though….
Felt tip wide nibs changed calligraphy for lefties allowing us to push the broad nib and make thin and wide strokes. however, hand and neck surgeries put me out of one of the most inspiring and satisfying endeavors.

Wait a minute, I meant this comment to be posted before the one I just sent! Ruth, I really enjoy your method and the colors you use (Daniel Smith!). So I went over to your website and signed up for a look at FLOURISH. I couldn’t log on to Instagram but I’ll look at your work there when I can log in. But I dropped in on your Facebook page and really enjoy your sketchbook work.

Thank you for the tutorial, Ruth. Very interesting and easy to understand! I’m going to have to try this out!

I love the illuminators and illuminated manuscripts! I hope you get to see ‘The Secret of Kells,’ it’s such a gorgeous film. It inspired me to get back to art😏😌