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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.






22 comments:

  1. Good save! Great technique to know.

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  2. Cathy. Love your blog. Love your journal. Wishing that in my lifetime I could ever do anything as talented as your journaling! Asking belated permission to quote your blog on my blog because I thought your clever lesson on fixing typos was so valuable. If this is not correct, or if I should have waited for "actual" permission, I'll retract the whole thing but I meant it to be a huge compliment to you and the wonderful blog you manage for us. Thank you!

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    1. I'm honored, Jill. As Kate says.... it's all about the 'share' :)

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  3. Thank you so much, Jill, but this is a group blog...that's Pam Johnson Brickell's brilliant work. We ARE happy to share, though...

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  4. whoops.......i'll amend my post to recognize her work! Thanks for the correction. Gorgeous work. I'm just plain old jealous of all of the incredible talent out there!

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  5. Thanks for sharing this wonderful correction tip with us, Pam. Much appreciated! :)

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  6. Thanks for explaining which helps a lot in something that often happens to me particularly when travelling.

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    1. Thanks, hfm! Technically, I shouldn't be allowed to write in ink.... mistakes incorporated :)

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  7. Thanks, Kate! Gotta love the adventures a journal page can take you on :)

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  8. Definitely a trick to put into the brain bank (such as it is!).

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    1. Thanks, Jeanette. Withdrawal slips help.... haha... oops, better remember deposit slips too! That's where I've gone wrong :)

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  9. Awesome idea for approaching correction and awesome demo showing how you did it. The light just went off in my head. Hope I don't need to use the idea too often - but glad to know the idea. Thanks for sharing!

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  10. Thanks, Claire! It sure is good info to have in your arsenal :)

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  11. That was such a clever fix, Pam. I don't think I would ever have dared to try to change "liberty" to "live". You're fearless! So clever to use the Latin name as a filler. Thanks for the tip about doing the correction first. Wish I had known that years ago.

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    1. Thanks, Leslie! A journal is the perfect place to be daring :)

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  12. Very nice Pam, as always! Great tip on correcting lettering too : )

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