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Gallery of work to give you some ideas

Decoration doesn't have to be fancy or over-the-top. Plain and simple can sometimes be more effective. Too much can detract from the lettering itself.

In the first of these 3 pieces, a commission for a christening presentation, I decided to make the piece quite lively and colourful. In the center piece, I wanted to portray the texture of writing itself and its similarity to weaving a pattern. The 3rd uses an elaborate piece of decoration as the focal point but also portrays the context of the writing.

In the passage from the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam (below centre, which a friend of mine once referred to as the 'Rubber Mat of Alakazam'), I decided to keep the decoration simple in favour of emphasising the letters.

Above left is part of a series of 4 I drew some years ago. The inner border could be used by itself. It was relatively simple to draw and took very little time compared to the outer border. As you will have gathered, my main influence is Celtic Art. This is a time-consuming and complicated form of art, based on grids and circles, etc, but I would recommend anybody to have a go - it is very therapeutic. Once you've got the idea of what it's about you can draw some of the designs freehand.

The two Ex Libris designs were lettered by drawing the outline of the letters and filling them in. Feel free to print them out and use them. Resized and layed out in a desktop publishing program, they can be printed on stickers ready for use. The centre piece was lettered in the same way as The Foundations of Good Health on the Decorated Letters page.

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