Pinkline

Wood type, sorted by wear

admin — Wed, 23 Sep 2026 02:42:17 +0000

The tray holds a mixed fount: a heavy slab-serif D and R, condensed capitals, a lighter G, and a few small Ms and Ts tucked into the gaps. Nothing matches, and that is the useful part. Letters from different sets wear in different ways.

What the faces show

The darkest letters are the ones that were inked most. Their faces carry a sheen where ink has soaked into the end grain, and their edges are rounded rather than square. A paler letter beside them has barely printed, and its corners are still sharp.

Everything reads backwards. The R and the P face the wrong way, as they must to print the right way round, so the eye keeps catching on familiar shapes that are not quite right.

Mixed wood type in a shallow tray. The letters are mirrored, ready to print.

Type at three sizes

Specimen · Instrument Serif 400

Worn edges, soft ink

Headline · Instrument Serif italic

Worn edges, soft ink

Text · Jost 400, 18 / 1.6

Worn edges, soft ink. A letter that has printed for years loses its corners first, and its counters fill a little with every pass.

Colour taken forward

Old ink
#2B2522

Worn face
#8A5634

Proof magenta
#B61460

Two colours read from the tray and one chosen for a first proof.

Colophon

Object	Wood type in a shallow tray
Looked at	Wear on letter faces and edges
Taken forward	A type sample at three sizes and a proof colour
Sheet	Square

Colour pencils, points up

admin — Tue, 22 Sep 2026 02:42:17 +0000

Seen from above, a cup of pencils becomes a ring of small hexagons, each with a coloured dot at its centre. The dot is the lead; the pale collar around it is the cedar the sharpener left behind.

Three kinds of point

Some points are long and even, fresh from the sharpener. Some are short and blunt, worn down by shading. A few leads sit almost flush with the wood, so only a coloured disc shows.

The long points draw the finest lines; the blunt ones cover ground. Keeping both in the same cup is a small decision about how the next drawing will be made.

Colour pencils in a cup, photographed from above.

Five leads taken forward

Red
#C62A36

Cobalt
#1E5AA8

Leaf
#2E8B3D

Lemon
#F0D31C

Violet
#5A3D98

Picked by eye from the leads for the next sheet, not measured.

Colophon

Object	Sharpened colour pencils in a cup
Looked at	Point length, wear and lead colour
Taken forward	A five-colour palette
Sheet	Square

Carved blocks in a frame

admin — Mon, 21 Sep 2026 02:42:17 +0000

The frame holds more than fifty carved blocks of different sizes: stripes, chevrons, grids of dots, rosettes, paisley shapes and trailing leaves. They are the tools, not the prints. Each one is the reverse of the pattern it would make.

Cut depth decides the print

Fine grids and dotted fields are cut shallow and close together. The larger floral blocks have deeper channels, so their raised lines would print as bold, separate strokes.

The wallpaper behind the frame is printed too, blue on white. Next to the dark blocks it shows what a repeat looks like once it has left the wood.

Carved printing blocks mounted in a wooden frame against patterned wallpaper.

Colour taken forward

Block black
#2A2626

Frame wood
#9A6433

Wallpaper blue
#3F5FA8

The blocks, their frame and the printed wall behind them.

Colophon

Object	Carved printing blocks in a frame
Looked at	Cut depth and pattern scale
Taken forward	A three-colour row and notes on repeats
Sheet	Square

An open tin of watercolour

admin — Sun, 20 Sep 2026 02:42:17 +0000

The tin has three rows of pans: yellows and reds along the top, darker reds and a deep blue in the middle, near-blacks at the bottom. The open lid is a mixing tray, and it still holds the last session: a dark pool, a red, a streak of grey-green, a clean yellow.

The mixing tray as a sheet

Read left to right, the lid is already a swatch row. Where colours ran together at the edges, you can see which mixes were tried and left.

Beside the tin, a folded tissue carries the yellows and blacks wiped from the brush, and a water brush and a few colour pencils wait on the table.

An open watercolour tin, a water brush, colour pencils and a stained tissue.

Colour taken forward

Warm yellow
#F2C313

Brick red
#B3372A

Deep blue
#1C2F73

Grey-green
#4F6B5A

Blue-black
#1B1D24

Read from the pans and the mixing tray by eye.

Colophon

Object	A travelling watercolour tin
Looked at	Pans, mixes and what the tray keeps
Taken forward	A five-colour row
Sheet	Square

Desk inventory

admin — Sat, 19 Sep 2026 02:42:17 +0000

Before a drawing, everything on the desk gets spread out flat. The scatter becomes a quick inventory: striped pencils in several lengths, coloured paper clips, push pins, a compass, a pink craft knife, a sharpener, an eraser and two see-through rulers.

Colour in the measuring tools

The two rulers are the least obvious objects here: one yellow-green, one pink, both translucent so the drawing stays visible underneath. Their colour is there to be found, not to be looked through.

Pencils, pens, paper clips, a compass and rulers on a white surface.

Colour taken forward

Knife pink
#E8438A

Ruler green
#D7E84A

Clip blue
#2F6FD0

Pencil orange
#F07A1D

Four colours from the tools, picked by eye.

Colophon

Object	Drawing tools spread on a white surface
Looked at	What is on the desk, and in which colours
Taken forward	A four-colour row
Sheet	Square

One stroke of red-orange

admin — Fri, 18 Sep 2026 02:42:17 +0000

The whole study is one mark: a small patch of red-orange paint pressed onto a clean sheet with a fine brush. The paint is thick enough to keep ridges from the bristles.

What one mark tells you

The edge where the brush lifted is ragged; the edge where it landed is fuller. Repeated across a surface, that difference becomes texture.

A hand holds a fine brush beside a small red-orange mark on white paper.

Colour taken forward

Stroke
#C9552C

Brush black
#1D1B1C

Sheet
#F5F6FA

The paint, the brush and the paper.

Colophon

Object	A fine brush and one mark of paint
Looked at	How thick paint holds a brush mark
Taken forward	A three-colour row
Sheet	Square