Nakaya
Nakaya Long Cigar Raspberry
Nakaya Long Cigar Raspberry
With an overall design mixing berries, flowers and leaves, this is a lively design. Pieces of embedded raden bring a touch of tuxury to this Maki-e motif.
Maki-e, literally ""sprinkled powder,"" is a general term for the process by which figurative or abstract designs are created by sprinkling pigment or metallic powder onto the surface of Urushi lacquer while it is still wet. There are many varieties of Maki-e, such as Tame-sukashi, Raden, and Chinkin.
Notice the raden (round pieces of abalone) inlaid into the center of the raspberry flowers.
The grace of this composition is to be found in the relationship between the negative space, where there is no design, and the individual figures.
The artist uses multiple techniques to accomplish this design. Besides the use of raden, the artist uses taka-maki-e, raised maki-e technique to bring forward parts of the design.
The choice of lighter colors is unusual. The gold dust which is sprinkled into and imbedded in the flowers, leaves and berries contrasts with the pale background in its reflectiveness rather than in value.
Rich gradation on the leaves gives depth and shape to the forms.
Hand-painted Maki-e converters are available.
The heavy decorative rice paper outer box, simple solid softwood shipping inner box and fabric pouch make a lovely presentation for this Nakaya Urushi pen. Sensible and elegant packaging are a hallmark of Nakaya presentations.
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Customization Guide
Stub
 
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Above is the same size nib after a regrind to Stub. A regrind to Stub is often a good place to start for your first customization. Â A Stub nib provides broad down-strokes and narrow cross-strokes while writing, and is less position-sensitive on the paper than the crisper and slightly more demanding cursive italic.
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Cursive Italic
 
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More demanding, but also providing crisper edges and more line-width variation, is the very popular customization to Cursive Italic. This also provides broad down-strokes and narrow cross-strokes, but is also more position-sensitive in terms of how the pen is held and requires more skill on the part of the user. This is a common customization for artists and calligraphers, but is still smooth enough to make for a good everyday writer.
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Formal Italic
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Formal Italic is an even crisper and more demanding customization than either cursive italic or left oblique, and is usually utilized for calligraphy and by the most experienced users. This provides broad down-strokes and narrow cross-strokes, with even crisper corners and edges than a cursive italic - this is an extremely position-sensitive customization.
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Left Oblique
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 Commonly used for signatures and correspondence, the Left Oblique customization provides broad diagonal strokes and narrow cross-strokes, and like a cursive italic, is more position-sensitive and demanding than a stub. The whole pen must be rotated to the left in order to write smoothly, without skipping. The "Left" in Left Oblique refers to the cut of the nib itself, and does not refer to the handedness of the writer. |
Architect's Point (Also for Arabic and Hebraic writing)
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A more exotic regrind is that to Architect’s Point. Named after the style of writing used by Frank Lloyd Wright, this regrind is the opposite of cursive italic, and provides for broad cross-strokes and narrow down-strokes. This also tends to be a particularly useful customization for those practicing Arabic or Hebraic calligraphy. |
Spencerian
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Perhaps our most popular customization, but also one of the most advanced, the Mottishaw Spencerian Customization has gained special attention from being featured in a customer's YouTube video which has now received over twelve million views! The Spencerian starts from a semi-soft 14k nib and adds additional flex and a regrind to needlepoint to create a specialized writing point used for copperplate calligraphy. For more details, visit our special Spencerian page.. |