Nakaya
Nakaya Portable Cigar Owl Urushi
Nakaya Portable Cigar Owl Urushi
Similar to Tame-Sukashi and often used in conjunction with it, Yakou Maki-e involves creating a painted motif under layers of clear smooth Urushi lacquer. In Yakou Maki-e, however, the motif itself is painted in black Urushi over a Tame-Nuri base.
Stylized in gold line, this is the Nakaya Portable Cigar in the Aka-tamenuri (reddish red) Wajima urushi. As time goes on, the owl emerges more and more from the layers of the Aka-tamenuri over surface.
Since the motif is expressed under the layer, you cannot see the motif clearly at first. With the Urushi lacquer as the top coating, it allows the golden owl to become clearer as the pen is used over time.
The Nakaya nib, imprinted Nakata, the family name of the manufacturer, is made of solid 14K gold. Each of these nibs is suitable for our customization to extra flexible. The medium and broad tips can be customized by us into cursive italic, stub, or oblique points.
The heavy decorative rice paper, simple solid softwood shipping box, and fabric pen pouch make a lovely presentation for these Nakaya Urushi pens. Sensible and elegant packaging has long been a hallmark of the Nakaya brand.
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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.. |