Royal Wedding piece

As promised, here's a little of the calligraphy piece for the Newark Mayor to send to William and Kate.  It's hard to convey in a photo but the gold gouache does have a nice shine to it.
Not typically wanting to blame my tools, this paper has to be one of the worst I've ever worked on.  It has a very hard, almost waxy surface which repels ink.  Where the Newark emblem had been printed, it was even worse.  I fear it is sold as "calligraphy paper" because it has that mottled parchment look to it.
Anyway, I treated the surface to some pounce (grey dusty material that can improve slick writing surfaces), and wrote with no reservoir on the pen, literally piling wet ink onto it for every stroke.  Quite nerve wracking as I only had 3 sheets with the emblem on!

---