dry embossing

 have always loved the look of embossed letters and thought I would give it a try on a new piece. This is the beginning. . . .

The passage will be 'Be still and know that I AM God". I am really excited with I AM but am not sure how to include the rest of the phrase. Maybe I will place the entire quote below and leave the I AM as the focal point of the piece. I am inspired by Jane Farr's piece as seen here. But maybe I can repeat the quote in a soft muted color all around the I AM.

This is the template of the letters used to emboss. I used the backing of a paper pad to cut out the letters. The letters were then pressed into Arches textwove paper. I tried several papers and the textwove gave the best results by far.

Calligraphy Class

 

I had the wonderful opportunity to give a calligraphy class to one of the local home school co-ops. There were 22 students in the class ranging in ages from 7-13. What a great group of students! None of them had ever tried calligraphy before and they were ready to dive right in. So we discussed pen angle, nib width, letter height, and so on. I was really amazed with their attentiveness and abilities. There were a couple of naturals in the class and a few creative spirits that really had a gift to make their letters unique and interesting. Unfortunately, I did not get to take pictures of their work after class. The class was over before I knew it and the children off to their next tasks.

I was able to write each child's name before class in the italic hand, as a memento. Their packets also included a broad edge marker, italic exemplars, guide sheets, and nice paper to practice on when they got home. It was a great experience. I learned a lot myself and will take that to the next class I give.

Black and White Practice

I have a friend of mine who loves to do her practice work in white ink on black paper. And I always think how dynamic that looks; plus the fact that her calligraphy is amazing! Anyway, I thought I would give it a try when I was playing around in the studio. I must say that even though the writing is not my best, the white on black is dynamic. 

Give it a try!

Name Tags Anyone!

The opportunity to create the name tags for our guild was afforded to me this year. And I must say I was excited about doing it; what a fun project! Then as I started it dawned on me, I am creating lettering for people who really know lettering. I confess a little anxiety came over me, but I worked through and this is what emerged.

The background was created as a watercolor painting. It was photographed and taken into photoshop. The guild name was hand written, photographed and added to the photoshop file. The file was then sized correctly and printed. After I printed the tags, I began to experiment with gouache color and consistency and realized the paper I printed on was not going to hold an edge. So I tried my color pencils and sure enough that was the ticket. The first color combination I really liked but it did not contrast enough with the back ground.

So the colors were modified to show stronger against the background. 

It's a New Year

Fresh starts, new goals, energized being:

it's ready for us at the beginning of each day.

I hope your New Year is creative and purposeful!

This is the result of my first creative time in the studio for the year.

Inspired by the style of Piet Mondrian, this piece was created with scraps of sink art, walnut ink

for the lines and diluted walnut ink for the text.

The textural element of the writing really makes the difference by adding 

the illusion of depth.