Italic practice

Practice from the Denis Brown dvd instructional course.

If you have not heard about this awesome opportunity to study with 

one of the most popular and well-known calligraphers of the day, please check out 

the study curriculum Denis offers in his dvd collection at http://calligraphy.tv/

I still have a long way to go, but this was a lot of fun to work on.

Canvases

You will have to forgive me for this shameless plug - I have placed new items in my etsy shop.
I have been experimenting with different canvases and techniques.

Italic hand written on gessoed canvas

 Monoline caps on book text

Blackletter exemplar on canvas

Playful monoline caps on pan pastels on canvas

Selah

Commission

Each verse written in watercolor on 140# Fabriano soft press watercolor paper.
The finish of this paper is between cold press and hot press

 and is a lovely paper to write and paint on.

Psalm 32:7

Psalm 62:8

the haiku

My brother, Webster Miller, is a talented still photographer. In April of this year he embarked on a project of creating a short film for the Reduser 4k Portrait Competition. This was his first film undertaking ever! I was thrilled when he asked if I would help in the making of this film and provide the calligraphy. We brainstormed together and came up with the idea of basing the film around a one line haiku. (There is a great resource for the practice of the one line haiku here.)

The calligraphy in the film is an italic hand written with a Brause nib and sumi ink.

Please view the film by clicking the picture below.

The Haiku placed as one of the top ten finalists and received special recognition at the Reduser Party. The top 10 films were on display all evening in a venue similar to an art gallery layout. You can learn more about RED here.

Recent Writings

Happy Fourth

Two of the things that make America great!

Independence 

and

Freedom

I praise God to have the privilege to live

in such a place and time!

Pointed Asymmetrical Italic influenced by Denis Brown

My adventure in calligraphy has really just begun. I received my first holder and nib for Christmas 2007. That pen holder and nib came from John Neal Booksellers. My husband did a great job to find one of the best suppliers for calligraphy essentials without knowing anything about the calligraphy world. Since then I have immersed myself in finding all I can on the subject. 

What a beautiful world I found on my journey!

My latest study tool has been the online lessons from Denis Brown. These are a treasure trove of instruction and information. Denis is teaching a compressed, extreme asymmetric version of italic. The class is wonderful in the fact that you can go back and view the lessons as many times as you like, pausing and rewinding wherever needed. There are two modules published already (over 4 hours of instruction already!) with two more to come. This is definitely worth the small cost. 

I have been practicing whenever I can. The piece shown below was done in my style of Denis' instruction. It is painted with sumi and walnut ink on a full sheet of Arches MBM paper.

This piece is for my church. Names will be written on the keys of the piano, sumi on the white keys and Dr. Martin's bleed proof white on the black keys. It will be a living piece as time goes on. 

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.

Thank you

Thank you all who have followed along

on my journey of experimenting and

working in calligraphy 

and the calligraphic arts.

I am truly blessed to 

be able to pursue my passion

and to share the things

 I learn and create

with a such a supportive

 group of individuals.

My gratitude goes out to you!

not dark enough

This is a piece I have been working on the last few days. It started out to be golden-orange italic on arches 90lb, but I made a couple of errors in the text. So I thought, 'I'll just add a couple of layers of colors and text. Which turned out great but the green text was not dark enough and the layout was off a little. So more layers of wash then the final text was to be a dark purple, but alas the purple was not dark enough. It still gets lost in the background. I should have used gouache instead of watercolor. There is a section in the middle that I darken up by applying another layer of watercolor with a little tiny brush, but that will take entirely too long to fix the whole piece.

Any suggestions as to a direction I should take this piece? I still like the piece it just needs something to make it pop.

BTW, the text is Daniel 2:20-23.

studio practice

I have been painting quite a bit lately and needed to get back to some calligraphy practice. I created these two pieces yesterday. What fun I had!