New Works - two books and a broadside

Here is what I've been working on for the past few days. I made two new books last week and added pencil lettering tonight. They are Greek Philosophy I and Greek Philosophy II. Each has one ancient saying lettered on its pages. The covers and end papers are made from papers I painted especially for this project. Bits of the same painted papers make the collaged pieces on each page. I did a metallic watercolor brushstroke across the pages before pasting and embossing around the affixed papers.

I folded accordions from Arches Text Wove paper to make eight more books. Four will be the size of these small ones, two will be larger with fewer pages, and the remaining two will be even smaller than these. I love having future books ready to go when the mood strikes. (Thank you, Rosie Kelly, for spurring me on to make more books! - See my March 29th post about her workshop in Memphis on my Letterlady blog: www.janhurst.blogspot.com.)

The other piece is Bill Withers' Lean on Me. I did a background in my version of the abstract style of Yves Leterme, a Belgian calligrapher whose work I admire. I've wanted to take a workshop from him, but missed my chance earlier this year when he was in Chicago. Coincidentally, Yves studied with Brody Neunschwander in Belgium, and I may have taken Brody's first workshop in the USA, which had serendipitously come about because of a friend's chance encounter with a friend of his in a gym. That was a wonderful workshop, many years before he branched out into a wonderful abstracted style of working.

I wanted text that would fill the space, I wanted the soft blue color. I'm not sure they're exactly fitting for each other, but I'm kind of pleased with the way it turned out anyway. (Yves' lettering would have been more abstract.)

I painted two more backgrounds and will letter something on them when the right words present themselves. I'm enjoying knowing that I have finished this one and have the others waiting.

See more calligraphy on my website: www.picturetrail.com/letterlady and my wedding blog: www.weddingletterlady.blogspot.com .