Rosie Kelly Has Written and Published a Book!

One of my favorite paste paper makers, instructors, book creators and all around people in general, Rosie Kelly, has written and published a book. I have ordered mine, but don't have it yet, so I am copying her article word-for-word to help her publicize it. Her handmade books are beautiful. If they are any indication, this book will be a must have. (I am not affiliated in any way - just love her work and want to share!)

And here's a photo of the book.

Here are some photos from one of the books I made in her Memphis workshop.

Here are some pages from Rosie's books and class members' books.

Here's her marketing blurb, including ordering information. Can't wait for mine to arrive!

Artist Rosie Kelly has an extraordinary gift for designing original handmade books from painted paste papers. How many of us multi-media artists have stacks of beautifully decorated paste papers, but no idea how to best feature them? In Beyond Paste Papers: Artists’ Books, Rosie shares her expertise on painting papers, designing pages, and embellishing a simply bound book. Step-by-step instructions take you from the blank page to a bound softcover manuscript. Along the way you receive inspirational insights combined with tips and tricks to create your best work. Rosie’s artist’s books are housed in the permanent collection of the Newberry Library in Chicago and have been featured in many publications, including Letter Arts Review. She teaches workshops to calligraphy and book guilds throughout the United States, New Zealand, and Japan. At home in Chicago, she paints in her studio and continues a tradition of life-long learning, inspired by fellow artists and teachers.

Beyond Paste Papers: Artists' Books by Rosie Kelly Multi-media artists will love this book to best feature your paste papers. ISBN 978-0-615-64651-0 $9.95 plus tax and shipping. (From her Illinois home to my Indiana one, postage and handling were only $1.50.) To order please contact Rosie at roseykelly [at] sbcglobal.net

Addendum. Rosie's book arrived this afternoon! Wonderful! She concisely shares her methods and includes lots of photos. Here is the mail I received today. Love the glittery gold script behind my name and address! The same gold was used on the contents page for her signature. Hard to see in this photo, but I realy wanted to share the contents anyway. In case you can't see it in the photo, they include: materials, painted pages, book design, binding, tips and tricks and a gallery.

Teri Dryden & Collage

This week I took a couple of hours off to attend a Food for Thought luncheon at the Louisville Visual Art Association at the Watertower. The guest speaker was Teri Dryden, a collage artist whose work I admire. I was very happy to meet her - she has a winning personality with smiles to match. Her collages have great subtlety. I love them and think you might too. I took one photo of the wall display, but did not get a photo of the slightly more crowded table display of smaller pieces.

Collage is a favorite medium of mine, but unlike Teri, I usually include some lettering in mine, combining my love of calligraphy and collage. I liked the purity of hers, which are made from discarded books. The textures are delicious, and I repeat myself, very subtle. Her talk was interesting, and was accompanied by slides of her collage work - and a couple from her days as a clown with Ringling Brothers Barnum and Bailey Circus. I'm so glad I made the time to meet Teri Dryden, see her work, hear her story, reacquaint myself with some fellow artists and meet some others. It was a good afternoon, well-spent. The lunch was good too!

In searching for more information for this article I ran across an excellent blog post by Keith Waits with great photos of both Teri and her work. Please check it out here.

A Lines Tale - or Trouble, Right Here in River City

Usually when I letter envelopes, I don't need to rule guidelines. This is not because I letter so evenly without them. Instead, it's because I use a lightboard.

I used to use a very clunky handmade frame with plexiglass top with an undercounter light wedged under the plexi. I would tape a guide sheet to the plexiglass and place my envelope or other item over the guidesheet and letter away. Now I use a wonderfully compact Art-o-Graph lightboard. When I can. Recent envelopes have made it impossible to use my light board. Silver envelopes required my ruling white lines (measuring, carefully setting the envelopes in place, and ruling the guidelines) and erasing them later with a white eraser. Another set has a purple lining that couldn't be removed. It also negated the use of my lightboard. In fact, for both these and the silver, I had to turn off all ambient light in the room and turn on one desk lamp in order to see my faint ruled lines.

The silver set is amazing though, and well worth the trouble. Below is a snippet from the purple lined envelope. Graphite lines had to be ruled and erased. I had to get very close (a la this photo) in order to see the lines and letter on them. In addition, they were made of a letterpress paper. Wonderfully soft for printing...terribly fibrous for calligraphy. The texture as seen magnified somewhat in this snippet just grabs the pen nib and is a difficult surface for a pointed pen. A light touch and modified ink help somewhat with that issue.

I sure do appreciate those envelopes that allow me to use my light board.