Another week, another workshop - Jacqueline Sullivan

Another week, another workshop - Jacqueline Sullivan this time, teaching Visual Poetry.  It's the third successful workshop I've been a part of in just two months, coming on the heels of workshops by Bonnie Stahlecker and Michael Clark.  Here is a part of our group at dinner on Saturday night.

Jacqueline taught acrylic painting with calligraphy on canvas.  The goal was to integrate the lettering into the painting.  I have done this successfully on my own many times, but in this workshop piece my lettering is still sort of sitting on top.  I'll work on it some more, but I like the direction it's going.

This horse gets around.  All class members gathered round for a class photo. Front: Jacqueline, Shirley, Austyn and Deb.  Row two: Ellen, Denise, Sarah, Nancy, Marilyn and Mary Lou.  Back row: Jan, Phil and Jen.

Here's Jacqueline, looking festive at the opening reception for her exhibit.

Here are a couple of photos of some of Jacqueline's work.

 I caught this moment I call "The Healers" of Jacqueline, Mary Lou and Marilyn during the workshop.  I can attest to the peace, warmth and calm that Mary Lou's touch imparts.  She told me that Marilyn's are the same.  Lovely capture, I think.

 We worked in fluid acrylics on stretched canvases and in art journals - a great way to try out new ideas.  Here are some participants and their work.

Austyn - named for her 'hometown' of Austin, TX.  She was glad she wasn't named for the small town she actually lived in, Pfleugerville.

Deb with her lovely works in progress.  Wow!

One of Ellen's luscious pieces in progress.  I love the colors and the 'interest' she has created in this background.

Phil wanted his piece to be more 'Visual Poetry' instead of pure calligraphy.  It looks like poetry to me!

Mary Lou loved these experimental canvas pieces we did as a means of learning what works best with different mediums on canvas.

Mary Lou's canvas with her fragmented lettering.

Denise's exotic looking journal cover - stenciling with molding paste, gilding, paint and pastels.

Below are a few of my two-page journal spreads and the as yet unpainted canvas journal cover embellished with light molding paste. 

Art journals would make a good place to 'clean' your brushes.  Although I was actually painting here, it looks like I was cleaning my brushes of excess ink - and I will do that!  The page was first painted with absorbent ground.

This was paint on a black gessoed page.  I added a stenciled dragonfly in molding paste. 

More experimentation on black gessoed pages.  Here we painted with absorbent ground on the pages in white, then painted over them.  On the left, we painted most of the gessoed page with absorbent ground and covered it with crinkled saran for a few minutes, then painted them.  Although the page looks heavily textured, it is actually very smooth.

These pages have some gilding with gold adhesive and patent gold (in my case copper), pumiced, then painted.

 Jacqueline may be teaching the journal portion of our class at the International Calligraphy Conference next summer.  She is an excellent and generous instructor who continually educates herself in order to give the best to her students.  Upon leaving Louisville, she was heading to New Orleans to become a Golden art products certified instructor.  She's been using and sharing her knowledge of Golden products for years, and is now making  it official.

Excellent class, excellent people.  I love the calligraphic community!

(Please click on images to see them a bit larger.)

Michael Clark Workshop in Louisville

The long anticipated Michael Clark workshop in Louisville is now a fine memory.  Scribes from seven states attended the privately sponsored workshop which was a version of his "Beyond the Poem"  class.  There was a lot packed in to the 2 days, and as Michael explained to me, 'this is a thinking workshop'.  Design considerations were paramount, lettering next - camaraderie and kindness, constant.

This is the lucky group which participated, happy smiles all around:

Jen Grove is in front, Michael is astride the Lettersong horse (so appropriate to Louisville.)
Deb W., Connie N., Diana H., Heather L., Jan H. (moi), Phil H., Shirley S., Kathy L., David O., Holly M., Marianne B., Meg J., mary lou S. and Barb B. complete the group.

Meg is happy with her new clock.  The workshop projects consisted of design study, logo design, creating good design in a poem to convey the meaning of the words, and designing a clock.  Below are some of the participants and clocks that were designed and completed in the workshop.

Holly with her beautiful clock.

Holly and Michael discussing her clock.

Phil with his clock.

Michael holding Diana's clock up for viewing.

David's clock

Michael demoed some letter variations for Marianne's clock.

Michael lettered every participant's name to show the many ways the ruling pen can be used.  You can barely see a few of Tim Leigh's handmade ruling pens on each side of the postal box in the photo.

A few days before the workshop a bright rainbow appeared over my house, seeming to bless the coming activities.

My studio - ready for me to clear out the wedding work and play with the great ideas learned in the workshop.

Thank you to Michael Clark and to all the participants.  It was a great workshop, everyone was a joy to be around, and Lettersong was a wonderful location.  (Click on photos to see them larger.)

Wedding signs

Sometimes wedding signs are needed, and a recent Louisville wedding involved my making several signs - some typical and some unusual.  Besides the signs, I lettered envelopes for the wedding and a party, all the place cards, and created a one of a kind guest book, the pages of which were made from the same envelopes used for the wedding.

 Here is detail from the Bridal Suite sign.  I embellished the signature blue lettering with silver.

 This may have been the most unusual signage of the event.  "Mama's Soap Box" was the bride's idea.  Her mother climbed atop the sign-covered ottoman to welcome guests to the reception.

 My first iteration of the soap box was unsatisfactory to me, so I took it back to the drawing board and placed the signs on watercolor paper all around the ottoman.  I worried about 'Mom' tripping and covered the top with felt and then a rug.  It all worked out very well.

 The guest book wasn't just my favorite part, but also the bride's mother's.  She was near tears when she saw it and held it for the first time.

 The guest book's inside covers were made of paste paper that I had painted covered with a rayon paper complete with glittery specks of gold and silver.

 The place cards were extra large to accommodate some embellishment pieces the bride was having made in Germany.

The above were the party invitation envelopes where we first used the bride's blue.

The same week I made another sign - "Thank You" to be used for another bride's thank you notes.

I love weddings!  I love brides!  I love brides' mothers!  (And dads too.)  It's been a wonderful pre-fall wedding season.

Hand-tooled leather covered book

This past weekend I made a hand-tooled leather covered book in a workshop with Bonnie Stahlecker, bookbinder extraordinaire.  Ten of us plus Bonnie gathered in Louisville for this fabulous workshop.  Bonnie is an excellent instructor, and all the resulting books were stellar.

Above are the front and back covers (respectively) of my little book.

I painted paste paper to use for my end sheets inside.

The closure was wonderful...we wove a thin strip of leather in and out of itself and connected it via a jump ring to a tiny brass brad in the other leather clad wooden cover.

All the participants had excellent results.  The books are only about 3 x 5" but are packed with 12 signatures and bound with a modified coptic stitch so they will lay flat when opened.

If you ever get the opportunity to take a workshop from Bonnie, I am sure that you will enjoy it and you will learn a lot.

Certificate Repair

A professor at a nearby university recently contacted me with an unusual request for certificate repair.  She said there was a major problem with a certificate she wanted to have framed.  I agreed to meet with her (no promises - you can never tell with a problem like this if it is repairable or not.) The problem with the certificate was that she was listed as an MD, but she is a PhD. She hoped that I could turn the MD into MS (because she was also Master of Science) and add PhD behind it.  I decided that the best I could do was to camouflage the parts of the existing D with paint while turning it into an S with black ink.

 


The week long seminar she had attended was taught by people who meant a lot to her, and some were no longer available to sign a new certificate.  She wanted to preserve the bit of history that their signatures provided.  Also, the lettering was a style I seldom do, by a different, unknown calligrapher.  I would have to attempt to match the lettering as closely as possible.  Professor Z had contacted the CDC who issued the certificate, but they only advised her that they could re-issue one (with different signatures and with her name printed since they no longer use a calligrapher.)  They advised her to try to find a good calligrapher who might be able to help.  In a Google search, she found me, but when I saw the actual certificate I feared it would not have a good result.  The paper was not the best quality - thin and 'papery', not conducive to scraping ink off well without tearing.)  To top it all off, the ink had smeared in one place - and I had no idea if I had any ink that would match up since this was a decade old.

Later as I began working on trying to eliminate the smeared parts around the M, I discovered that careful scraping was working.  I was able to 'erase' the M pretty well.

 

It's not a perfect result, but it's not bad.  It's better than we had thought could be accomplished.  The Ph had to be narrowed a bit to fit the M's slot, and there is some ink residue from the M and the original smearing.  I was afraid to try to scrape it any more than I had, and I had erased with a typewriter eraser and a white eraser until no more ink could be removed.  I think when she has it framed no one will notice the repair.  She is thrilled to have saved this piece of her history, and I am happy to have made a new friend.