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.)

Louisville Workshops! Books! Clocks! Canvas!

Louisville Workshops! Books! Clocks! Canvas! Ohboyohboyohboy!
There has been a dearth of calligraphy workshops in Louisville for a few years. Suddenly we will have three (calligraphy-related) workshops - all this Fall!

Bonnie Stahlecker's book











Michael Clark's refined letters

Jacqueline Sullivan acrylics

Take your pick, or take all three!
These three extraordinary workshops are coming to Louisville this Fall.
On September 7 and 8 Bonnie Stahlecker, fabulous teacher of the book arts, will be teaching us how to make the leather covered book pictured above in her class entitled "Byzantine Sewing with Leather Covered Boards." We will be making a wonderful book with decorated hard leather covers. She is the most well organized instructor I have ever had! If you like books, this workshop will be a 'don't miss'!
Just a month later Michael Clark, calligrapher extraordinaire, will be here to teach a shortened version of his "Going Beyond the Poem" workshop. It is about design and refining letterforms. He will also demo the ruling pen that he wields so expertly and we will design a clock! (Google Michael to see some he has made.) So cool! Here's more about this workshop in particular.
Michael Clark: Going Beyond the Poem Level: Intermediate
This workshop will explore the calligraphic possibilities of the illustrative word as opposed to our standard forms, the ones we use day to day. The focus will be on “writing” and design that goes beyond the simply laid out text (such as poems or testimonials) used in our bread and butter work. Employing our chisel edged pens, brushes, ruling pens, Speedball B’s etc. (or tool of your choice), we will pursue several projects over two days (a Thursday and a Friday) : a piece of letter art (designing with a quote), a logo (personal or imagined), a functional clock (I will provide the clock mechanisms for $11.00 so that you can take it home in working order). During the workshop we will be looking at the lettering styles you use with an eye toward trying variations of those forms, a way to expand our everyday styles. While we explore a variety of layouts and designs in each of the exercises, we will look at the effect that contrast, texture and color have on those designs. We will also experiment heavily with the ruling pen. About his October workshop, Michael says, "There is a lot of room to move within these guidelines. I want to give everybody what they need in this class. But I do not want to waste a second. SO, come prepared to work your fannies off and have some fun."
Last, but not least, artist/calligrapher Jacqueline Sullivan of Lake Orion MI will be teaching Visual Poetry, calligraphy on canvas. Her workshop will be October 19 and 20. Jacqueline is a Golden representative and she knows acrylic mediums! You may own one of her instructional DVDs. I've known Jacqueline for years, have taken workshops from her, and can just about guarantee that this will be a wonderful workshop! Contact me about any of these workshops. Space is limited, but still available for all three of these fabulous opportunities. We are keeping the prices as low as possible - maybe you can come to all three!
My email is jan(DOT)hurst(AT)insightbb(DOT)com

My Calligraphy and Art Books

I wasn't sure what to name this post. "I Need More Shelves" popped into mind, as did "Something for a Rainy Day", "Resources", "I Should Never be Bored" and others.

Indeed, I love art books. I have resisted the temptation recently to add more of them to my shelves, partly because - "I Need More Shelves". Partly because I have enough here to keep me busy for years, and partly because as my friend Doris and I discussed just the other day we seldom read them all when we get them, preferring to skim the eye candy. There is much to be explored in those pages! These are just my most accessible shelves of "Resources". There are others.

Because I often justify the purchase of a new book by saying it is less than the price of a workshop, I am making a late year resolution. I plan to go through each of my books throughout the year and at least practice something from each of them until I have decided which to keep and which to remove from the shelves. "Something for a Rainy Day".

Besides, I have books on DVD to peruse, such as Denis Brown's tour de force which I recently featured on this blog, Jacqueline Sullivan's and Carrie Brown's and many more...and Fran Strom's calligraphy tapes to have transferred to DVD so I can view them. Not to mention all the handmade books I want to make. I have plenty to keep me busy. "I Should Never Be Bored".

UPDATE 8/21/2012: I am so excited! My new bookcases arrive this morning! Finally I hope to organize all of my art books and group them by subject. A little redecorating will also be called for. Busy week!

DVDs and More - What I did on Black Friday

Why do I always buy for myself when I am Christmas shopping? Here's what I bought when everyone else was doing "Black Friday" - two new art DVDs. I have taken this workshop from Jacqueline Sullivan, but decided I should have the DVD to be able to refresh my mind on what we did and how we did it. I haven't opened it yet, but one of these cold winter days - that I know are just around the corner! - I will be ready with the warmth of Jacqueline's personality and instruction to cReAtE! I also bought an Anne Bagby DVD. I've not had the pleasure of her instruction, but am very familiar with her work and look forward to watching it.

Here are a few DVDs that I already owned. I loved the Ann Baldwin and the Carrie Brown. I have not viewed the other one yet...but I had a coupon!

I took a couple of watercolor workshops from Joe Fettingis, and made the online acquaintance of Elizabeth St. Hilaire-Nelson.

Now, can anyone tell me how to change these VCR tapes to DVDs??? I loved Fran's tapes, but can't view them now.

I also own a Michael Sull video, but somehow it has separated from my 'collection'.

(And you may or may not wonder what I did on "Cyber-Monday". I bought books and gifts online. Yes - many of the books were for me. I'm so bad.)

By the way, through another blog (eSynergy - link to the right) I discovered a great art journal blog. Diane Salter's art is cool and she is having a giveaway to mark her 2nd year of blogging. I need to have a giveaway one day soon - maybe after Christmas to start the new year.

Older Work Revisited and a Monkey Painting

Because the holiday season is here and so busy, I'm sharing mostly older work today.
This one is from a cityscape in orange and blue. The only calligraphy on this one is the scratched into the paint scrawling shown in this detail.

And here is the piece in toto. I may gild the small yellow rectangle near the center to make it pop. (Do not adjust your monitor. The yellow wall behind the art is making everything look very yellow.)

Here is lettering detail from "Dreaming".

And here is the entire piece. There's a companion piece, much larger, that begs for bigger, bolder lettering. I may get back to it one day, but for now it's on my studio/den wall.

I love this piece I did in a Jacqueline Sullivan workshop years ago. I've always loved collage, and this Jacob's Ladder booklet was a nice twist. I hadn't done many tiny collages except as greeting cards, so it was fun to make nice work from scraps.

One side of the book.

I was criticized at an art show one year by a woman who couldn't understand why I'd used these colors for a piece about mercy. I hadn't thought of it, but I had mercy on her for being so critical. It won first place that year in the KY State Fair for calligraphy.

This is a little practice piece that I'm including because it happens to be on my desk right now. I love doing this pressurized Roman lettering.

The only current painting project at present: a monkey painting I'm working on for my grandson's bedroom. I hope I get it finished before Christmas. The foot needs some re-working and because it was done on a previously started canvas with lots of paint strokes on it, there will be some hiding and some highlighting of the colors underneath.

Calligraphy Catch Up

Here is the logo I created a couple of years ago for the company I now have the privilege to work for. The job was created for me...the owner paid me a great compliment saying he didn't want me to get away. Blush! Little did I know when I lettered this that I would be carrying it on my business cards nor that it would be larger than life on a marquee of sorts. Great fun!



I completed (all but the framing!) this piece in a recent workshop near Cincinnati. Jacqueline Sullivan was the instructor of the aptly titled "Wet N Wild" watercolor workshop. We poured watercolors, sprinkled metal powders, salt, sand, powdered dyes and alcohol, tore paper and generally had a wonderful time.



Here are some escort cards and envelopes I recently did as part of a much larger package.




And here's an oldie I recently ran across. From a Barbara Close greeting card workshop years ago, a display of student work. This was a great workshop. Barbara is delightful as well as talented. We all created many FuN cards.