Baby Name Gift for a Friend

Just finished this gift for a friend's baby. I used some caps that I learned in Yves Leterme's "Drawn Capitals and Modern Versals" workshop last year. Yves is a great teacher and I'm excited that he'll be coming back to Chicago in May, 2013. He will be teaching his "Gestural Writing" class, so if anyone is interested please go to this link here to find out more about it.

Tea Towel Quote

This tea towel was recently done as a gift for a friend. The letters were inspired by Yves Leterme, during his "Drawn Capitals and Modern Versals" class in Chicago in May, 2012. I drew the letters—in the composition you see here—small, as an exercise in the class. And in December, enlarged the design and then re-drew them; transferred the skeletal forms to the tea towel; then hand-painted them with a flat brush.

I love this quote! I like to think that many problems in this world could be resolved if we could just sit down and discuss them over tea. :-)

Envelope Job Completed!

Envelopes done! The bride wanted a casual, Ralph Lauren-ish look to go with the décor of the location where the ceremony will be held. The facility is near the Indiana Dunes, hence the dune grass motif. The lettering was done in a dark, walnut ink script for the names; and a dark brown fine point marker for the address. Both the script and printing were done to match her invitations. And the dune grass was done in moss green gouache. Here is a finished sample.

Envelope Job

I don't do envelopes very often. Just for the occasional client who asks. These are in the first stage—dune grass added to each one. You can't tell from this pic, but the dune grass is a soft, moss green on off-white paper.

Winter Calligraphy Classes - Part 1

Here is a description of my upcoming introductory calligraphy class. For registration info please visit my website here to download the flyer.

Introduction to the “Art of Beautiful Writing”

(Beginner)

Tuesdays, January 15–February 19

A: 10am–1pm  |  B: 6–9pm

6 weeks, 3 hours per week - adults (12 yrs. and up)

$135 (fee includes all materials)

Wednesdays, January 16–February 20

A: 10am–1pm  |  B: 3:30–5pm
6 weeks, 1.5 hours per week - students (9 yrs. and up)

$75 (fee includes all materials)

Registration deadline: January 8

____________________

Saturday, March 16

9am–5pm
One-day workshop (adults)

$75 (fee includes all materials)

Registration deadline: March 4

This is like Calligraphy Appreciation 101! In this class, students will get an overview of the fascinating world of calligraphy, from historical manuscripts to the modern-day lettering arts. We will be inspired by different calligraphic hands found in the many works we’ll view, and then we’ll get to experiment with the tools that the masters’ used to create those works.

There will be plenty of demonstrations and one-on-one instruction. Students will get to try new tools, different hands, all sorts of beautiful papers, and various media. Our time together will be fun, informative and not at all threatening, and maybe even a bit messy!

Rather than producing a finished piece, students will come away with a variety of samples that will help them begin exploring ways to create new works on their own time. This is a great class to whet your appetite for the world of letters! And that world is going to blow your mind!

Winter Calligraphy Classes - Part 2

Here is a description of my upcoming Basic Italic class. For registration info please visit my website here to download the flyer.

Basic Italic

(Beginner)

Thursdays, January 17–February 21

A: 10am–1pm  |  B: 6–9pm

6 weeks, 3 hours per week - adults (12 yrs. and up)

$120 (supply list given at registration)

Registration deadline: January 8

A hand that every calligrapher should have in their repertoire! We will begin by learning basic strokes and how they apply to the italic form, then putting those strokes together in a sequence that creates the letters.

From there we'll move into writing sentences, learning about proper letter and word spacing along the way. Many samples from various historic calligraphic masters will be shown throughout the class, as well as modern samples from some of the cutting-edge lettering artists out there today. The student will come away with a strong, working knowledge of the Italic form.

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year 2013! 

Hope this finds you well and ready to explore a whole new year of artistic, creative opportunities!

Work from Mike Gold's Workshop – PART 2

More student work from the workshop.

Work from Mike Gold's Workshop

Mike Gold—lettering artist/teacher/American Greetings artist—came to Chicago on Nov. 17 & 18 to teach a two-day workshop on Contemporary Scripts for the Chicago Calligraphy Collective. It was an amazing time! His work is spectacular and he's also a great teacher. (Check out his website at www.abbeygolddesign.com. He led us through some challenging exercises to get us to look at the letters as shapes, and to see everything we put on paper as a composition. Here's a look at some of Mike's work, as well as some of our class work.

This is a student piece. It's an exercise that Mike had us do on Day 1 to loosen up. We then went back in and filled in spaces with a wash or solid black.

Same exercise, but adding color. This piece was done by my friend Luce.

This is one of my pieces for the same exercise.

 

This is one of Mike's demos to show us how to start spacing the letters out in unusual ways.

This is Mike demonstrating 

how to write a quote 

in a pleasing composition.

On Day Two, we branched out with white on black, and adding color to the design. Here, Mike demonstrates white
on black, using pastels to
make the quote "pop."

One student's work, adding color with pastels.

Study Group Project

Today was my play date with the Chicago Calligraphy Collective study group. We meet once a month to share what we're working on and perhaps do a demo or small project. This month, Mary shared her jewelry-making skills by showing us these little books and earrings that can be made from calligraphic scraps that we all have laying around in our drawers. Here's a sampling of what we all came up with. VERY FUN STUFF!!!