Letters of Joy

The first weekend in May, many Alphabeas members attended the Write On Calligraphers annual Letters of Joy celebration. It had been a few years since we were so well represented. Some of us are not so sure that going down just for the day of classes on Saturday is the right way to go!! a very early morning is necessary in order to arrive in time for classes at 9 am... 4:30 am is very early!!

My first class was making a Piano Hinged Folded Accordion book with Patricia Grass from Forest Grove, OR. If you ever want to take a great book class, Patricia is your gal! she has so much knowledge and information to share, she always works with the most wonderful materials, papers to die for.....and everything cut precisely for you.


My next class was Parallel Pen Empowerment with Brenda Broadbent from Paper and Ink Arts. I didn't take any photos but it was all about learning how the pen works and how to take it apart should you ever need to tweek it. I have never had any problems with my set of four but it can happen... I have also taken the all apart, or so I thought! the nib comes out too!! I quickly had to make sure that it would also go back in and sure enough, it does with ease. Phew! We also tried colour blending with the cartridge colours and learned that you can fill the barrel of the pen instead of using a cartridge should you need more ink than one will hold. If you had a job where the colour had to be constant for say, many envelopes, then filling the barrel with the same mix of ink of gouache makes perfect sense. It won't leak - apparently! I will have to give it a try.

My next class was with Lisa Engelbrecht. I had never taken a class with her but heard that she is a fabulous instructor. We were doing decorative letters using all kinds of different gel pens, pan pastels, bling......



She had us start by using a monoline tool, just doing the upper case letters of the alphabet, then said to try making each stroke with two strokes, then three, then five, then ten, up to thirty! then make the letters with many strokes and not lifting your pen / tool. Then make a masculine sort of letter, then a feminine letter, then adding embellishing marks. And finally fill in some of those spaces with one or some of the many gel pens she had with her for us to try. Some I had never seen or heard of....and I have a few!

We walked around the room at the end of the class taking photos of everyone's letters. Here are just a few to show.
Pays to sit near an artist! The Ls are Suzie Beringer's!

A many many stroke B just waiting for some sparkle gel pen......

Suzie's 'delight' using pan pastel.

It was a wonderful day, seeing old friends, taking classes, doing a bit of shopping and then having dinner in Mount Vernon on the way home and actually giving driving directions good enough for Violet and Fay to find Jo and Nan and I at El Gitano Mexican Restaurant! A long day but a good one!!