November pictures!

Louise introduced Joyce and asked her to tell us her story.....you have to believe this is a colourful lady!!! lots of fun.


Joyce demonstrating Copperplate for us. Not an easy hand to write on the chalkboard without a "whopperplate" pen. We had her do several small demos so we could easily see how she makes her letters.

Another small group gathers round.

Joyce works on a small light table so she can easily see the guidelines she works with.

Such concentration!!

An idea hatched at the October meeting. Louise was married just after that meeting and of course, with all she has going on in her life wasn't able to attend so we were able to plot and plan.
I thought it was Rita's idea but someone attributed to Eileen. We each were to bring a veil to wear.... I think only Fay's was the original one worn at her wedding 45 years ago.
Louise borrowed one for a picture!
And Frank made one of his extra special cakes just for Louise! Thank you Frank!!

See you all in December at the Christmas luncheon, card exchange and fun afternoon at Val's!

November meeting

We had our regularly scheduled meeting on November 14th. The program was ably led by Joyce Z showing us her copperplate. I apologize for not taking my camera so I have no photos to share. Eileen has some but her sizing skills need tweeking! Joyce had photocopied exemplars, liners sheets and gave each of us one of her favourite nibs, a Brause 66EF. Anita offered to write the day up for the Broad Edge and was busy gathering samples from around the room. Everyone in attendance seemed to really enjoy the day of lettering. Thank you Joyce!

Our next time together will be at Val's for the Christmas luncheon. Your seasonal cards, a small gift for under the tree and something delicious to share for lunch is all you need to bring!

Day two - Martin Jackson workshop

Layout and Design
Building on what we did in Day one, we moved on to looking at ways to make our beautiful letters look good in a design. The day was one of questions. When you have a project in front of you and a nice white, blank sheet of paper, what do you do? What is the project? a poem? a card? a poster? a quote? knowing that will help decide what size of paper to use. Should it be in a horizontal format or a vertical? would it look good done in a circle? a poem - then you can use a flush left format or maybe you prefer the look of a centered poem. Are the words happy? humourous? sad? When you have answered some of these questions, it is time to start working with thumbnails. These are a great tool to help with what your piece will eventually look like. Martin's approach to layout and design is to use onion skin paper which is really quite impossible to find these days, or tracing paper which isn't near as good. Write your words out in lines and then using the onion skin paper, trace over the words in a pleasant layout, your eye decides what pleasant looks like. Once you have a good looking piece on onion skin, it is time to take it to a light table and transfer it on to your good paper. Lots of questions and lots of possibilities to attempt. Anything that you are pleased with.....Margot will accept it for the exhibition!!

Here are a few photos taken before my camera battery died. I am still learning how to use my camera and have decided that I really don't like the feature that tells you that your battery is about to die instead of letting you check periodically to see if you are close.....

Nan working on a layout for an alphabet.



Martin's desk



Wilma working on numbers



Jean's circle writing



Frank writing names



Eileen's work space, and a nice numbers layout



Martin demonstrating writing in a circle



group photo, missing Jean the photographer and Joyce who wasn't able to attend the second day. Day one she had a bit of a tickle in her throat, by day two, she had a frog. Hope she's feeling better now.

Next up will be our November meeting where we explore Copperplate with Joyce leading us. Remember! potluck lunch, bring something to share for lunch and your own plate and cutlery.

Martin Jackson Workshop Day one

Day one, Colour Blending with Martin Jackson.
We started with a discussion of inks to use, some lightfast, some not so much! but nice to work with, i.e. Dr. Marten's , old Rotring transparent acrylic inks, etc. We started with a demonstration by Martin and then we were set loose to try what we had in ink or Martin's Magic Color inks. We also watched demos using Nicholson's Peerless watercolours, gouache and writing on black paper. A full day with lots of writing on good paper 90 lb or 140 lb watercolour paper - really has to be good quality paper or it shows, and learning and enjoyment when the inks did what they were supposed to do! Here are just a few photos taken during the day - Thanks to Eileen for taking so many and reminding me to take some too!! I am sure Eileen's report on Day one will be far more extensive when it hits the newsletter in the Spring.

Martin's demo piece - I think using Peerless Watercolors- who knew?! I have a booklet of them and haven't really done anything with them since buying them as the "must have" at an international conference, year unknown.


Martin's demo piece using gouache (I think!)



a sample of participants work - can't believe I forgot to photograph my page and I left it at the venue overnight...


Martin's demo piece on black paper, using very subtle gouache colours with a touch of Dr. Marten's Bleedproof white added.


Stay tuned for day two!

Are you impressed John?! blog entry up on the day it happened?! this was just for you! in case you were feeling left out of the action...

Please excuse my photography (Bev) as I didn't use a flash so as to not distract people. I didn't do the work justice.