November 2016

Sacred Geometry

In the Fall, three members travelled, against all weather odds, to the Island to take a workshop with Lorraine Douglas from Sidney. This was a fundraiser for the Esmé Davis Scholarship fund with the Fairbank Calligraphy Society. We spent a blustery wet day studying Beautiful Geometry.

You know when you go merrily along and the workshop contents speak to you and you go home and you continue to practice and play with the things you've learned and you obsess about it just a little and then! you find that you have had the best tool for the job in your studio all along and wow! you take off with it and create all kinds of fund things?! 

 

A bow compass with a ruling pen on one end instead of pencil lead. The possibilities open up with what you can do and what you can write with.............and you end up using Finetec gold in it on everything!

 

We were told to go forth and share. It seemed like an obvious choice for a program. 

Thanks to Lorraine, a new technique with lots of possibilities to use with lettering.

October 2016

October 2016 Study Group

Study session months are often newsletter months as well. After we finished collating and stitching the newsletter, we got down to the fun stuff! Often members bring something that they are working on but there is always something to share as well. 

Some of us were revisiting the work of Adolf Bernd which Peter Thornton brought to my attention at the conference in 2007, Island Magic, on Vancouver Island. 

We always have a good time at our Study Group Sessions and encourage more members to give it a try!

 

Workshop in June! forgot to write about it!

We had a surprise workshop with Suzie Beringer in June. It all just worked out, Suzie was available and there were enough eager students to fill a class!

We did Playful & Pressurized Letterforms, with what else? Pencil! 

 

September 2016

The September program was a review of a technique learned from Barbara Close in one of the workshops that she has taught for us. This is something that everyone young and old can do and have a great time playing with these letters. Here are some quick samples:

 

Annual Summer Picnic

Not always easy to get the group together with so much going on in the summer but a great time was had by those who attended!

 

May 2016

In May, we looked at the letters of David Jones and some of his techniques for working on paper.
Here is a scan of my program journal to show some of what we did.

There is so much more to explore of his work and techniques. Another day.
 

In Loving Memory of Win

In the early morning of March 9, 2016, we lost one of our long time members, Win Searle. 

 

 Win led an incredibly adventurous life! She moved from the UK to New Zealand and then to Canada where she worked as an executive assistant at UBC. She travelled and explored the world, she hiked over mountain ranges and was a very vigorous and capable senior. Win would have been 92 in April. We all decided we need to be more like Win!

March 2016 

Variations of Monoline Letters 

While some of us were off enjoying our annual weekend at Yellow Point Lodge with the Fairbank Calligraphy Society, Cyndi led the group through some monoline lettering.

 

January 2016  a Homework Journal

Cyndi did an excellent job providing each member with pre-assembled kits that held all the basics to made a handmade journal. The supplies included 2 binder rings and a variety of papers that could be hole punched as is or folded. An assortment of decorative, handmade paste paper and photo calendar pages were available to choose from for the front and back covers.  The Big Shot machine was available for anyone to use who wanted to emboss some of their pages. 

Now we just have to get everyone on board to do their homework!!

 

Study Sessions 2016

For the past several months, we have been trying something new. Every other month, we meet for a study session rather than a regular meeting which involves a business meeting. A study session enables us to have a whole day to study something special. 

In FEBRUARY we enjoyed making a coptic book with Jane. Everyone who attended loved the session and would like to do more! With so many journalling now, it is great to have the expertise to make your own book! 

Any one who attends the study sessions, enjoys them immensely. To be able to work the full day, have the room to spread out and concentrate on studying together is wonderful! Makes many of us wish that we could do it every month and let the business take care of itself!! 

November 2015 - Workshop with Amity!

Yes! three workshops in November! It is just how it worked out and for us, it was magical. 

Who doesn't love pencil?! and who knew there were that many different pencils to work with? and erasers? and sharpeners?! Between us, I think we have them all now. Everyone went away with an excitement to continue exploring what the pencil could create.

 Participants at the workshop had a wonderful weekend, filled with many great exercises. 
Thank you Amity!
 

November 2015 - workshop with Heather!

We had the pleasure of hosting Heather Victoria Held for two workshops in November.  Artful Flourishing one day and The Poetic Pen for the weekend. Is there a better way to spend a three day weekend?!   
 Heather's website

 

November 2015
An Old Fashioned Sharing Day

A concept originally from Judi Dampier, we have often tried to duplicate those wonderful days many of us shared years ago. 

Our guild owns a BIG SHOT machine now and that seemed to be a hit at the meeting with many members lining up to emboss card stock to be used at a future time on cards or maybe even their Christmas cards! 

 
Another table was set up to try our hand at painting abstract flowers. No rules! just fun! Basically just add a blob of colour to your paper and then pull the colour around. This is what we were going for (see photo below), some had amazing success! I regret that I cannot remember the artist's name who created the first flowers and wrote a book.......

 
We also made Weathergrams. Originally from Lloyd Reynolds at Reed College in Portland, OR, a take on the Japanese art form, weathergrams have now been made by artists worldwide. You need a 10"X2½" strip of kraft paper, preferably from a heavy brown paper bag, some biodegradable string or twine, a hole punch, vermilion coloured ink for the versal and some waterproof black ink to write your poem or message. In the beginning Haiku were what was used but I think as calligraphers we have used anything we wanted to write. I have even gilded in my message with ok success. When your ink is dry, the idea is to hang weathergrams outside in the elements from solstice to equinox or vice versa and allow them to weather. 

 
And the final table was seeing just what TYVEK will do when coloured with paint and heated with an iron - but don't touch the iron to the tyvek! it is plastic and melts with heat. It would coat an iron quite disastrously! We sandwiched the tyvek between two sheets of cooking parchment paper.

A fun day!