The year at a glance...

For a quick referral, here is our year, all planned!!

ALPHABEAS Calendar for 2009

Galleria is a 'show and tell' program at our meetings to display homework from programs and workshops. Several times a year it aims at encouraging members to create a piece. Members are also welcome to present other items of interest at any time.

JANUARY	JULY
10 - Paper Bag Book Instructor – Bev Allen Galleria –New Year’s Resolution	Summer Gathering?
FEBRUARY	AUGUST
14 -Fun à la Carrie Imai Instructors: Bev, Kathleen & Violet Homework – Completed paper bag book, and Valentine exchange	Summer Gathering?
MARCH	SEPTEMBER
14 - Cuneiform Instructor – Anita Boyd Homework – February book 31 - April 1 – workshop with Georgia A.	12 - 13 - Workshop with Lorraine Douglas: Card-Making
APRIL	OCTOBER
11 - Akim Lettering Homework ‘Spring!’ using cuneiform (‘spring’s here’, ‘spring forward’, ‘spring break’, ‘spring in your step’…)	10 – Origami Tag Book Instructor: Janice Woodland Galleria –Memory Book filled with summer adventures
MAY	NOVEMBER
9 - Meandering Card Using Akim Instructor: Violet Smythe Galleria – A to Z	3 & 4 – Workshop with Martin Jackson 14 - TBA Show and Tell – 2 last workshops
JUNE	DECEMBER
3-4 –Workshop with Connie Furgason 13 - Memory Book Instructor: Louise Menard Show and Tell – 2 recent workshops	12 -Christmas Party

March Galleria

One more photo of Anita demonstrating Cuneiform lettering......answering one of the many questions!


Our Gallerias are divided into two types. One is an assigned theme and that happens maybe 3 or 4 times a year tops. The others are more of a show and tell type of Galleria rising out of the meeting programs. March was one of the latter. We made meandering books at the February meeting and were revisiting techniques learned in our workshop last year with Carrie Imai. Here are some photos showing how some members finished their books.


Kathleen's "inside" showing her quotation on each "page"

Muriel's finished project.

Closeup of one of Joyce's pages.

Joyce's complete book.

Nan's book.

Rita's book.

Eileen's book.

Violet made a smaller version of the meander book and took it to Mexico as her trip journal. Here's one side.....all about places and things to do on the Yucatan Peninsula.
and the other side...good thing to practice in Mexico! your numbers in Spanish.
Dos Dos Equis, por favor!

Bev explaining a scroll book she learned at Yellowpoint.

Thank you to Kathleen for her photos!

And there you have it! Our next Galleria at the April meeting is to use the Cuneiform lettering and "spring", it could be spring forward, spring in your step, or Spring or ?; you are only limited by your imagination!

March meeting

With permission from Carrie Imai, Anita Boyd was able to share the Cuneiform alphabet she learned at a workshop with Carrie.



I went around the room and took photos of everyone's work. We all made very good progress with these letters! I am not going to show you everyone's here as I am also writing up the day's activities for the next Broad Edge. Here is Frank's work:



Eileen was making a meander book with today's program. Here is her title page:

Muriel tried some of Anita's suggestions about twisitng the pen to produce a bit thicker stroke, an edge to it, if you will.
Here is Sandi's work sheet:

A round of applause to Louise and her kind neighbour, Barry. They worked and produced pens for us made from doweling for the handle and doll house shingles for the nib. Thanks Louise! and Barry!

Thank you Anita! a very worthwhile program!!

Yellowpoint Retreat

For 29 years, Fairbank Calligraphy Society in Victoria, BC has been holding an annual retreat in March. This is always a well loved event and looked forward to by all who attend. This past weekend was no exception! There were about 60 or more in attendance to spend some time together, gain some pounds on the gourmet meals, get together with old friends and make some new ones, work on some calligraphy or other art projects and enjoy the shareshop on Saturday morning. This year it was lead by Trish Klus and we learned how to make a scroll book with a little leather journal inside the scroll. There were many steps but it was such good fun!



See where the little leather bound book goes...

We even covered the inside of the scroll!
I decided to write the instructions in the leather bound booklet.

This is the spectacular view from our cliff cabin window.



We had a bit of every weather imaginable this weekend, lovely sunshine, bit of rain, sNoW! and then back to sunshine.
Huge round of applause for Ginny and Joan for their wonderful organizing.

And now back to reality!
We have a meeting on the 14th of March and a workshop with Georgia Angelopoulos at the end of the month. See you there!

Exhibition in Richmond

Our new Exhibition Committee, headed up by Margot Ferris, has hung their first major showing of our exhibition. We did have a smaller show up earlier in the year but this one has 30 pieces hanging!

It is now showing in sunny Richmond in the Rotunda at the Richmond Cultural Centre. It will be there until the end of March. The address is 7700 Minoru Blvd (Minoru Gate), Richmond. It is directly across the street from Sears at Richmond Centre.

The photos are courtesy of Margot Ferris.

My friend CJ of the famed blog:
http://cjcompostheap.blogspot.com/
has nominated me and our blog for the Kreativ Blogger award.
How cool is that?!

Valentine's Day meeting

The photos this month were taken by Louise Menard. Thank you so much for sending them ! In no particular order, they show us 'playing' with some left over supplies from the workshop we had with Carrie Imai.

First we had to make the full sheet of Opus Student Watercolour paper into something a bit more manageable - a meander book! There just isn't enough room in the classroom we use for everyone to work on the full sheet. Thank you Shereen LaPlantz for having so many ideas for these folded books in her Cover to Cover book!

Using cut up cellulose sponges to create letters, we used acrylic inks, and gouache for stamping. You can see that letters weren't the only thing we stamped. Nan was having great success with the Pelikan 4001 inks..........
Using Pelikan 4001 inks, we attempted colour blending. I didn't find that the colours we had were that great for the blending we all know and love done by Martin Jackson. Some were able to get good results though. It was decided afterwards that what Carrie used the inks for was to write in a 'rainbow', starting with one colour and moving into the next letter and changing colour, and so on. We had fun trying though! We were using a variety of pens, from Techniquills to Automatic pens and maybe some ruling pens thrown in for good measure.
More stamping with the acrylic inks. Look! Tracy's back!!
We had some tubes of acrylic paint left from the workshop. By squeezing some on our pages and using credit cards and other "tools" we smoothed the paint out and made marks in it.
Even with one of the biggest turnout of members, we still have supplies left! We purchased a full package of paper (25 sheets) and there's one left - must have been for you John!!
Bev demonstrating her lack of ability to make the inks blend!
Kathleen showing some of the techniques from the book we made in Carrie's class.


Violet with her successful sponged letters with Trevor in the background taking notes. Watch for his write up in the June newsletter. Violet was also celebrating her birthday!!
All agreed, a very good meeting with lots of ideas to remember and use in our work!

We look forward to our workshop Gilding with Georgia Angelopoulos from Victoria, coming up March 31 and April 1. We have Jo flying off to the UK and Egypt and Romania and arriving home just in time for the workshop - she's bringing us transfer gold from the UK!!

Our next meeting is March 14th and we will be looking at an alphabet called Cuneiform, led by Anita.