April 2017

Geometric Lettering

This program was a revisit from long ago, given to us by Diana Haines after one of her trip to England and a study session at West Dean College with Martin Wenham. This was an alphabet adapted from a design by Hans Schmidt. 

Diana loved to have her family visits coincide with courses given at West Dean College and she studied several times with Martin Wenham. 

Based on geometric shapes, a circle, half circle, a triangle and rectangle, the letters fit into a square. 
Once you get the 'feel' of them, they can be decorated with coloured pencil, watercolour, markers or zen tangling type designs, etc. 

We first looked at this in the Fall of 1994! Nan led us through the April program this time around and gave us homework to do!

 

February 2017

Coloured Pencil

Working with instructions from a workshop many years ago with Benny McAdams, we worked on VALUE REVERSAL with Prismacolour coloured pencils. Nan did her March postcard for me, using this technique.

 

January 2017

In Between the Lines - Valentines.

Violet led us through the program to make Valentine's. Draw the horizontal lines first and letter in between them. Add colour, decorate and give them with love!

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: