Watercolour brush pieces

Well, i'm back! now that i've actually done some calligraphy lately, & am getting over my winter funk - already 1/2 the front lawn is bare from snow, & it's not even spring!

3 pieces!

I took a class from Barb Close from California  http://bcdezigns.com/BCgallery.htm.

She was up teaching 2 classes for http://edmontoncalligraphicsociety.ca/.

In the Painting For Words, we worked with watercolour backgrounds. Fun stuff. I didn't finish the lettering for all of them in class, but here are the 3 completed ones. i missed out on her day of Brush Lettering but figured i'd do my best & used 3 different types of brushes on these pieces; a watercolour 'round' on "Fly", a waterbrush for "Colour", and a Pentel Brush for "Dream".

Checkout ECS's Facebook page @ http://www.facebook.com/#!/groups/151228041582552/ which is where all the workshop photos go.

Go where YOUR dream takes YOU!

Edmonton Calligraphic Society celebrates 25 years at June Social!

Yes, we are 25 years of age! And are we planning a special and colourful celebration at our June 2 Social & Silent Auction! In 1981 the guild started up with 14 charter members and we're hoping they''ll all be able to join us in celebrating.

This special night is open to members, former members, and invited guests.

If you'd like to come, tickets are $15 and as it's a catered event, we have a cut-off date of May 26. You can contact me for a ticket by leaving a message here. We're so fortunate to have 5 of us on the social committee, and the ideas are just bouncing! We are going to wear our favorite colours & party like we're 25! With gifts for everyone!

Bow Valley Calligraphy Guild Anniversary

The calligraphic community in Alberta is celebrating a couple of milestones this year! The Bow Valley Calligraphy Guild in Calgary is 30 years old & planning something special for their fall newsletter. They sent out a notice for a comment along with a logo-type design, so I did up this little piece using a Techniquill pen, fine point marker and Higgins Eternal Permanent Black ink.

Below are a few I fooled around with; pretty similar but mostly trying to get a workable "s" on "years" that didn't look like it was hanging out there too much, all alone. I had another page of trials, tracing back & forth using a small lightable.Now that I look at the finished product I see the that the final "s" really looks more like a lower case "d" and the little ampersand amongst the monoline words looks more like an "e", cause I forgot to put in the "t"-like slash; ampersands having originated from the latin ET. or something.

Duhhhh. This is why I don't hold a regular job, people! Yeeesh!

HAPPY VALENTINE'S DAY! & divvy it up

or "How to use up your scraps of fancy papers"

We were given a project to create for February's meeting of ECS (Edmonton Calligraphic Society) which was to create a box with 9 letters. The sample shown was

VAL

ENT

INE

however that's not something I'd have on my wall year-round. Well I could, but people would think I was weird. Which I am, but that's another story. So I opted for 'luving you'. What can I say, it was a dry day for ideas, & I had to go to a friend for that. This is how it was created:

Start with a (8"wooden) square block. (see below for how to divide an unequal measurement into equal pieces) Using clear matte medium as a paste, wrap a piece of rice paper on the front & around to the back. Paint black cheapo liquid acrylic on front & sides as a base. (Or you could just use black gesso.) Pull out all those fancy gold & red papers you've been saving for the perfect project, this is it! Then cut background squares & letters, & glue them on, alternating the color for each of the 9 squares. (Yes! the gold cross-stitch paper I saved from the 90's!) The fatter the letters, the better. Some may need a little oomph, like my U, N & Y, so outline them or the background with black pen, Gold Krylon paint or gold highlighter. Fun stuff.

Not so much fun putting all the papers away.

You can see the other samples at ECS's Facebook page. I think this is the link: http://www.facebook.com/home.php#!/group.php?gid=151228041582552

I may put the others up here after they've come out in the next guild newsletter.

Now, HOW TO DIVIDE INTO EQUAL PIECES WITHOUT A CALCULATOR

For example this green paper is 5 1/2" square & you want to divide it into 3 equal strips.

Hold the beginning of the ruler (0") against the top left corner of the paper. Find a number larger than the length of the paper that is divisible by 3; that's 6.

#1. Slide the right side of the ruler down until the 6" mark is flush with the paper edge.

6 % 3 is 2, so make a dot on the paper every 2"; at the 2" & the 4" spot.

#2. Slide the ruler down & line up the start of the ruler with the bottom left corner.

Slide the right side of the ruler to the 6" spot. Again, mark a dot at 2" and 4" .

#3. Join the upper & lower dots. To divide this page into 9 equal squares, turn the paper 1/4 turn & repeat the process.

'TIS THE SEASON!

The Edmonton Calligraphic Society http://www.edmontoncalligraphicsociety.ca/ held it's annual Christmas Party on the 1st Thursday of this month and that always gets me kick-started into the season. This year we had a finger-food potluck social at the home of our president. It was so cozy and festive; just wonderful for socializing. By the tree infront of the fireplace sat 30-some white paper bags, each adorned with our names which Wendy Spiers had calligraphed. Into these we dropped our cards, and mine was filled with with such beautiful handmade creations.

Here's a look at a few for now.

* A very MERRY Merry Christmas by Gail Fournier. How cute is that!
*O Beautiful Star in Neuland by Jeanine Alexander. Jeanine used a star from the layering technique we learned in Nadia's "Missing Pieces"class last month.
*A new member of our guild, Carol Thomas-Bain, used her wonderful lettering to advantage on an ornamental tag inserted into a folded envelope.
*Sonja Idema's cards always blow me away with their creative presentation and this years snowflake-themed tag & folded envie with her fun monoline letters are no exception.
*I really like how Monica Robertson puts her heart & soul into her cards. This year her idea came from a meditation course she took; brown for the monk's garments, a zentangle around 2011, and a haiku about the experience of meditation.
Click on the images to enlarge.
And the Edmonton Calligraphic Society has a Facebook page now...check it out! And breathe....

Summer Lettering

I don't know what's wrong with me. I've got Marv's work pants hanging on the line (yes, people still do that), I've got a stew cooking in the slow cooker, and now I'm ready to blog!

Every once in a while someone asks if I still do calligraphy.

I do, but on my own terms. For example, our nephew Roger married Sarah in Dawson Creek,BC this summer. We were camping & fishing for the 2 weeks leading up to it making our way up there, so as usual, I was creating their wedding present on holidays. We swung by their place before leaving so I could scope out the colour scheme & I packed a small box with supplies. (Keep in mind our trailer is only 18' long and when you camp in the foothills the last 2 weeks in August you got to pack clothing, shoes & boots for all 4 seasons!)

I took:

• 8 x10 velvet mat with 5x7 opening
• a few papers, including tracing, cut to size
• black Pigma pen (felt tip) for outlining & names
• watercolour pencils
• a few good round brushes
• small containers for water
• silver & gold gouache
• sumi ink with old brush
• pencil, eraser
• 8x10 foamcore for backing
• clear plastic envelope 'sleeve' for presentation
• small pizza box (unused) to pack the present in
• a fishing tackle box full of fishing tackle
  
  Left- Aren't Sarah & Roger cute?
  
  Above- We also spent time there with our son Dale & his girl Tara (I love this girl!) who spent 17 hours driving from Vancouver across the province to Dawson Creek, JUST TO SEE US!
  
  

(They went to the wedding too.)

So on our way there, we camped at the Brazeau Dam where the fishing is great. It rained for 3 days.

On the dam overflow picture that has a swamp in the middle, look carefully near the left side at the bottom of the picture for the very top edge of a post. That's the post (& wire) I climbed over to get a better picture, except I tripped & fell. Luckily I skidded only a few feet. And that's not a path at the bottom of the picture; that's a road!




I never took any meat out of the freezer for dinner because we were having fish.
Here's Marv trying to remove the fishhook from his finger.

And here's Biskit attempting amore direct approach to fishing.

That didn't work either.

Bisky had a great time frolicking in the wildflowers along the top edge of the dam, though.

When we got back to our campsite the trailer awning was hanging like a hammock...we had to remove a few buckets of hail before we could open the trailer door.

So we decided to move on, driving up towards the McLeod River to exactly where Marv's work buddy, who does "a lot of fishing", goes fishing, sometimes even with other fishermen.
Marv decided to pull over to the side of the road to remove his rain jacket.

That didn't go so well.

Like I said, it'd rained for 3 days.
A couple 20-year olds with their big honking double cab truck and bigass fat trailer with brand new ATV's pulled us out, and we only lost one part off the Blazer.

That was the part Marv had welded onto the front of the truck for pulling us out of sticky situations. Duh.

We found a wonderful site for our next stop...just a few yards to the right of this lake.

Doesn't this look like a professional photo?

Marv spent the evening fishing...


apparently fish don't grow in a gravel pit with no stream feeding into it.

Here the Biskinator decide's he's had enough & goes hunting for his own fish again.

We threw the rod a few times in the river, hoping to catch something.

(That's right, the rod...not just the line.)
Nada.

There's a pretty looking mountain stream in the centre there tho if you look hard enough.


If you're still reading at this point, you'll see some exciting lettering. This is the Alaska Hotel in Dawson Creek, which is at Mile 0 of the Alaska Highway.
Which gets me wondering, wouldn't Edmonton or even Calgary be at Mile Zero too? If the highway hasn't started yet?

Don't you just love this old place!? It just blew me away.

We didn't go in here.

We could've, but it was noon when we stopped for these pictures & it's almost a 7 hour drive home & Marv had get up before 6 a.m. to work the next day.

This place is across the alley next to the hotel.

If you look closely (you can enlarge the photos by clicking on them) there's a mural on a building at the end of the alley. Cool, huh?

We got home around midnight, fishless.

After I'd caught 2 fish that broke the line & got away, Marv wondered if perhaps we should replace my line... because it was his dad's old fishing gear (who passed away in the early 90's & I don't recall him EVER fishing), maybe the line might be a little weak...? Ya think?

Oh, and Marv landed one that squiggled back & slipped into the water.
"It was thhiiiiiiiiiiissssssss big!!!"

ECO watercolour fairie quote

I chose to do this quote from Peter Pan by JM Barrie for a baby gift, and being a lover of fairies (who isn't!) I went for a light-hearted colourful look.

After sketching the rough out, I found

in my paper stash a colourful scrapbook paper with a splashy watercolour design to use as a background border.

I chose ECO liquid watercolours

to match it.

The colours for the bouncy "laughed" was dropped in with a brush.

To get the bleed on "and they all went skipping about" I used a pointed nib and with a multitude of brushes handy continuously fed the nib with a different colour, occasionally dabbing a paper towel when the nib got too full.

Locker room graffiti card

Here's my attempt at some "train art" in a birthday card for a 15 year old. Poor dude's BD is in September, so I went for a school locker theme, with for some added graffiti.

Enjoyed using various felt markers, gel pens and a Pilot Parallel Pen on a textured grey Laid-like piece of cardstock that was laying around.

Like most rush jobs, I kinda made it up as I went along.

This would've been before I got my pan pastels...that would've helped.

Marc Kennedy, Martin Rink Soars

WOW! DID THEY EVER

14 Gold medals! What a thrill!

Congrats to all Olympic athletes for achieving their dreams!

And to all their parents for believing in them!

Saturday night after the Martin rink won gold, Marv & I looked to each other and said "Ya! We shook that young man's hand!" And he was so gracious... he surely must get that from his parents.

Proud to be Canadian!

Albertan!!

(St.Albertan?)

Marc Kennedy & Kevin Martin rink- my Olympic heroes

TO ALL OUR OLYMPIC ATHLETES

Kevin Martin, John Morris, Marc Kennedy, Ben Hebert

Ya!!!! Going for GOLD!!!

Marc Kennedy's the blonde cutie, 2nd from Rt.

OK, if you've followed the blog for a while I previously mentioned my personal connection; I was friends with Marc's mom Connie Leblanc in Jr.High, and had classes throughout jr. & senior high school with Connie & Don Kennedy (he called me metal mouth in Grade 9 when I wore braces which I'm over now so I won't mention it- I was walking down the glassed in slope from the library to class & he was just a couple feet behind. It's oK, I'm over it now. Not the braces tho; wore them from Gr.7-10 & my overbite is back!!! Life is so cruel..if not cruel, expensive!)

Connie & Don were involved in a number of school sports & starting a St.Albert teen club of which curling was a part. I had a chance meeting with Marc in '08 & he was just so friendly & humble, & it was so great to see Connie, ever so graceful, (& Don) after all these years. (And if I were 13 again & walking behind Don & not so insecure, maybe I'd say "hey, Chubbs, not so cute anymore, are ya?" heehee). Thanx Ed.Journal for not suing me for copy & pasting your photo of our Alberta champs.

The CALLIGRAPHY:

TOOLS- 1/4" or 3/8" metal Techniquill flat edge pen with Higgins Eternal ink. LETTERING STYLE- Neuland, with pen at 90 degrees. Some strokes double stroked or touched up with a pointed pen nib to create that bit of a curve at the beginnings & endings.

The 'fishtails' on the crossbars of the H, A & flourish of the Y: Created by sliding the nib along & lifting the outside edge of the nib while the inside edge continues trailing on to. Think of a plane taking of as it goes into a turn. You can have a lot of fun with Neuland by lengthening some strokes & touching & bouncing letters.

The OLYMPIC COMPUTER addition:

This was done playing around in a Microsoft Word Doc; there are just SO MANY CHOICES in their WordArt option.

A MAGICAL bookmaking structure & experience!

Spend only 6 minutes watching this amazing video as the books are discovered and opened. (Sweet musical accompaniment as well. F)

http://vimeo.com/7694315
For those of you who are interested in bookmaking, here's a wonderfully made video that displays Patience, the puzzle-like work of paper artist, Randi Parkhurst of the Pacific Northwest. I found it mesmerizing to watch how each book fits perfectly into place.
It's even more impressive when you keep in mind that Randi made all of the individual papers that compose each book.
http://www.parkhurstpaperarts.com/

Thanks to Margaret L. for the heads up & write-up on this one.

Isn't it cool?

Seasons Greetings

Wishing you all a wonderful holiday season with good health and happiness!

We had another great meal and fun time at the Edmonton Calligraphic Society's Christmas Social. http://edmontoncalligraphicsociety.ca The theme was Christmas Around The World, where upon entering we each were presented with a handmade nametag with an airport code on the front. I thought I was visiting Romania, but my destination turned out to be Rome! Pat & Jan created a fun evening which included songs, games and interesting tales of family traditions from members and guests.

I received some wonderful cards from members. I wasn't able to reciprocate unfortunately, what with my sabbatical, and was giving out hugs instead. Ok, the truth? I spend way too much time playing with the new puppy. So much, in fact, I believe he now thinks I'm his dog mommy. What can I say...I've always been an exceptionally good barker, and in fact can bark & whine to match any mood.

So I'm posting this greeting to you from a few years ago. I've got this thing about stained glass (see how happy I was when I FINALLY received a lamp for Christmas.)

The angel original was painted in watercolors and outlined with a black fine-tipped pen; the message created in a style taught by Alan Blackman at one of the conferences in Lethbridge. It reads "and the angel said unto them fear not, for behold I bring you good tidings of great joy which shall be to all people" Too bad I forgot about the halo; perhaps I'd intended to add it in a metallic later.