Brush Uncial on youtube...

Brush Uncial in Pensacola!

I got to teach one of my favorite workshops recently, for the Gulf Coast Scribes in Pensacola, Florida...a very active group of calligraphers that is going strong! This was the workshop I was signed up to teach in Minnesota, Tomatoes and Windows...which is my take on Brush Uncial & Brush Blackletter...we had some great work in class, but I was remiss in taking enough pictures...so I've included some of my own projects, and a link to Brush Uncial (Brush Lettering 1V) up on youtube!
Everyone enjoyed doing at least one project on fabric: think - Banners!
It's pleasure to teach a group of enthusiastic and well-trained calligraphers! Plus, there was the slaw at Bagelheads....

Bobbi's Ladder to Heaven

A group of Jacksonville calligraphers recently had a small tribute show for Bobbi Yoffee, who died about a year and a half ago from ovarian cancer...this show motivated me to finish a small sculptural piece that I had started after she died, but never completed (actually, it mostly existed in my head, until I actually had a deadline! My collage students can verify, all I had was the back spine -about 15"x4"- collaged with joss paper!). I never got a proper picture of it with good lighting; all I have to offer it this quick snap in my studio.

Sculptured Surfaces in LA

This was the collage workshop I taught last October for the Society of Calligraphy in Los Angeles....what a talented group! We found several "do-able" collage projects for our short time together, and, with a lot of sweat equity, we turned out the products! This was amazing also in that many people took time out that Saturday to attend the memorial service of Molly Gaylor, a wonderful LA area calligraphy who had recently passed.) You can see the participants painting the hosho paper that will appear covering their little flipflop boxes, their photo frames and in their collages. (Thanks again for my hostess Xandra Zamora and Carrie Imai, for helping with all the gear and stuff (lots of raw materials had to be brought to this room!) Please play the video-slideshow to see the art in action!

New Champion

Letterist to the rescue! Last December I was asked to put the TPC Sawgrass Golf Championship winners on the wall of the Men's Champion Locker room...an area of the locker room at the Sawgrass Country Club that is reserved for the people who play in this major golf event every year...this is after they got bids from sign shops and wood routing folks, they decided that a handlettered Bembo font (the font used throughout the country club) was what they wanted! And who was fool enough to take that on? Moi. The Letterist. I estimated it would take me two full working days, and it took me four. But they paid me what I asked for and it was the highest job I ever bid (I knew it would be hard, but not that hard!)
So recently, I added this year's champion, a Henrik Stenson...luckily, a guy whose name isn't too long (did I mention each name not only is hand drawn, but has to have about three layers of paint?) and who is at waist height, so I didn't have to lean out from a ladder and have lights hanging from scaffolding...that's for next year.
View slide show below to get the scope of this doozy of a job....

Just got back from teaching GRAPHITE TECHNIQUES in Phoenix....strictly black and white (and grey, and gray) but O! THE COLOR! at the Phoenix botanical gardens.....I was taken by Nancy Stutman to the Chihuly exhibit (installation) there, with blown glass set into the cactus beds...and many of the cactus are in bloom this time of year! WOW! (this is a slide show with music, click the start arrow to see more images, and turn up the volume to hear a little bill evans jazz) We also visited the butterfly gardens...what a treat!
...And continuing with color...one of my students, Nancy Pilgrim, is a glass bead maker...of course we had a trade for one of my giclee prints and I got some pictures of her beautiful, beautiful multi-layered beads....thank you, nancy, for sharing your talents!
Enjoy!
Also, here is some work be my diligent Phoenix Graphite students....

Paste Paper!

When I was putting up my brush tutorials on YouTube, I realized there were NONE on paste paper.....I already had one in the can from my Love Letters Power Point, so I added some additional demos, some still pics of example of how I've used paste paper, and a sound track of my son Robin's group: Fluid Thought... and posted it!
Happy Easter

Instructional Videos on YouTube
search Brush Lettering - the Letterist

This is a book that was purchased from last year's Newberry (Explorations)show: as an anonymous gift. Even though I'm very proud of the book, I miss having it: it was a wonderfully handy way to carry around samples of a fully rendered graphite text, for my graphite students, and a drawn Neuland text for my Neuland students. We are all cutting back on luggage, even traveling teachers! All I have left are the pictures....

Graphite Techniques

I will potentially be teaching this workshop twice this year...so I'm getting back to my graphite projects! I'm always excited about teaching calligraphers about drawn lettering, because it frees them up to explore so many new shapes, qualities and shades and shadows...exploring outside the realm of their calligraphic tools, pens, brushes, etc...In the class we review basic drawing skills and build confidence in our ability to see, then apply those techniques to letters. Then those calligraphers can truly call themselves "lettering artists"! The many shades of gray...

My co-worker Keli is getting married...I made her wedding sign-in book with the colors of her wedding:"ocean" blue, black & cream....the black came from some momi paper for endpapers and a pocket for stuff on the back inside cover...she is a crafty person, so I thought she would enjoy it...Thinking back on other sign in books I've made for friends and family...they are all so different...

New Etsy Item!

This is the Obama O warm and fuzzy t-shirt...I've been meaning to make them since the election...hope the good feelings haven't worn off....I had made a custom t-shirt patterned after one I saw in a political t-shirt shirt (read: rip off!) and it was a simple, monoline "O" with a little "08" on it...I put it on some exercise t's just to tick people off at the YMCA (I live in a rabidly conservative, rabidly baptist community) and it felt very good, very empowering....so this is the chia pet version of that monoline O, with all of the warm fuzzy satisfaction at finally feeling proud to see my president, to see his speeches and hear is voice over the radio. If you go to my Etsy store, you will see this item and the other things I have for sale, coptic journals and the like.....

Love Letters: This Year

Just finished the 2009 Valentine; now my 18th year of doing this mailing....more and more, it's not a mailing to my entire client list, but more of a "thank-you" to clients who sent work my way, workshop hostesses and folks who helped me with my workshops, new friends, my support network, etc...it kills me, because there are so many people I would like to send them to, but time and the complication of the project prevents me from doing so...each year I meet more wonderful lettering and book artists, and I want to keep up my relationship with my extensive network of friends, especially now that that list includes people to whom I've sent valentines in the past, who are no longer alive! yipes!

This year's valentine came to me, as it so often does, in the second week of January and reflects the sort of "brother-can-you-spare-a-dime" times we seem to be headed for: I image folks staying home, telling stories to each other and making art out of whatever is at hand...the valentine collage is made out of hand-cut recycled cardboard boxes, rice paper from my studio, winter weeds, feathers, seeds, old newspapers, scraps of this and that, and one heart of real gold (laid on gloss medium) for HOPE, and scaps of writing, which most says: faith, hope, love and charity...obviously the love theme here is less personal and more universal...this gold is not the money we have, don't have, never had or might have had, but the heart we still have inside.....enjoy!

a good poem on Love:

myselves
ask "life, the question how do i drink dream smile

and how do i prefer this face to another and
why do i weep eat sleep-what does the whole intend"
they wonder. oh and they cry "to be, being, that i am alive
this absurd fraction in its lowest terms
with everything cancelled
but shadows
-what does it all come down to? love? Love
if you like and i like,for the reason that i
hate people and lean out of this window is love,love
and the reason that i laugh and breathe is oh love and the reason
that i do not fall into this street is love."


ee cummings

All the Jazz....

WordPainting-on-the-Ocean 09 (March 25th - 28th)ebbs and flows like the tide....we have a committed band of three students, and not quite the critical mass to rent the condo for that last full week in March...we have had so many folks interested  but peoples lives are  complicated...family obligations often stand in the way of participation...it's a shame, because it's truly my favorite thing to teach...bringing people together to learn how to break rules about the paper's surface,  dropping all of their "learned" rules of design, and play with texture, letters, words and wet ink, watercolor, gouache, colored pencil, any media that they can think of....to create a completely unique version of their imagination, of their own landscape....when you write into a painting, the linear word-order, sentence-order thing is broken up, words recombine and reform and a new language is invented...and sometimes those paintings "talk back" and give you some fresh perspectives!~ we have had some epiphanies in classes past....and, if not, you can take a long stride on the beach and experience the therapy of fresh air and exercise! Living on an island here on the atlantic coast does have it's advantages, and I like sharing my view with you!

Marching into my deadlines...it's February

While I'm working on this year's valentine, and waiting for my Zazzle stamps to be delivered, I'll post some valentine's from years past...in 2004 I had a local chocolatier mold me some Love Letters chocolate letters! I mean chocolate bars...and chocolate business cards! The chocolate bars were white, dark and swirled, but apparently not the best chocolate in the world...but they looked so wonderful...
In 2007 I decorated paste paper with white gesso to colorize the surface, and folded the pieces in half so the designs were symmetrical. I "built" these little architectural doorways or gates and worked letters into the designs (mostly L O V E) and called the series "Building the House of Love". I handmade about 40 of these, and made color copies as well.

Valentine: Love Letters 09

It's that time of year: Valentine Time! I'm a valentine baby, so the valentine is my baby, and every year I send "Love Letters" to clients, friends and colleagues...

I put in my order for zazzle stamps with my brush hearts on them....took, as always, more time than I could believe...here they are: 

Eliza Holliday Letterist

For those who are finding me for the first time on Facebook, etc, here is the grandson, ashton....thanks aunt laura!