On my presentation night, I got everyone up and "media dancing" to Bobby McFerrin's Circle Song Six! The activity was the most fun...the result is kind of chaotic...

Old Friend, New Friends at Ghost Ranch!

Learning different ways to draw with pointed brush....

Returning to Ghost Ranch (this decade) for Literally Letters! The Ranch hasn't changed much, of course, except for expanded housing, very tastefully done adobe bunk houses on the Mesa. Same light dry air, no bugs, blue skies and the same calligraphically enthusiastic students in the big room at the pavillion!

Encouraged to play!

This happy librarian was part of my workshop at NEFLIN this month...we spent the day making small bookforms that the librarian can use for involving mostly children and teens in books, writing and literacy.

Shirley had at work on her object drawing. Drawing takes a little patience!

Graphite Graffiti In Birmingham!

Discovering the word of the pencil and the pencil with letters...we also had students from Nashville (like Kathy E, pictured here), Louisville and Pensacola. Spend the weekend drawing, smudging, erasing.....

This is my Longstitch Multiple Signature Artists Sketchbook class recently at the Island Arts Association Eduction Center in downtown Fernandina Beach!! Look at these proud students and their books! Not the easiest book of book forms in the world, but they stuck to it, after binding a single signature book (most for nomenclature) and binding the longstitch instructions into a slim candy box as the cover

This sheet of calligraphic "doodles" by my student Candy, a member of the Gulf Coast Scribes, shows me that she is getting comfortable "twisting" the brush ( makes those triangular shapes) and edging in/edging out with a hairline...all key to making good roman caps, with a brush or pen.

This is a Roman Letter focus sheet handout of mine. Those serifs are tricky, and need some agile brush manipulation! So in Edged Brush Xplored, we do a lot of warm ups with flower petals, bamboo, birds, and even zebra stripes, to get students to feel comfortable with turned the edged tool in mid stroke. To the left are excerpts from these warm up handouts...

Students in Pensacola

Just returned from teaching Edged Brush Explored - where we do lots of warm-ups for tool manipulation (in this case, the brush) and then try those Roman Serifs...on at least some of the Roman caps! Obviously, flowers and zebras are more fun!