Eliza Holliday Letterist.com

Exposed Stitch Bindings for Artists Books

2012-01-20T04:51:00.002-08:00

These are some happy bookmakers after a day of learning a rather lengthy sewing process to put together their multi-page artist's sketchbooks into handpainted covers...as interesting and varied as the faces around the room!

2012-01-20T04:51:00.001-08:00

Coptic Journals

2012-01-20T04:09:00.000-08:00

These are some of the coptic journals I regularly make
to sell...and use! Their advantage is that they open
COMPLETELY FLAT so you can use/get to the whole page...
plus the pretty chain stitches one the spine...

Artists Books

2011-11-19T13:32:00.000-08:00

Here are some happy bookmakers at Island Arts Education Center on November 5th!!

A Speech to the Garden Club of America" by Wendell Berry - My version is "Fuel"

2011-10-23T18:54:00.000-07:00

FUEL has won the Jaffe Collection's Purchase Prize! I'm proud, but I will miss having it around for my drawing students...it's made with Canson charcoal paper and Graphite pour paper, which all my graphite students make in my drawing letters class. It's a diamond burrito book in a hard cover; to see how this book is made, go to Youtube and search for "diamond burrito book".

2011-10-23T18:16:00.000-07:00

Kids Making BOOKS!

2011-09-01T04:15:00.000-07:00

They brought me back to Martin County again to conduct workshops in several libraries this summer...two in one day! In one branch I had 38 participants, including the moms and dads! Whew! But we ended up having a blast, and the two hour format meant we had time to write stories in our books (even tho some were "dictated" to a parent). And, of course, they were amusing, sweet and heartfelt.
Now I just need to find libraries that will have me give workshops that are closer to home! Because this is what I love to do...

2011-09-01T04:06:00.000-07:00

Son Number One did graduate this year! I forced myself to do a formal italic for his announcment, which I worked on last year in the Sheila Water's workshop and invented a border in photoshop with a "snakes and sticks" motif, a reference to his history as a reptile lover and his drum playing...it took a while, but we are proud of his accomplishments!

Patricia's Piece

2011-08-10T04:29:00.001-07:00

One of my students in Melbourne, Australia - Patricia Barth - sent me a piece she recently did using graphite. This is not her comfort zone (her profession is calligraphic family trees) but she, like many other australian calligraphers, tries to continue studying what she has learned after the travelling "tutor" goes home. This quote caught her eye due to a friend having some financial problems.
BTW, I welcome any student work inspired by my classes, I'd love to see what your are doing!

Clap Hands - Making Your Mark in Melbourne (Watch this video!)

2011-07-18T10:56:00.000-07:00

Summer School Downunder!

2011-07-16T18:37:00.000-07:00

I was so privileged to teach in Melbourne, Australia this June/July for an exceptionally well-trained and dedicated group of calligraphers...apparently the craft of handlettering is alive and well in the Southern Hemisphere! To my students: any other pictures you may have are welcome...I never manage to take enough!

The Letterist: Letters of Steel

2011-07-16T18:32:00.000-07:00

The final product of my winter sculpture class at Florida State University....

Pop-Up Students at Latest Teacher's & Librarian's Workshop!

2011-06-22T10:42:00.000-07:00

2011-04-24T20:20:00.000-07:00

Jazz Lines!

2011-04-19T04:25:00.001-07:00

Composites of me "performing" gesture writing and character mark making at my current show at indigo alley during artwalk saturday...to my favorite music!

Art Exposé!

2011-03-19T05:09:00.000-07:00

Another guts to final story...this is a box created for the show in North Carolina called Work for a Just Peace...and the Neuland in the little opening say: Take Peace, Just Peace...I build these boxes and frames out of basla wood...something I can work with without a lot of power tools!

2011-03-06T08:10:00.000-08:00

Furiously working on some new pieces for my show at Indigo, opening next Saturday...decided to redo a couple boxes that either have never been purchased, or that I didn't really like that much...now I'm marrying my piece "Wear on the Outside What You Feel on the Inside" with "Take Peace" from the Pastiche 2 show and making an all purple piece!
Here is a cartoon strip of that process...it was harder than I thought it would be..turns out, I make very strong boxes! Watch for for the finished piece soon!

2011-03-06T07:56:00.000-08:00

Here are my improvisations with Big Wet Kisses (downloadable as rubber stamps, or "brushes" from Brusheezy.com) I didn't receive any from anyone I e-mail a valentine to...so I guess I haven't uncovered the Photoshop Artists on my list! When I can teach Photoshop to artists, maybe I can garner some student work!

BIG WET KISSES!

2011-02-05T09:43:00.000-08:00

It's February! You know what that means! The Valentine Lady will strike again...this time with my Big West Kisses...for you photoshop geeks, they are available as downloadable brushes on Brusheezy...and for those calligraphers who are not using photoshop yet, you are missing a world of fun!

new works at Pastiche2!

2011-01-29T06:36:00.000-08:00

PASTICHE 2!

2011-01-20T05:19:00.000-08:00

The new show is going up as of this post! Opening Saturday at 5pm!
I hope you can come to 14 S. Seventh Street in Fernandina Beach
to take a look at collaged works, old and new...

2010-12-17T14:19:00.001-08:00

The solstice falls on the full moon again this year. The last time this happened was in 2002, and my husband, photographer Kenneth Cain, took this photograph...
We will walk the labyrinth at 7 o'clock on Tuesday, with votives, but we probably won't need much light, unless it's cloudy....

Creative Bookbinding comes to Amelia Island!

2010-11-24T05:35:00.000-08:00

Sheila's Master Class

2010-11-10T04:31:00.000-08:00

I was one of the privileged folks in this class of aspiring masters with a Master! Sheila Waters, doyenne of the calligraphic universe, has us live at her home in rural Pennsylvania where we sit and are SCRIBES for a week. On this "calligraphic vacation", we can live, breathe and eat calligraphy...well, we also did some breathing of fall air on long rural walks, and ate some delicious and nutritious food from her ample kitchen (yeah, trader joes!) and the awesome catered dinners....but this just allowed us to do more lettering for longer and longer! Many of us were working on roman variations: built-up versals, roman lower case, italic in endless variation...some focused on design, some guilding, and some of us just tried a little of everything we saw! Sheila has a huge basement studio with endless flat files of treasures, and she gave a daily demo in her areas of expertise: lettering, layout, color, and, in the photo here, her own tricks for laying gold...
Thanks to all who attended the October session for being so generous and for a relaxing but educational week (I have my "movie recommends" for the next year, I'll tell ya!) and those of you who also aspire to be mini-masters, look into this once-in-a-lifetime class!
PLEASE CLICK THE START ARROW TO WATCH THE SLIDE SHOW BELOW!

Ashton's portrait of "Za-Za" at drafting table...

2010-10-15T18:44:00.000-07:00

2010-10-14T05:16:00.000-07:00

I have posted my fourth book of W.S. Merwin poems to YouTube...whew! I hope I have a small but interested audience for them. To think their creation spans at least twenty years of work! I hope he lives a long and continually fruitful life...
click on the screen below to view in youtube...and please watch my other "shows" of books by one of my favorite poets!

W.S. Merwin - I Love Your Poetry!

2010-09-03T05:36:00.000-07:00

There are several poets who have rocked my calligraphic world: W.S. Merwin is one of them. There are several poems of his that I work and rework in different formats: manuscript books, broadsides, even wall poetry! I've recently put several "book tours" up on youtube...hopefully you will get them if you search: W.S. Merwin (Love, the Letterist) The piece above is "Avoiding News by the River" as a broadside; I have also done "For Love of October" many times. I also admire what Merwin had done with his life, as well as being an awesome and prolific poet. May he have a wonderful year as poet laureate!

2010-06-09T03:38:00.000-07:00

I'm so pleased to be teaching Kid's Bookmaking again (guess the economy is improving slightly) after a year off! This time a couple of workshops for the North East Florida Library Network in Florida and Gainsville. Librarians love to make things and anything to do with books. They leave with 8 proto-type books that match their handouts, and other great ideas, like pop-ups cards and christmas ornaments, squeezed in. I hope they get some great ideas to get their kids making books and writing their own stories this summer...

2010-02-12T12:45:00.000-08:00

Two pieces in the 2010 Exploration show in Chicago this year...one is Silver Trees the wallhanging below and a page from "in You River step once same only the can"...my out-of-orthography book, where every page is a non-linear journal entry...over fifty pages!
Silver Trees was purchased in the name of a patron for the Newberry Collection!

Frosty Blackletter....

2010-01-22T05:51:00.000-08:00

A year ago I visited my brother in Munich, Germany, arriving on a crystal frosty morning in January...a light snow and high humidity had etched the trees with white...I later visited the Klingspor Museum, in Frankfurt and got to see the works of Rudolf Koch,K arlgeorg Hoefer, and many other exemplary calligraphers and book artists (snapshots posted with permission of the owners of this work, the Klingspor Museum, Frankfurt am Main). Rudolf Koch's worked fascinated me: his early manuscript books show that he has the most beautiful calligraphic hand and impeccable craftsmanship: his blackletter is linear and even, his illustrations traditional and charming. ( The content of his work is work that is mostly the Gospels and other biblical texts.) Later,he used a blackletter that is blocky, uneven and apparently rapidly made, giving it enormous strength and character. It looks so uneven, messy and in some places almost naive and primitve. I am curious as to why he developed it. Guess it's time to invest in his autobiography. I tried to copy this interesting blackletter, with it's heavy foot serifs and executed a series of work on cloth to "practice"...this work is so textural, I pictured fabric. The only finished piece uses some verses of a poem by Edna St. Vincent Millay, white on black fabric...which was written in the coldest week of January, (we were even frosty here in Florida!), and reminded me so much of walking around Munich a year ago....

Brush Uncial on youtube...

2009-12-03T18:55:00.001-08:00

Brush Uncial in Pensacola!

2009-12-02T10:16:00.000-08:00

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

2009-07-13T19:08:00.000-07:00

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

2009-07-13T03:52:00.001-07:00

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

2009-07-03T08:10:00.000-07:00

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....

2009-04-30T08:07:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-04-12T15:16:00.000-07:00

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

2009-04-03T06:10:00.000-07:00

Instructional Videos on YouTube
search Brush Lettering - the Letterist

2009-04-03T05:09:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-06T04:54:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-03-01T03:12:00.000-08:00

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...

2009-02-25T05:07:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-13T06:38:00.000-08:00

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....

2009-02-09T15:09:00.000-08:00

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

2009-02-05T10:28:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-31T07:10:00.000-08:00

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

2009-01-30T11:28:00.000-08:00

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