Flourish Friday - August 28

As promised, for today's Flourish Friday I'm showing you a few things I learned in Linda Schneider's "Faces, Figures and Florals" class at the IAMPETH convention. Linda encouraged us to bring ornate pictorial flourishing into modern times. Most people think of birds and quills when they think of ornamental penmanship. Although I can appreciate the skill required for ornamental birds, I don't find myself eager to make them. Linda challenged us to create contemporary, ornate, pictorial flourishing. By sketching any image (I got the bright idea of sketching a light bulb), you can then use the sketch as a template to fill in with flourishes. Then erase your pencil lines. This light bulb is very basic, but I have a long list of images I want to try.... crosses, hearts, stars, peace sign, birthday cupcake, baby rattle, etc.

Linda also had us try some faces. This is just the basic face. She wanted us to extend the hair by adding lots of flourishes. I liked what I had and didn't want to ruin it, so I stopped. I think I'll make copies of this face and then play with the flourishes.

She had us try figures too, which were fun. We also did a pot of flowers, but I cannot find mine. I really enjoyed the class and wish it could have been longer. Visit Linda's website here to see her lovely ornate pictorial flourishing.

Happy Flourish Friday!

Art-O-Mat

I love Art-O-Mat's slogan "Don't go around artless!" Art-O-Mat machines are retired cigarette machines converted to vend affordable art. Each piece of art is only $5. I think it's a little-bit-of-wonderful to take something that dispensed cigarettes and turn it into an art vending machine. Tom and I went down to the Eiteljorg Museum in Indianapolis - a fabulous museum dedicated to Western and Native American art and cultural objects. I knew they were suppose to have an Art-O-Mat there, and I was looking forward to finding it.

Once I did, I pulled the knob to get this treasure. Trees is a painting by Ardis Moonlight. Isn't that a great name for an artist? I think Ardis is also a writer, but I couldn't find a blog or website for her. You can learn more about the interesting history of the Art-O-Mat here. You can see if there is an Art-O-Mat near you by going here. You can learn more about the Eiteljorg Museum here. Don't go around artless!

Flourish Friday - August 21

This flourish is patterned after one I saw on page 4 of The Universal Penman. Today, we take our daughter back to Purdue University to begin her sophomore year. She is excited to return to campus. It's been wonderful having her home this summer. August is a bittersweet month for me....

Happy Flourish Friday!

Pilot Parallel Pens

I love Pilot Parallel Pens. They come in several sizes and give wonderful, crisp lines. I like the larger sizes especially. Brenda Broadbent, owner of Paper and Ink Arts, gave a nuts and bolts demonstration of the versatility of these pens at the IAMPETH convention.

She first had us dismantle our pens. Assuring us that it was virtually impossible to ruin them. Her main goal was to convince us that these pens are more than cartridge pens. They are easy to disassemble and clean with ammonia water or Windex. Soak the pieces in the ammonia solution, rinse and dry.

The greatest thing is that you can load your fluid directly into the barrel of the pen. You can load them with nearly any fluid....sumi, watercolor, gouache, walnut ink, etc. She was hesitant about using acrylics though. Several people in the class said they've even used bleach successfully.

I used walnut ink. I have given step-by-step directions over on my Flickr account. You can view the tutorial here.

This is Brenda's book Parallel Pen Wizardry. I think it's a must have if you own one of these great pens. You can order it, along with the Parallel Pens, from Paper & Ink Arts here.

Flourish Friday - August 14

While at a bookstore last year, I stumbled onto a wedding issue of Somerset Studio magazine. As I was flipping through it, I saw beautiful illustrations done with a pointed pen by Linda Schneider. I couldn't get to the checkout fast enough! I was so eager to read the instructions and give it a try. Linda is extremely talented. You can visit her website here. She does work for Papyrus and you can see some of her designs for them here. I love doing these pointed pen brides. Everyone loved these bridal shower invitations. When I saw Linda was going to be one of the instructors at IAMPETH, I couldn't believe my luck. I'll have to save what I learned in her class at IAMPETH for another post, but it was pure joy!

Happy Flourish Friday everyone!

Flourish Friday - August 7

C-C-See what I've been practicing? I could watch Pat Blair and Michael Sull letter all day. In the top two rows, I've tried a capital "C' that I saw Pat do during her class at IAMPETH. In the last three rows, I've practiced a capital "C" from one of the handouts Michael Sull gave each of us during his class. Michael said for a single, large, ornamental letter, he expects to use one, new Leonardt EF Principal, and then pitch it because it is worn and stressed beyond use. Wow! He only uses the Principal for special, showstopping letters. It's the only pen point that can produce such large shades. For most of his other work, he uses a Nikko G, which is what I used for these exercises.

Happy Flourish Friday everyone - enjoy your weekend!

Primitive Calligraphy

Back in May, I was one of the lucky winners of a giveaway by Seth Apter of The Altered Page. Pictured above is my prize pack. Seth was celebrating his blog's 100,000 visitor. You can read about it here. I had just that week discovered Seth's blog via Kathy McCreedy and Ingrid Dijkers. They were both participating in his Disintegration project, which I found very interesting. The timing of the prize couldn't have been better. I had been mulling over what I was going to do for my calligraphy guild's upcoming exhibit entitled "Different Strokes." I knew I wanted to incorporate some ideas from a Laurie Doctor workshop I had attended, but I hadn't completely decided what I was going to do. Included in my prize pack was the January/February 2009 issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors magazine which provided a spark...

First, I painted over an old canvas with black acrylic. Then using some of the ideas I learned in the Laurie Doctor workshop, I lettered on the canvas with a twig from my River Birch tree.

The lettering is based on Joan Miro's primitive calligraphy. I love the gestural and graphic qualities.
I added watercolor to some of my pages from the Laurie Doctor workshop, and tore out areas I found interesting.

Inspired by an article written by Patricia Gaignat in the issue of Cloth, Paper, Scissors, I layered my primitive calligraphy swatches, along with swatches of patterned paper, and small pieces of metal mesh. (I used window screen from the hardware store.) I then tied them to the canvas.

Some of the underlying, patterned papers were mine, some came from Seth, and some came from Kathy McCreedy.

I am happy with how the piece came together. It feels good to have created a piece specifically for the "Different Strokes" exhibit. When our guild has an exhibit, I normally enter something I've already done - which isn't bad, it was just nice to approach it differently this time. The exhibit will be at the Sullivan Munce Cultural Center in Zionsville, Indiana throughout the month of October. If you're in the area, check it out!