Flourish Friday May 29th

I did this calligraphy a long time ago, but since it is graduation season, I thought it would be nice for today's Flourish Friday.  Where did May go?! Have a great weekend!

Finished Quaker Wedding Certificate

I'm happy to report my client loved both the calligraphy and the illustrations for her Quaker style wedding certificate.  yay!  She wanted the certificate to have a Pennsylvania Dutch feel to it. I enjoyed creating it.  For me, there's always that hold-my-breath moment as I wait for a client's reaction to a commissioned piece.  It felt wonderful when she said, "Can I give you a hug?"  I love doing what I do!! You can see more photos of this certificate here.

Flourish Friday May 22

It's a big weekend here in Indy.  Memorial services, grave site decorations, parades and the big race. But most important, it is a time of remembrance:

"Let no vandalism of avarice or neglect, no ravages of time testify to the present or to the coming generations that we have forgotten as a people the cost of a free and undivided republic." General Logan, May 5, 1868

Read the entire text mandating Memorial Day here. 

Wishing you a wonderful and reflective Memorial Day weekend.

Celtic Knotting

At my calligraphy guild's meeting this past Saturday, the wonderful Jacquie Banks taught us a little bit about celtic knotting.  Jacquie had taken Cari Buziak's course at last year's Letters Mingle Souls calligraphy conference.  Jacquie provided terrific handouts and made the beautiful, colored bookmark pictured here.  The top photo is my attempt.  It is a lot of fun, but it is easy to lose track of where you are and where you're going!  If you'd like to give it a try, please check out the knotting page of Cari's website here.  She has step-by-step instructions, printable graph paper, and plenty of eye candy!

Flourish Friday May 15th

Is it Friday already?!  The week flew by for me.  I love, love, love to make these mandalas.  I have a step-by-step mandala picture tutorial at Flickr.  You can view it here.  This particular mandala was made for an exchange.  The quote is by Jean Paul Richter and says, "Cheerfulness, like spring, opens all the blossoms of the inward man."

This flourish is based on one I saw on page 29 of The Universal Penman.  I hope everyone has a great weekend!!

Moleskine Play

I needed to take a few hours break from wedding work.  I've kept journals off and on since I was in junior high, but only began keeping "art journals" since about 1999.  You can see more of my art journals here.  Every year I list as one of my goals to work more consistently in my various art journals, but it's hard to do when your work space and play space are the SAME space.  It felt good to clear a spot and play this morning, although I see I dated it two days from now. I must be looking forward to the weekend!

I love this poem by Emily Dickinson:

Crumbling is not an instant's Act

A fundamental pause

Dilapidation's processes

Are organized Decays.

'Tis first a Cobweb on the Soul

A Cuticle of dust

A Borer in the Axis

An Elemental Rust.

Ruin is formal - Devil's Work

Consecutive and slow -

Fail in an instant, no man did

Slipping - is Crash's law.

It's a good reminder that it's the small, daily choices we make that can lead to our downfall.

Here's to keeping the Cobwebs off our Souls!

(I'm sorry for any duplications - I had to edit this post.)

Chillax

I blogged about my little copper "chillax" sign a few weeks ago.  I made it during my calligraphy guild's workshop with Sharon Hanse.  I was finally able to get my planters made up these past few evenings and put the sign out.  I think it's absolute cuteness!

Check back Friday for this week's flourish.

Flourish Friday for Mother's Day

This Friday's flourish is in honor of Mother's Day.  Had I started studying calligraphy before I became a mother, then I would have had the good sense to give my kids names with both ascenders and descenders. (smile)  But I do love my kids' names: Rachel and Matthew.  This flourish works well for names that do not have descenders and also would be great at the end of a body of text such as a quote, poem, or bible verse.

Here is the flourish combined with my daughter's name.  I would redo the R to have it drop down and intersect with base flourish.  It's important to make sure the flourish doesn't make the l look like a b.

It works well with Matthew's name too:

I miss my mom terribly, but I continue to benefit from her love and example.  I pray I am the mother God wants me to be for Rachel and Matt.  To all you moms - Happy Mother's Day!

My Work Table Overfloweth

Years ago I learned a handy tip from my first calligraphy teacher, Ellen Simon.  She told me whenever working on a piece of paper that extends beyond my working surface, to slit a large wrapping paper roll and put it over the edge of my work table.  This technique prevents the paper from getting creased as I lean over the paper while working.  It gives the paper a nice curve to wrap around.

I am working on a Quaker style wedding certificate.  The bride and groom have designed a special mark, or seal, with their initials and a cross.  They wanted their seal incorporated into the piece.  I've masked off the rest of the certificate hoping to protect it.  (Otherwise this will become another "finished rough" draft!)

They wanted the seal to have a 3-dimensional look.  The bride provided a grayscale image of the seal, which helped immensely in determining how to accomplish a 3-D look.

The bride is of German descent, so I did the calligraphy for their names to reflect her heritage. The rest of the lettering is done in a modified copperplate.

I still have the border and illustrations to do.  The groom is from Texas, so there will be a few stars of Texas worked in for him.

I hope you'll check back Friday for this week's flourish!

Flourish Friday

This week's flourish is for my niece.  I created it to house her wedding website URL.  We will print little cards to enclose with her invitations. The color combination she chose is beautiful. The flourish and URL will be printed in gold ink onto aqua paper.   Very pretty!!