Calligraphy Flourish Friday - Artiscape Update

Rachel and I had a great time at Lisa Ohmer's "Artiscape" last weekend.  My first workshop was "Wax Gone Wild" with Trish Baldwin Seggebruch. It was a blast! Trish supplied everything we needed to work in encaustic.  For the piece above, "peace" was done with a rubber stamp.

On the left, Trish demonstrates laying the wax on the birch board. The center is a sample piece I did on clayboard. The "love" lettering is a transfer I did of my own brush lettering.  For the piece on the right, I practiced impressing and embedding.  The lettering was done with a ZIG marker on scrapbook paper.

Here is a close up.  I think there are about 8 layers of wax to this point.

This is the beautiful and talented Trish.  Once the crush of bridal season is over, I would like to experiment more fully with encaustic.  I have Trish's book "Encaustic Workshop" and DVD "Encaustic Collage Workshop" which I highly recommend if you're interested in working in this medium. She will have a second book coming out in 2011.

Please visit Trish's website here and her blog here.

Rachel's first workshop was "By the Book" with Carol Kimball (sorry no links). She made book covers for two, tiny books as well as a set of earrings and a few pendants. All these pieces were made with a special metal clay which Carol took home overnight and fired in her kiln.  Rachel really enjoyed the workshop.

Rachel and I took two workshops with Jacqueline Sullivan. The first was "Experimental Water Media." We worked mostly wet on wet, pouring the watercolor onto the wet paper. We then applied all sorts of fun things to the damp watercolor to get interesting patterns and textures. Above, Jacqueline demonstrates  using Daniel Smith Powdered Metallic Watercolor.

We made pages using plastic wrap, salt, sand, lace, alcohol, metallic powders, charcoal, pastels, Golden's Tar Gel and Rit dye.

We cut pieces from our sample pages to make a book.

This is my finished book.

The piano hinge binding using wooden skewers about did me in!

The great thing is - I still have lots of delicious paper left over to use for future projects.

Here is Rach with her completed book and the lovely and amazing Jacqueline.  Jacqueline will be teaching this same workshop at the Greater Cincinnati Calligrapy Guild in May.  Please visit Jacqueline's website here and her blog here.  At her website, you can visit her gallery of beautiful calligraphy and also order her DVD on layering with acrylics.

Our second workshop with Jacqueline was "Mini Book Madness." We made 4 structures in 3 hours!  Here is my "Gallery Book" which features little viewing windows.  I love the little buttons Jackie gave us. They are really brads, and Jackie said they are by K and Company (I think) and you can find them with scrapbooking supplies.

This little book is called an "envelope book." We used little coin envelopes for the pages which we will be able to slide little tags into.

The book below is called a "layered book."

Finally, this is Rachel's "Star Book."

She added a charm for embellishment.

Here, you can see why it's called a "Star Book."

Here we are at Lisa Ohmer's shop "European Papers." We are standing beneath the calligraphy ATCs.  The gallery and shop at European Papers was wonderful. I wish there was a comparable shop in Indy! Wishing you a great and flourishy weekend!

Artiscape - Calligraphy Flourish Friday

This evening my daughter, Rachel, and I will leave to attend Artiscape. I can't wait! We went two years ago and had an absolutely wonderful experience.  Artiscape is the creative retreat organized by the lovely and talented Lisa Ohmer of European Papers located in Columbus, Ohio.

The above lettering was done with sumi and a Spencerian No. 1 nib, then scanned and hacked at in Photoshop Elements. :)

I was first introduced to Lisa Ohmer back when I was really into ATCs (Artist Trading Cards).  Teri Martin had started a monthly ATC exchange on Cyberscribes which I really enjoyed. Then I joined some Yahoo! ATC groups which promoted Lisa Ohmer's House of Cards exhibit.  Lisa requested and received hundreds of ATCs for the traveling exhibit. One of my ATCs was chosen for the poster. (3rd row, 4th from left) Then a year later she put together the House of Cards II exhibit, and I was lucky enough to have a card featured on that show poster too. (Very bottom, right)

In 2008, Lisa organized "Playing with a Full Deck." Lisa created and provided the base playing cards and then asked artists to take it from there.  She chose 54 cards for the exhibit posters, and two of mine are on the poster on the right. (Bottom row, center and bottom row, far right)

This is my "passport" necklace for the weekend.  There were so many, great classes offered that it was difficult to choose.  I am taking a class with encaustic artist Trish Baldwin Seggebruch.  I've been wanting to learn how to incorporate encaustic with my calligraphy.   I have Trish's book and DVD, and I'm really looking forward to her class.  Rachel is taking a bookmaking class with lettering artist Carol Kimball. We are both taking two classes with lettering artist Jacqueline Sullivan - a watercolor background class and a mini book class.

The thing I like most about Artiscape is that the instructors provide most of the supplies needed for their class.  Students just bring a Basic Took Kit, which includes items most artists already have in their studios.  It's so nice not to have to haul a ton of stuff.  (Although I'm sure the instructors have to rent U-Hauls.)  If you are going to be attending Artiscape 2010, please let me know - I'd love to meet you!

To learn more about Lisa Ohmer and Artiscape, click here.

To learn more about ATCs, click here.

To learn more about encaustic and Patricia Baldwin Seggebruch, click here.

To learn more about Jacqueline Sullivan, click here.

Thanks everyone for your kind wishes for Matt's 18th birthday. He had a great one!

Go forth and flourish!