Thursday, April 29, 2010

calligraphy workshop

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The official logo of the Calligraphy Guild of Arkansas designed by the imcomparable Charles Pearce.


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Roann Mathias, one of the best calligraphers in the United States in my humble opinion, was our instructor. Roann lives and works in Memphis, TN.

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One of the participants, my precious friend, Carolyn. She is an incredible calligrapher in her own right and will have a website up and running soon. She designs beautiful wedding invitations among other things.

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These are an example of the letter forms. We studied and studied and practiced and practiced and practiced.

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And of course, we had a stand-out, star pupil, our own Kerry Kemp, owner of Art Outfitters here in Little Rock, who specializes in Spencerian--oh my, it is unbelievable.

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My Thursday calligraphy partner, Travis, and Sharon. Travis is also a wonderful calligrapher. You can see her work hanging in the state capitol building here in Little Rock.
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Sharon, Carolyn, and Teresa--calligraphy guild friends and participants in the workshop--Notice the script on Sharon's jacket. Calligraphers are notorious for wearing letters somewhere on their body--earrings, jackets, aprons, T-shirts--you name it!

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The first night of the workshop Sharon and her grown daughter were looking through some of her old TEEN magazines from the 1970's and spotted this article about the Raiders using Neuland. I thought that was interesting. What timing!

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Some of Roann's prints from original designs--

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This is my humble attempt at lettering in the Neuland hand with twinkling H20's. The lettering is not good but I mainly wanted you to see the beauty of the sparkling water-based inks.





I would say that I long to be a good calligrapher but Travis would tell me that I just need to invest "more hours." And she would be right--so in all honesty, I cannot say that. I guess I could say, "I long to long to be a good calligrapher."