Tutorial on Using Uncial Lettering for Bookmarks

The past few weeks, I've taken an Uncial lettering class at Multnomah Arts Center with Christine Colasurdo.  For our final project we used uncial letter forms to cut stencils.  I made bookmarks.

We used two pencils taped together to get the letter forms.

I made adjustments for cutting a stencil and copied the word into Photo Shop to re-size it to the bookmark size- 1 3/4 x 9 inches.  I used this copy to cut the stencil on cardstock with an xacto blade.

Here's the cut stencil-

Then I spray painted the stencil onto decorative paper.

For the final bookmarks, I trimmed the edges to size, outlined the white letters with a marker, rounded the corners with a punch and and punched a star into the letter "R".  Each classmate will receive one in class today.

The inspiration for this project came from Christopher Calderhead's new book entitled, Calligraphy Studio: the ultimate introduction to the art of hand lettering.

Pointed Brush Calligraphy with Marilyn Reaves

Marilyn Reaves taught the second workshop that I took at the NW Calligraphy Conference at Reed College.  She teaches classes in lettering, design, drawing and book arts at the University of Oregon.  I wanted to learn how to use a brush to letter so that I could use watercolors and gouache for calligraphy in my artwork.  In class, we worked with acrylic inks and selected a theme for our lettering.  I chose my garden as subject matter.  We played with collage-  lettering on Japanese-style papers and layering with decorative papers and fabrics. I added one of my drawings, too.

The alphabet below I did with watercolors wet on wet on cold press paper.  The letters would be more even on hot press watercolor paper. I like the texture of the letters on cold press.

Check out Marilyn's book entitled Brush Lettering - An Instructional Manual in Western Brush Calligraphy.

Spontaneous Mark Making with Pamela Paulsrud

Last week, I attended the NW Calligraphy International Conference here at Reed College.  My head is still spinning with all that I learned.  It was fun to meet scribes from all over the world and to see the breadth and depth of lettering arts today.  Pamela Paulsrud taught my first 2½ day workshop called 'Spontaneous Mark Making'.  We used a variety of tools, items from nature and calligraphy pens to practice mark making with Sumi and walnut inks.

Then, we used a view finder to cutout the marks that we liked the best from our practice sheets.

I like the flow of the spontaneous lines made.  The top left one has a white crayon resist added.  The ones below are all made with Sumi ink.  The wet on wet creates many shades of gray and feathery edges.

We made a card holder out of black cover paper and I added a strip with one of my marks on it.

We completed several exercises with our own handwriting varying it with use of dominant and non-dominant hands, size of letters- a stream of consciousness.  The Sumi ink marks on the black cover show up better than I thought they would.  We used this paper to make covers for our portfolios.

Inside is an accordion folded portfolio with a sink washed Sumi and walnut inks.  I love the contrast in color and shades of gray made by the washes.  The line across the page reminded me of a river.  I happened to have some old maps of the Columbia River and did some toner copy transfers along the bottom .

Pam asked us to include an element of surprise.  Can you see it in the detail below?  Click on the photos to enlarge them.   It's along the river to the left of the map.  The second detail  photo shows the surprise on the right side.

Living in the NW, the Columbia River and its Gorge play an important role in our landscape and lives.  The preservation of salmon is a key river issue.  The fish are the little surprise in my river.

I was very fortunate to sit between two very accomplished artists and calligraphers during this workshop.  Check out their work here-  Yuko Wada  and Yukimi Annand.  You can see the inspiration that I received this week from the lettering arts world at the Guilford Art Center calligraphy exhibit.