Calligraphy Southscribes Inc.

Italic Variations - Saturday 16 April with Patricia Moody.

Dear Members and Followers,

Our next one day workshop is Italic Variations - Saturday 16 April with Patricia Moody.

Italic is a hand that can be adapted, and modified, to make it suitable for any occasion and situation. It can be traditional or as modern as you like, as you can see by the two examples below.

This workshop will allow you to play with the basic Italic but then making it taller, shorter, fatter, sharper & spikier, with serifs, or without serifs, tilting it backwards and forwards & stretching it sideways. Different pen sizes may be used, or you could use just one size.

If time allows, we will write in colour, and maybe finish a smallish quote or piece of prose.

MATERIALS LIST - ITALIC VARIATIONS
Only need your everyday gear, with whatever nibs you prefer to work with.
Have a good selection of nib sizes if you can, otherwise whatever you have. Pointed pens as well if you wish.
Layout pad, preferably A3.
Ink or paint of your choice.
Water jars, mixing dishes and brushes plus rags for cleaning up.
Short verse or quote plus some better quality paper ( Canson Mi-Teintes, Lana, or any watercolour paper you may wish to use) no larger than A3 should be fine.

Don't Forget!

Dear Members and Followers,

Don't forget to visit our exhibition opening on April 9 and then all through the month of April.

And then on April 10, a few of us will be representing Calligraphy Southscribes, Inc. at the opening of Rockdale Council's Art Festival - stART. Call by and say hello!

More details here http://www.rockdale.nsw.gov.au/pages/RAF.aspx#rogap

Calliarts April - Using Masking Fluid

Dear Members and Followers,

The calliarts for the month of April is Using Mask Fluid with Glenis Sheather.

Masking fluid dries to create a temporary mask or resist to protect designated areas and shapes, which in our case will be letters. It can be applied like paint with a brush or treated like ink in a pen. The result enables lettering to stand out clearly against colourful backgrounds and can be used underneath watercolours, gouache of inks. A single word done is this way gives emphasis to a piece of work. A series of words under a light watercolour wash can be used as a background.

If you have never used masking fluid before, this workshop will allow you to try before you buy. Glenis will provide the masking fluid for anyone who doesn’t have any. With regards to the other materials you will need, a separate materials list will be issued closer to the workshop.

This should be a fun workshop so mark the date in your diaries.

MASKING FLUID CALLIARTS

MATERIALS LIST

· Masking Fluid – only if you have it. Don’t buy it especially as Glenis will have some for those who don’t have it.

· 3 or 4 A5 sheets of good quality smooth, hot press paper. You may have some left over from Julie Williams’ workshop.

· A broad edged/chisel nib – about the size of a Speedball 2, William Mitchell 1, Brause 3mm or a little larger.

· A couple of tubes of water colour paint and/or gouache

· A palette dish for mixing paint

· A flat paint brush about 10-15 mm wide

· An old, soft toothbrush for cleaning nibs

· Water jars, rags, paper towelling

· Blu-tac, only if you have it.

· Layout pad

· Usual calligraphy gear

· A short verse or two

Teensy Weensy Writing - Workshop Report

Dear Members and Followers,

20^th February 2016 Sylvania Community Hall

We were privileged to once again have Julie-Ann as our tutor for some specialised VERY small writing layouts and ideas, using any or all of our favourite and/or interesting scripts, and using a 1561-62 “Model Book of Calligraphy” by Croatian (Hungarian) scribe, Georg Bocskay as inspiration. This pre-eminent scribe used a vast selection of contemporary and historical scripts to display his mastery of the range of styles known to him. The book was later enhanced by an artist, Joris Hoefnagel, with illuminations and other additions.

Julie-Ann demonstrated and described many tips for media to use for such fine writing, including the usual pencils, pens, nibs, quills, inks and ink-sticks and how to use them, plus other quirky methods of decoration using found objects etc.

How to sharpen the nibs with an Arkansas stone was important, and to clean the encrusted ink off nibs, toothpaste was suggested as the finest and least aggressive cleaner (scrape the gunge off with a scalpel); it keeps the nib clean and sharp for the finest writing. Rule lines with a Very Sharp Pencil.

Pre-treating the paper with an extra external size can help stop any bleeding, also the paper needs to be treated with a pounce of gum sandarac before writing. The gum needs to be finely pounded in a mortar and pestle, and stored in a silk pouch, plus kept as free from contamination as possible.

Using good quality A5 pieces of paper, we worked on some pieces of writing using varying ideas, layouts, and media. For the 12 of us there, it was a busy and interesting day – in fact more time would have been nice, but we kept the 6 hours so fully occupied, that I was exhausted by the time we went home. Julie-Ann was flat out all day and we were all appreciative of the effort put in to construction of the workshop and the amount of information imparted.

It was a wonderful day, and our thanks to Julie-Ann for all of her efforts.

Kath McEwen

Starry - The Word a Month

Dear Members and Followers,

The stars were out when those of us participating in the word of the month presented the word 'Starry'.
Don your sunglasses and view the results.