Sue's final 6

In amongst the football fever that is South Africa this month - here are Sue's final letters!

Well, I am doing some catching up here. I decided to start my second alphabet and finish the copperplate later....no rules right? :-) A little back ground---I am Canadian from BC near Vancouver and belong to the Westcoast Calligraphy Society but I am living in Papua New Guinea and my attendance at inspiring workshops is mostly vicariously through articles in the WCS Journal . This alphabet was inspired by an article about a workshop with Peter Thornton on the work of Adolph Bernd. I was intrigued by the samples of work in the journal and thought I'd try my hand at it. I've decided to go with blue and yellow letters but hopefully there will be some exploration with the background and the decoration in the letters.

Noela's 'W'

...again, an easy letter based on the bent nail inside the lid of the box. 

...select, flip, mirror, clone.

Letters in the forest ...

I have assembled my alphabet in the forest as an entry in the Sculpture on the Edge exhibition at Lucas Parkland in Montville - opening this weekend ...

15 Arts Connect artists have assembled 56 pieces in the forest, across the dams, on the sweeping lawns and on the verandah of the house ... the gardens are part of the Maleny Garden Club's Open Garden weekend ...

A to Z feel very comfortable sitting there on the mossy log ... just hope the possums and other nocturnal beasties dont decide to have a game of Scrabble during the long cold winter night ...

cheers - Ken

June Letters

Mariella's March & April letters

Here I am again.....These are March and April; I will mail

half May tomorrow and the other half will go with June and
July late this week.

How can I describe these letters? Well, they are Tropical,
full of colors from the Caribbean and very free, very informal
and very Mariella.....

Sorry for the delay and hugs to all of you! Thanks for waiting
for my Naive Festival of Colors. More very soon....

Love,
Mariella.

Elaines May letters

Week 18. V - EW
I wanted to create a 3D illusion and at the same make it appear that the letter was done with silver threads. I used silver gouache and pressure on a copperplate nib to write ‘over’ the letter shape and light strokes for the background. The red threads are real!

Week 19. Y- EW
The background is a black and white photo printed on photocopy paper. The Y is cut out from a thin overhead transparency film. I like the way the two pieces seem to become one.

Week 20.             J -  EW

Lino print using silver and red inks. I must admit that the J was part of a larger lino print that I had done sometime ago. To fit it into the 7 cm square I had to use a detail, but it seems to work like that too.

Week 21.             K -  EW

Silver artificial leaf on Wills gilding mix The red crayon and white pencil were added afterwards as I felt the letter didn’t have much character and these also helped to show up the texture of the paper. 

last 2 letters that I couldn't squeeze into the last post. Hope that's all of them now.
Cheers
Linda

Hi folks,
I have finished this alphabet series now and am posting the last few letters now. I have assembled all of them into a piece which I have had hanging at a recent calligraphy exhibition in Sydney. I will take a photo of this finished piece and post it too, soon.
Now to think what to do next...
Linda

May Letters

- only six days late !!! sorry ...
Here are my May letters ... RSTUV ... looks like an ancient Latin word ... maybe something Caesar would have tatooed on his bicept ...
Have to report though - poor old "S" had an accident ... lost her head ... someone was talking to me as I loaded her into the kiln - and a split second's distraction - I bumped her and her head fell ... so now "S" has her head firmly super glued on ( with the help of a couple of well-hidden matches ) ...
Enjoy ...

















... R is ravishingly randy ...









... S is soooooooooo sexy ...











... T is tantilisingly tall ...











... U is unbelievedly undersized ...

... V is verdantly vertical ...

cheers - Ken Munsie

For Sue

I was doing some glass fusing for a sculptural piece (bower) for the Lucas Parklands Sculpture on the Edge exhibition. At the same time I was doing the letter X for ALaW. It struck me that Sue uses a kiln view hole as the link to her alphabet for this first ALaW period.



The above photos show the glow of the kiln as I fused my glass; and I could not resist taking a photo of my letter X with the red glow of the viewing hole next to it. Sue I just love your alphabet.

Back home from the U.K.

Continuing with my letters, they are gouache on Arches with gold diapery work. My ambition is to assemble all the letters to form a 3 dimensional cube, a little differently from a flat display. Do hope you enjoy when completed. My July blog will show the completed project.

Ann S

LATE!

Here we are with the next 5.

S-looks a bit messy to me! The red is a glaze and for the yellow I put small pieces of glass around the letter but they ran out a bit to far.

F- is glass slumping.

L-Letter in turquoise glaze with a white dry glaze.

J- terracotta clay with letter in white clay then  a blue glaze al over.

U-white clay, letter in a twisted coil on top with an iron oxide wiped of, background yellow underglaze with clear glaze on top.

Pffffffff......a lot of different techniques for such little pieces (but fun anyway)

X marks the spot....Z is not the end.....

I am really looking forward to some serious calligraphy with the arrival of a Japanese calligrapher with our Sister Cities exchange coming up on the 22nd June. We hope to share her expertise on the 26th in Maleny....perhaps the mark making will bring out new ideas for our next round of letters....inspiration plus. I am ready for new horizons.

May Letters

Enjoying the feeling of creativity which had been lost. May brought another minimalist letter, palm trees inspired from the art show at The Young One's school, salute to baseball season and Himself's favorite team, the Boston Red Sox, what I saw looking at the bathroom tile, and an illuminated initial a la Sherrie Kiesel.

Lettres de mai - Letters from may

Bonjour,
Hello,

Et voilà de nouveau le premier mercredi du mois... Et voilà de nouveau les lettres du mois... J'ai cherché de nouveau dans le livre de David Harris, "Calligraphie : cent alphabets"... pour continuer les "lettres de la semaine pour 2010"... Bien sûr je change toujours d'alphabet, je garde toujours les mêmes couleurs, mais j'ai encore innové (pour moi) en utilisant les tampons décoratifs avec les peintures brillantes... Etrange, mais l'effet est sympathique... et toujours plus "reconnaissable" que si je dessinais...

And here again the first Wednesday of the month ... And here again the letters of the month ... I tried again in the book by David Harris, "Calligraphy: one hundred alphabets" ... to continue the "letters of the week for 2010 ... Of course I'm always changing the alphabet, I always keep the same colors, but I still have innovated (for me) using decorative stamps with paints brilliant ... Strange, but the effect is nice ... and ever more "recognizable" if I drew ...

J'ai donc trouvé une "Capitale de Luxeuil moderne" à la page 76. Pour le fond, j'ai tartiné au pinceau la peinture sur deux tampon décoratifs "fleur" et "libellule" que j'ai appliqué autour de la lettre.

So I found a "Capital of Luxeuil modern" on page 76. For background, I spread the paint brush on two stamp decorative "flower" and "Dragonfly" I applied around the letter.

Un tampon décoratif "rose" pour cette écriture "Rustica" qui vient de mes cours, ... Le tampon décoratif n'a pas été rechargé d'une empreinte à l'autre, ce qui donne ce dégradé...

A decorative stamp "pink" for this writing "Rustica" just for my class ... The decorative stamp has not been charged with a footprint in the other, which gives the gradient ...

Le "S" est une "Capitale Rotunda", originale et jolie je trouve, de la page 158... Impression d'un tampon décoratif "feuille de ginko"...

The "S" is a "Capital Rotunda, original and beautiful I think, page 158 ... Printing a stamp decorative "ginko leaf" ...

Et pour le "T", une "Capitale Italique posée" de la page 218... Encore une impression d'un tampon décoratif "fleur" avec un petit point pour le coeur, basique, c'est vrai...

And for the "T", a "Capital raised Italic" on page 218 ... Another impression of a stamp decorative "flower" with a small point for the heart, basic, it's true ...

Nous arrivons bientôt à la fin de l'alphabet n'est-il pas ? Je me demande toutefois où je vais trouver les six écritures qui me manquent... Le livre de David Harris n'est pas inépuisable...

Au mois prochain pour cette série.

Bonne journée

We soon reach the end of the alphabet is not it? However, I wonder where I'll find the six entries that I miss ... David Harris's book is not inexhaustible ...

Until next month for this series.

Good day

Fiona's Letters for May

This month hasn't been my best performance with keeping up to date with my letters. Almost every week has seen me rushing and trying to do "a quick letter".  Interestingly this has meant two metal letters and two paper-based letters. The metal letters used similar techniques to each other as did the paper letters. Weird.

R - I cut the letter out of a masking tape and then overwrote with smaller Rs so the letter appears to be on top of the background.
S - I punched the letter S into copper (through tracing paper which moved a bit) and left the patina on the background
T - I wrote the letter onto paper then overwrote with smaller silver Ts, so the letter is in the background
U - I punched the outline of U into galvanised iron and then stitched it with a maroon copper wire.

More details on each letter can be found here.

Noela's 'V'

A slightly different style this week - I used a paint mark on the lid of the box as my source - a lovely little bright and happy addition to my wabi sabi alphabet.

...select, clone, strengthen colour.

More metal for May

I have continued with my original plan for the first alphabet: using recycled brass as the material; and foldforming (for letters with straight lines) and beating and stamping (for letters with curves) to create the letters. So this month R, S and U got the beating and stamping treatment; and T was foldformed.



If you were able to look closely you would note that the T has a small split along the vertical axis - metal fatigue? I can't believe we are almost to the end of our first alphabet. Have to get my thoughts firmed up for the second alphabet.

Jim's May letters

Here are Jim's musing for May....