GEMMA BLACK : ARTIST / CALLIGRAPHER

These words by Eleanor Roosevelt are what I wish for my friends each new year.  I would like to share them with you and thank you for visiting my blog on a number of occasions. There will be much more calligraphy and artwork in the coming year to share with you. 300gsm coldpress Arches watercolour paper, noodlers ink & metal nibs for both the ground and the calligraphy. All the best ... until 2013

A very kind gentleman has just written to inform me that my work had been featured in the House and Garden UK January 2013 issue. The article is in relation to the current calligraphy exhibition at the Fitzwilliam Museum in Cambridge.  This piece was a part of a collection acquired in 2007. It is worked on Arches velin, with Korean stick ink and gouache, balsa wood, various metal nibs and tooled gold leaf.  

I am delighted to have been able to visit Parliament House in Canberra today to see for the first time the Apology to the Forgotten Australians & Child Migrants housed so beautifully. Diagonally opposite is the glass Coolamon and the Apology to Australia's indigenous Peoples. How apt it is that the Clifton Pugh portrait of Gough Whitlam who did so much for our indigenous peoples, looks on close by. All these documents can be found in the Prime Minister's portrait gallery level one at the house on the hill.

The participants in my class at the University of Southern Queensland, McGregor schools January 2013, will be working on Small Objects of Desire .  We will be working backwards by taking tiny frames like these shadow box frames of 20cm, creating small artworks, propping them up with foam core and mounting them as such. It is a different way of approaching ones work but it has it's benefits ... lower costs and all done in class! The hands we will explore will be tiny Florentine writing, very small penciled capitals and a touch on the style of poet and artist, David Jones. The school runs for ten days of class time, enough time to really get to know each other and our work. These little frames were custom made for in-class demonstration by the very helpful Wagner Framemakers!

 At Calligraphy Northwest July 2012, we were all given a Tyvek roll.  It is pretty neat stuff. I have used it in the past in bookbinding for covers, painting banners and experimental works.  Finally I have painted it. Preparing Noodlers inks & brushes for painting the tyvek roll. It was messy but great fun. The roll! Testing the roll with pen white - don't look too closely at the lettering it is just a trial! Very happy with the results! Now I need a really long quote ...

  McGregor Schools Please share and promote this information to any music students that you know may be interested. Thanks x gb In January 2013 the McGregor Summer School music students will have an exciting and busy ten daysfull of excellent music making. As a McGregor Summer School music student you have the opportunity to - participate in many of the major ensembles access to private individual lessons group tutorials one-on one lessons and master classes for your instrument/voice type public performances http://www.usq.edu.au/ mcgregor/summer/classes/musthea

  Today I bound my book "In Quest of Ampersands" .   For the toggle I have used a metal ampersand type that I originally bought as a necklace charm.

Playing at the drawing board today.

Partial image of a thank you card commission. 300gsm Arches hotpress paper, gouache ground, lettering with same gouache as ground, 3/4 Brause nib all lettering. Hand made little tissue paper toggles, the tissue used to soak up the coloured ground ... tricky but fun!  Inside hand sewn four double pages for multiple signatures with hand painted logo of the company on each page. Full size 500mm x 400mm - or there abouts! Pen rest peace crane says "very interesting little baubles" .

Poppies by Polly Woods (another version) 300gsm Arches hotpress paper, Noodlers ink ground, all writing created with a 3/4 Brause with Dr Ph. Martin's Pen White.

When Arthur, David's father, passed away earlier this year I offered to bind all the cards, letters and what-nots into a book for Dorothy, Arthur's wife.  Finally I have made the time to do this little task and here they are. A text block is normally knocked-up to be even top, base and foredge ... and of course the spine but the issue with commercial cards is they are all different sizes, paper weights and materials so it was tricky. This Coptic binding works very well as all the cards open flat and are easy to read. I pasted the cards from flowers in as well plus letters and notes.  Enough for three books! I created the paste-painted papers some time ago and chose a sheet from my collection to use for all three books, front and back. They will be in the post tomorrow!

Carport design (a combination of peoples) and built by Island Workshop   Very, very happy! David's car goes here!

... so we have redesigned the kitchen. It is all but finished ...  Painting: tree in north west Tasmania by Gary Myers And ... if you like corn & potato chowder let me know and I put up my recipe.

And ... there was a black and white of the same breath.

If you have a moment, pop into my friend Leonie Norton's blog . Leonie's blog will take you on a journey of botanical and natural history subjects in the most exquisite watercolours. She also runs holiday sketching tours.  I loved Leonie's book "Women of Flowers - botanical art in Australia from 1830's to 1960's" I read all the essays in one evening sitting up in bed. And I like to refer to it every now and then. Leonie and I have often taught at Sturt Australian Contemporary Craft & Design summer & winter schools, where we first met. Enjoy!

For a little book!

"Poppies" by Polly Woods

November 2012

 "Dies Bildnis ist bezaubernd schon" A little present for a friend who loves Mozart & Fritz Wunderlich who sings this from "The Magic Flute"