Contextart workshops - Blue Mountains, NSW

 

Contextart - Blue Mountains, NSW

April 14 - 20, 2013

  These workshops are suitable for all levels of experience.

Workshop One:

A 2-DAY Workshop in UNDERSTANDING FORMAL SCRIPTS (Sat/Sun April 13 & 14).  In this two-day workshop we will use a series of well-developed points for understanding how formal scripts work. A couple of prime specimen hands will be studied, deconstructed and recreated. We will compare and contrast the scripts to broaden our choices for future calligraphic works. Students will build a small folio of practical examples to help pen-skills develop. Enrol Now

Workshop Two:

YOUR PERSONAL CALLIGRAPHY JOURNAL (from Monday April 15th to 12:30pm on Friday, April 19th).  When we start our calligraphic journey our intention is to make beautiful letters. We engage in the discipline of mastering formal hands although we may lose the vitality and enthusiasm in our work. This class will help you develop a sound understanding of calligraphy & calligraphic practice.  Explore the tricks of the trade, develop your own personal script, then bind your findings into your personal calligraphic reference journal. As a point of departure we will start with a cursive Italic and move towards creating dynamic lines of writing.  In this workshop we will dare to move into un-chartered waters and explore ways to invigorate our love for letters both well-structured and newly developed. Specifically our aim will be to gain mastery of our calligraphy & texts. Enrol Now

Rug up and get creative ...

Calligraphy - small object of desire

STURT WINTER SCHOOL

1st-5th July 2013

Mittagong, NSW

Create works that are elegant and small with an emphasis on very fine flourished Florentine writing with pen and ink along with very tiny penciled Romans.
The calligraphic journey starts with our intention to make beautiful letters. We engage in the discipline of mastering formal hands though we may lose the vitality and enthusiasm in our work. As a point of departure we will start with a flourished Italic and move towards creating dynamic lines of writing with teensy Roman capitals. We will dare to move into unchartered waters and explore ways to invigorate our love for letters. Specifically our aim will be to gain mastery of our calligraphy and texts through small objects of desire. Our small objects will be tiny broadsheets and miniature books with simple bindings. 

$595 GST included no material fee. There is a materials list available. Please visit the Sturt Contemporary Craft website for more information.

This course is suitable for all levels of experience. 

  

Trinkets for the punters

Trinkets for the punters:  on Saturday 19th we will enjoy the fruits of the summer school participants labours. The visual art classes will converge around the Hub at USQ for the final exhibition.  The calligraphy group is working feverishly on their “small objects of desire” and this is a little project I have given them to add to the brightness of the calligraphy exhibition.

I purchased an inordinate number of these little tags (2” x 1”) from Office Works. The students are charged with coming up with decorative grounds and affirmations, or what ever they wish. These message-tags will be scattered around and the visitors will be able to take them away with them as a sample of calligraphy and a sweet message.

Here are some of mine but I have many more to do yet and add the string.

This ten-day summer school is held every year at the University of Southern Queensland McGregor College. At 3.15pm the school finishes with the whole ss orchestra playing Tchaikovsky 1812 overture.  It is a hoot!

 

 

Australian Woollen Mill

With a free day up our sleeve on the great road-trip north to teach in Toowoomba, David and I found ourselves in this lovely little village of Nundle.

Nundle is an historic gold mining town in the foothills of the Great Dividing Range.

After the typical Australian drive through the cattle of the long paddock, a cup of coffee was refreshing at the local gold mine with Hanging Rock just up the road a bit we then visited Nundle Woollen Mill.

After all my years of knitting … and who hasn’t knitted … I have never been into a woollen mill and watched as a ball or cone of wool is being created.  All the machinery you see here in my pics are vintage and in perfect working order.  In support of our Australian textile industry there was a little shopping to be done in the wool store … of course.

Next, lunch in the pub did the trick before we finally sauntered our way back to Tamworth on this steamy and very hot (37 degrees C) day.

Nundle, a fascinating find. If interested you can visit their website for more information.

The Dandy Rover - where 8ply wool is reeled on.

Promotional poster

Shot of the main workshop area.

The Dye House

Happy New Year 2013

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

Alpha & Omega

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.

 

Apology documents Parliament House Canberra

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.