Small Roman Miniscules with Susan Moor - April 2014

Yesterday was our April meeting and we had a fantastic workshop with Susan Moor looking at the script she is so well known for. Based in the northeast, Susan was artist in residence at St Peters anglo saxon church in Sunderland and has produced an amazing volume of work which she is binding together at the moment.

As with our last tutor workshop we had extra visitors, Janice, Helen & Lyn, plus a previous member, Heather. The script uses a pointed nib and pressure release to get the subtle thick/thin lines. We spent the first part of the session just focusing on getting the right letter shapes before adding the pressure/release to our strokes. It's a very delicate script and it takes a lot of practice to get the balance and flow right - although we only had one day with Susan we each managed a rough layout of some text to show at the end. I can see a few of our group will be practising this script again in our next meeting.

Below are some photos from the day, and a couple of spreads that Susan has done for St Peters Church.

Update on 2014 workshops

It's been far too long since I've posted on our blog... but that doesn't mean we haven't been busy!

We had a lovely second half of 2013 - In October we had Marlene Grey come as our guest tutor to hold a workshop on Uncials. A favourite script of ours and one that was nice to get back to basics with. We had three visitors come to the session also from other groups, Helen, Janice and Lyn. It's always good to get a few additional people along to bolster the numbers and it shows that calligraphers will travel to us for a good workshop!

Our November and December meetings were the usual in-house follow up and christmas celebrations, along with a bit of planning for 2014.

A few of our members had visited the Letters after Lindisfarne exhibition also so I've posted a few of those pictures below which have been created by various calligraphers from around the UK. Susan Moor is in the process of binding these pages together and I'll have an update on that in the next post.

Requiem for the Printed Word - exhibition at Florence Mine, Egremont

Last month we provided calligraphy to an exhibition on at Florence Mine in Egremont, a few photos are below of the work we did and some of the other exhibits. All based around a Cumbrian theme and word related!

Carolingian Workshop - with Angela Dalleywater

Our May workshop was a tutor day with Angela Dalleywater

This was Angela's first visit to our group and it was a real treat to welcome her to Penrith. We spent the day looking at Carolingian lettering - an Eighth Century script and the first to fully use minuscules. It's place as one of the most important script developments is well deserved however nowadays it does seem to have taken a back seat in workshops to the the more popular Italic, Gothic and Uncial hands.

It's a beautiful looking script, developing from the roman half-uncial and it has a natural elegance to it with extended ascenders and descenders.

Angela Dalleywater, above, pointing out some of the particular strokes used to create the letters

examples of Angel's work

The last image above shows some of my lettering practice sheets along with the hand-out provided by Angela that we used for reference. 

April 2013 - Visit to Carlisle Archive Office and Cathedral

For our April meeting we had planned a trip to the new archive office in Carlisle to look at some of the oldest manuscripts they keep, followed by a group lunch in the town centre and an afternoon tour around Carlisle Cathedral.

Below are some of the stunning documents from the archive office, the oldest of which dates back to the 1200's.

Last Writes - exhibition

An exhibition celebrating the best of the printed word and reflecting on its possible demise as we enter the digital age.

Featuring: calligraphy from Eden Valley Scribes, Cumbria's oldest known poem (Dingoad's Smock) from the 6th century, the best library in Cumbria, banned books and books for burning. And a look at what the future holds for the printed word.

Held at Florence Arts Centre, Egremont from April 8th to 30th 2013

Admission free. Usually open Monday to Saturday 10am to 4pm but see their website for more information.

AGM Meeting - January 2013

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Our next meeting is January 12th 2013 and will be our AGM meeting in the morning, followed by an in-house session in the afternoon. Most of us will probably be practising our Rustic Caps from the last workshop!

In the AGM we'll review last year and confirm what we plan for this year's workshops and in-house sessions. If you're interested in Calligraphy and want to see more of what we do then you're more than welcome to come along and meet us all. We meet every month, on the second Saturday (except July & August) and have a mix of professional tutor workshops and in-house 'self help' group sessions.  

For more information you can email me on mrstopham@hotmail.co.uk 

Rustic Capitals - workshop with Jilly Hazeldine

Our December meeting seems to have come around fast this year! We were lucky to have Jilly come and visit us to take a workshop on Rustic Capitals.

Now I have to admit I wasn't too keen on learning this historical Roman scrip. But a couple of our members wanted to explore it further so Jilly came and did an excellent workshop with us - and yes, converted me into appreciating the script more!

There aren't many example of this script around which is probably why it's not that familiar, and unlike most hands, it requires a lot of pen manipulation - pen angles range from 45 degrees up to 80 degrees depending on which letter you're writing, and as you bring the nib down on a vertical stroke you twist the pen slightly to get a thicker 'flared' line towards the bottom serif.

 It's not for the faint hearted, and even Jilly warned us at the start of the day this would be hard!

As usual the whole group really threw themselves into the workshop session and I think we surprised ourselves at the end results. I haven't taken many photos this time but the below hopefully gives a flavour of the script.

We were also able to welcome Clare, a new member who joined us last month from the Kendal area. as a beginner to calligraphy Jilly was able to spend the day getting her used to Foundational Hand and the basics of letterform construction.

Alston Hall - Residential calligraphy week with Jilly Hazeldine

Back in August myself, Cynthea and Mabel went on the residential course with Jilly at Alston Hall, the theme for the week was Letters As Patterns, and right up my street as a designer!

I have to say the stay at Alston was superb, the food and accommodation was excellent and the location as a retreat was perfect. There was about 12 of us on the course which was a decent size and meant that we all had a lot of one-on-one tuition with Jilly.

Below I've popped some photos on that show the group work over the week. The day's involved two morning sessions, lunch, afternoon session, break followed by a free session, then the evening meal and a late session - we usually finished about 10pm in the bar with a glass of wine (and for those of us staying in the stable block where the workshop was we could sneak in a quick hour before breakfast also!!).

 





 The above pieces were written with a fineliner pen, dividing lines between each letter with the shapes filling the whole space, colour divides the letters making it legible.

 





Letters above written, overlapping/reversed and coloured.

 



The above two example are one letter that is repeated at right angles four times in a square, the top is an A,
the bottom image shows a few versions of the letter M

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 Above two quotes using Neuland script - the below piece of work is by Jilly Hazeldine.

 

 At the end of the week we pulled all our pieces together which was a great way to discuss and enjoy each other's work. I certainly enjoyed the week and am looking forward to the next one!