Quarto Book Swap - January Meeting

Last Saturday I travelled over to Sunderland to the Quarto book art group, we meet four times a year and it's a great time to exchange ideas, share stories and of course, swap the books we've made!

This meeting had the theme - Chinese New Year, which is the Year of the Dragon. We also had a lovely shared buffet - chinese to fit in with the theme!

The books each member made were fantastic - it amazes me each time how we all produce something different when we start at the same point.

I've popped a couple of photos below to show some of the work, hope you enjoy!

Penmanship Now! Calligraphy Exhibition Jan-Feb 2012

Happy New Year everyone - after taking far too long off from our blog, I'm back up and running now!

Our 2012 exhibition starts tomorrow - 16th January and runs until 29th Febrauary.
We are lucky to be back again at the Penrith & Eden Museum in Penrith town centre where we have held our last couple of exhibitions.

I've popped a couple of photos below to tempt you - hopefully you'll come and visit us, and please leave some comments in the visitors book!
















Penmanship Now
An exhibition by Eden Valley Scribes
16th January - 29th February 10am-4pm Mon-Sat
Free entry
Penrith & Eden Museum,
Penrith, Cumbria

Quarto - Sept meeting pics

Paul's work

I had a brilliant workshop yesterday with the Quarto book arts group that meet in Sunderland. Paper artist Paul Johnson held a workshop on pop-up books, we were creating a row of market stalls that each had a different theme - toys, flowers and clothes.

Paul provided the templates so we could get on with the construction as quickly as possible - the hinges were all dovetail joints and so simple - just a triangle that slotted in and fixed to the paper.


Paul's work


Paul's work

We built the flower stall first, and spent some time using the coloured sheets that Paul provided to create the flowers. It was important to understand how to attach decorations to the pop up so that it all folds down correctly - I had to 'prune' my flowers so that the middle section folded properly!



Above pic - basic construction for one of my stalls.











It was also the ninth birthday of the group so Margaret brought cake for everyone! I'd recommend you visit Paul's website for more information on his work.

September meeting workshop

Well, it's been a while since I last posted, we've had our summer break and will be back on Saturday 11th Sept for our next workshop. I'm looking forward to catching up with everyone again although as usual it now feels as though the summer has flow by!

The workshop planned is with Terry Johnson - Presentation, layout & design. Terry is a local artist and architect so has become a regular guest with us over the last couple of years.

Our October meeting will be an in-house follow up session (so we have an opportunity to follow on from the work with Terry) and then in November we have another local artist, Sarah Colgate for a workshop on Pen & Wash. You may remember that Sarah came to visit us last year, so it will be lovely to have her back again. That leaves us with the December meeting as a follow up to Sarah (and time to exchange our Christmas Cards!)

Any new members are always welcome and can pop along or get in touch first for details. We meet at the United Reform Church Hall, Lowther Street, Penrith. From 10am - 4pm.

See you there!

Vellum examples

At our May workshop John had brought with him some stunning examples of work on Vellum, the first here is a commission that Margaret Daubney produced - the client took the other version of this one.







Margaret had also commisioned fellow calligrapher Ann Hechle to produce this piece of work for John - it was a treat to be able to see this up close. Ann had also given John a series of detailed information about each of the squares that she had researched. Brilliant!



Following on from this John also had some of the tester pieces that Margaret had worked on - it's useful to be able to see the tests as so often all we see are is the finished version in a book or exhibition and we're left guessing how it developed and progessed into what we see. It maybe takes away some of the mystery but as an amatuer I love seeing the rough layouts and ideas as it helps me to work through a project and idea's develop as I go along. Some won't work, and some will but unless you follow them through how do you know this?

Photos from Kirkby Stephen Poetry Walk workshop

here's some more photos taken from our workshop day - they are the various layouts that the group was working on during the day.

Kirkby Stephen Poetry Walk - workshop

Today was our much looked forward to workshop with John Ward - on the Kirkby Stephen Poetry Walk. A series of 12 stone carving marking a year in the life of a sheep farmer, the lettering is carved by Pip Hall, a local artist to Cumbria.

Below are some of the examples from John's stone rubbings, you can see that he traces the letterforms from the original rubbings and then uses these to develop a piece of his own work.





After tracing the letter forms that John had produced from stone rubbings, we then looked at constrasting the large letters with the rest of the poem (or just part of it). Cutting the letters out and messing around with the layout is a great way to get a feel for what works, taking pics on a digital camera lets you move words around and keep a reference each time - brilliant time saver!







John also talked us through the use of vellum and he had brought with him some stunning examples of work which I'll add to the blog over the next week....

North Yorkshire Scribes

I was emailed just recently by Sarah from North Yorkshire Scribes who meet over in Yarm each month - they have a new blog so if you are interested then click here for more information.

April Open Day and workshops

We had a great day on Saturday - with a full day in the Penrith shopping arcade, talking to a few people interested in commissions and interest in joining the group! Thanks to everyone who helped out and came along.

At the meeting room we were also joined by Beth, who was on her Easter break from Uni, and hopefully she'll keeo coming along whenever she is able to.

Our next meeting in May is a tutor workshop with John Ward - We'll be looking at the Kirkby Stephen poetry walk which I'm looking forward to.