Penrith Devenshire Arcade Project

We've been able to take advantage of a project happening in Penrith with Eden Arts - they have been using empty shop windows to display art. This is such a brilliant idea, and much better than seeing empty shops everywhere. Eden Arts is an independent charitable trust, carrying out arts developments in Eden on behalf of Eden District Council. This is a great way of supporting local art groups and showing what is happening in the area. If it sparks a bit of interest then that's only a good thing!









Thanks to Peter for taking the photos for us.

Quarto Jan 2010 meeting

Yesterday was our first meeting of the year for Quarto - this is the quarterly book arts group that I joined last year, it meets at Sunderland so it's a trek over on the train but well worth it!

The theme for this meetings book swap was Seasons - as usual there were no two books alike and it was great to see how the theme was interpreted.

I has decided to focus on Vivali's The Four Seasons - there were Sonnets written to match the music so this provided me with the content for each page. I decided to do the book pages shaped as violins which sounded great but was a bit tricky to cut out! Luckily it seemed to work ok.

In Loving Memory of Mary

We've had such sad news with the group this week, one of our longest members passed away suddenly after a stroke last weekend.

Mary Burton was such a lovely bright person, a mother and grandmother - and a wonderful silk artist to boot. Although Mary wasn't a regular at our meetings any more due to her silk painting we always loved to see her when she popped in to say hello.

Our thoughts and best wishes go out to her family at this time xx

With love
Alison

A star is shining brighter in the sky tonight

January 2010 meeting - cancelled due to snow

Happy New Year to everyone, I hope you've all had a great festive season. I'd like to say a quick thank you to everyone who looks at our blog and comes back to visit us each month. We do appreciate it and hopefully you see something that inspires you!

***UPDATE****

Our AGM meeting is cancelled due to the bad weather. Our next planned meeting is now Saturday 13th February so we will be starting this with the AGM.

We will be finalising our agenda for this year and getting workshops confimed. I'll now post information on this in February.

***UPDATE****

We always welcome new members so if you are in the area and interested then please pop along and meet us (from Feb onwards!). We meet 10 times a year (Sept through to June) on the second Saturday. If you would like more information then drop me an email at mrstopham@hotmail.co.uk

Hope to see you soon!
Alison

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year

Our December meeting was last Saturday - we've had a brilliant 2009, with tutors such as Sue Simpson and Manny Ling joining us for workshops. Thanks to both of them. We welcomed back a couple of new members Jo and Nick to this meeting and it was lovely to see them again.

One of our 'traditions' is making christmas cards for each other and today was no exception - it always amazes me that in the nine years I've been in this group I've had such a variety of cards, no two alike and they are always such a suprise. Below you can see a selection of this years!







We'll be holding our AGM in January, any new visitors are more than welcome. We meet on the second saturday of the month. If you want more details then just drop me an email at mrstopham@hotmail.co.uk

I'll be posting a list of our planned workshops after the AGM.

Best wishes and a happy new year to you all

Alison
xx

Impetuous Italics with Manny Ling

Calligraphy by Manny Ling



The group relaxing at the end of the day!

It was our November workshop on Saturday with Manny Ling as our guest tutor. The theme for the day was Impetuous Italics and it was a fun and lively script to learn.

Manny started with a demonstration of the basic techniques - the strokes are much quicker than with formal italic and as your hand moves the pen it creates a natural and free movement, we found that's it's harder than it looks but with practice we were getting some good results during the morning. We also manipulate the pen quite a bit - lifting one corner edge of the nib to create fine lines and taper off on downward strokes - the examples by Manny at the end of this post show how this looks.

Throughout the day Manny gave various demonstrations and showed techinques to us, as we had a few members that couldn't make the meeting (sorry Heather and Moira) it meant that we had a lot of individual focus and help on our own work.

By lunch we had moved onto writing words and looking at how we consider what style of letter to write - basically as this is a loose and free script you can change the way you write a letter so it fits in with the whole word and the balance is right, different ways to write letter combinations such as ff, rf, st etc. all helped us to exlore and experiment with our own work.







Manny Ling demonstrating his lettering to the group





Mable and Cynthea working on their lettering



Manny demonstrating technique with Bernice

Susan Moor - Codex Amiatinus

During the October Quarto meeting we were also lucky enough to have a talk from Susan who is an amazingly talented calligrapher, she was commissioned by Sunderland University and St Peter's Church, in Monkwearmouth to reproduce two pages from the Codex Amiatinus Saxon Bible which was originally produced at St Peter's.

To read more about it and to visit the Church click here

Quarto October meeting

Well I was back off to Sunderland last week to the October meeting of Quarto - the Book Arts group I joined back in July. A bit daunting this time as I had to make my first book!!

We'd also invited another Book group called 'Bound to be Good' to visit us for the day. They are an offshoot from Calderdale Scribes.

The theme for the book swap was Windows and Apertures so I had decided to create a Tunnel Book that would have a window looking out onto one of my favourite views - Glastonbury Tor. Now this was the first tunnel book I'd made so it's a bit rough but I guess you've got to start somewhere (right??!!)









Well, as it's a swap group my Glastonbury Book went to Barbara from the 'Bound' group, I hope she likes it!!

I received a fanastic book from Anne - who loves all things Christmas!!







Everyone also brought along their previous books which had been made over the years, it was great to see such a varied and individual collection and truly inspiring. Everyone has such different styles and interests so even when you follow the same theme the books are very unique.

We also managed to sqeeze in making a book, thanks to Margaret Beech for this demonstration and providing all the paper. It was a really quick book to make but unusual in the rolled spine that you end up with. Starting with a sheet of A3 paper (although any size would do) you score folds and cut along a couple of lines, ending up with a the result below, we punched a couple of holes and tied ribbon through just to keep the spine rolled up. Brilliant!






The next meeting is in January and our book swap theme is 'Season's' so I'm busy thinking on that now!!

Lively Letters & Contemporary Calligraphy

This was the theme for our October meeting - with fabulous tutor, Sue Simpson!









We started the day practising in pencil with pressure release, loosening up our writing style and experimenting with bouncing letters and words around. Sue explained that she had developed this informal and lively style over time and it was actually odd to try to structure it into a more formal workshop - so much of this writing is personal style, preference and individual taste so it's not like learning a formal script at all.



Trying to organise the rabble for a photograph!! Bernice managed to sneak out before I'd got my camera ready so she's missing from the pic!



Sue's work is shown below - these are cards that she produces and sells, quirky and individual and a perfect gift.

Meeting Saturday 10th Oct

Our next meeting is coming up this Saturday, and it's going to be a good session with our tutor, Sue Simpson, looking at 'Lively Letters & Contemporary Calligraphy'

Sue is the founder member and honorary President for North Yorkshire Calligraphers, I first met her years ago on a weekend course back when I was about 13 (far too long ago now!!) She is totally inspirational - overcoming worsening eyesight to continue with her profession. Have a look at her site for recent examples of work here

Hopefully the newer members will be returning for their taste of a tutor workshop with the group.

I'll be taking the camera so photos will be up early next week!