Pam Paulsrud's class- Life Lines

 We studied sacred geometry and used a compass to start the bottom layer ( structure) in the background working on a full sized sheet of arches textwove. After the pencil compass lines were finished, the large sheet was torn into pages to work on, so the compass structures were "cut up" on more than one page.

This one is using a compass with the folded pen attachment. I think it has an oriental feel.

 On one part we used different pencils and handwriting, some with the non-dominant hand, and some fast gestural writing. Then added watercolor etc to finish.
We usually worked in threes. She said it works well that way.

 More experimenting- I did the sumi ink circles with some gesso underneath.  Worked on some that weren't my favorites to experiment on.

You can see the compass line base on this one.  Then we constructed a case for the many pages that we will be finishing and experimenting on. This was a wonderful class and we all had such unique works -more photos are on Facebook.  I hope to complete all of mine!

Three collages in a show in St. Charles

I finished up the top two collages over the summer and they will be part of a show with the Midwest Collage Society in the Kavanagh Gallery in at the Fine Line in St. Charles, IL  The opening reception is Sat September 12th, 1:00 -4:00.

I might add a quote to one if I have time...

Practice work from Eliza's Workshop

 Uncial with a brush and mixing blues using gouache

 Sorry, crooked. The bamboo with brush manipulation. I remember doing this in a watercolor class too.

Prayer Flags

 Now I need to finish my prayer flags that are asking for lettering!  The finished one was from a project from LaGrange Art League.

Eliza Schulte Holliday Calligraphy Workshop

 We worked with large brushes- usually 1/2 inch and some with smaller 1/4 inch brushes if we had them.  Eliza taught the uncial and then the black letter and fraktur styles. We worked on paper and then some on fabric which was really fun.
Some of Eliza's exemplars are below.

 My work on pen -actually brush- manipulation drawing bamboo- love how the dry brush looks.

 We lettered on fabric!  That's so fun and it's almost easier to get the letter forms successful!

 Above were the softer Fraktur letters from Eliza's demo which are similar to black letter but rounder.
 This is her hearth banner in that style

Monte Bello Estate

 Our sketch class visited this home with its expansive gardens, flagstone paths, waterfall, and many acres in Lemont.  Such an expansive garden area it's hard to capture in pictures. The sun wasn't out but at least the gnats blew away and it wasn't so hot- even cool when we had our lunch and critique.

Illumination Capital

 More progress on my Illumination capital letter and vine work.  Hubby says the T looks like a G so I'm going to letter the word Trust!

 This next page shows lettering that I would like to teach in my class- black letter in an engrossing style that is more curved than the straight up and down usual black letter style.

Sample illumination for a demo

I'm demonstrating at the Reception at the  Newberry Library Calligraphy Exhibit on Saturday.  I've been working on the T with the shading and softening the dark and light green.  It's going to be to difficult to do that part and talk to people during the demo so I had to have some of it finished before then.

Newberry Calligraphy Exhibit

I'm very excited to have my piece excepted in the Newberry Calligraphy Exhibit!  I did this piece for church in New Lenox.  I had never done a piece of this kind but had taken a class from instructor, Valerie Weilmunster and she helped me along the way with the shading questions I had.
This is the start of the painting of the acanthas leaves and adding the gold.

This is the schedule of the exhibit- the show opens March 16th and runs until June 12th

Newberry reception, Saturday March 28th
during which there will be several artist demonstrations and a presentation
by Susan O'Leary on the Zen Art of Kazuaki Tanahashi

Finetec Inks

I had a problem with soft linen envelopes that with everything I used, the inks always bled.  Then someone recommended Finetec inks which I actually bought at IAMPETH.  They did the job, no bleeding and with the various shades of gold, they had one that showed up well with the phantom liner!  So relieved.
I highly recommend them!

Some of my Unfinished Collages

 I do love the colors in this but am at a loss as to what I need to do to finish it...the theme was tapestry.

 For this one I can visualize a quote in black ink on the right side...this was from a class with Luce where we did prints from plants and I combined the prints with other papers.

 Just needs something more.  The window transfer is from a photograph I took in Grand Rapids, Michigan when we were downtown at Artprize.

Collages at the Aurora Town Hall

 I have three collages to be picked up at the end of the week next week.  The third one is one of my dragon-fly series.  This top one is an in-progress photo.

 Sorry, forgot to adjust!

Time to design a new Valentine Card