New Zealand Calligraphers

Colour, Collage and Calligraphy Workshop

Students who attended the workshop with Gemma Black.
Dale, Marion, Roselda, Pam, Elaine, Lesley, Bevan, Jan, Barbara, Theresa, Gill, Glenice, Rose, Kirsten, Ann, & Gemma.

Dale-Cormack Pearson

What an inspirational workshop this has been, we have been shown different mediums and we have played around with them. We have been shown how to mix colors with washes for backgrounds. Then to apply calligraphy to them. Thank you Gemma for your hard work to bring this to us, we have enjoyed

it very much. The evening lecture was most interesting and I think we all learnt something. For me the most important aspect is to always write everything down. The date, medium, style, what worked, what didn't work. Always to make sure you name your piece, take photos of your work. Making your mark is the most important thing you can do for yourself and your calligraphy. Dale-Cormack Pearson

Barbara Ellis

This was a fun course! Gemma showed us how our back grounds for our calligraphy can come from a variety of possibilities, as far as our imagination can take us, by using different media, support and methods. We tried inks, water colors, gouache and acrylics with water on a variety of papers, they could just have easily been used on canvas, wood, fabric etc. We used paint brushes, spray and dropper bottles, salt, glad wrap and anything else we had with us. Each media, paper and method gave a different effect. We had a wonderful play and serendipity played a huge part. A large tray was used to keep the paint etc contained (and the mess). To finish off Gemma showed us a quick but very effective calligraphic style to use on our backgrounds which could be protected with an acrylic medium later on. Barbara Ellis.

Lesley McKeesick

Paint, gouache, inks, water, brushes, different papers and anything you could think of for collage. A new experience for me to be dripping/sloshing paint etc onto wet paper. But what fun!  It was interesting to see everyones different colors and styles. The Saturday afternoon was spent learning some new scripts and again it was fun. They had a casual look and were to be written at speed, though I found that I had to write more slowly to achieve that look. Sunday we designed and put different collage materials onto our now dry paper, (toilet paper seemed ideal for collage work) with three different types of paste. A session with Gemma to see how best to present our master pieces! She gave us many helpful tips and useful information for our calligraphy craft. Lesley McKeesick

Gill Carlsson

I was one of the fortunate members to attend the Colour, Collage and Calligraphy workshop with Gemma Black. She is the most delightful person and wonderful tutor. I had wondered whether I would be out of my depth attending with such an international teacher of calligraphy, but no, she accommodated all levels of knowledge and everyone really had a good time. Saturday was spent experimenting with colour effects onto a background we created with different mediums, ink, watercolor, and gouache. We made crinkled effect paper by blobbing randomly onto the paper then screwing the paper into a ball! Unravelling it revealed a wonderful effect. Then ironed it when dry. The drying was enhanced by the lovely sunny day, and we dried our papers outside. We had bought some images, hand made papers etc to do collage. When the paper was dry enough we all set to creating with our embellishments. What an amazing variety of designs started to appear around the room. We were all so absorbed in our work the classroom was quiet!! By the end of the day we had finished several decorative papers and were quite exhausted from the concentration and went home happy. That evening we had a sociable lecture from Gemma at Jan's house, called 'Making your Mark' signing your work or not? Sunday we learnt Akim cursive script originally developed by Hans-Joachim Burget. This hand is certainly different! First we had to practice free form skeleton Roman capitals using Gemma's variation - fun and not difficult to do, then we moved onto variation of Hans-Joachim. No angle of the pen to worry about and the letters flattened and sprawling were enjoyable to practice. The rest of the day was spent practicing and creating some phrases or poems of your choice. Some managed to actually write onto the prepared papers we had made and it looked stunning. The simplicity of the hand requires little writing to gain great affect! I must get on and do my practice! Gill Carlsson