Calligrams

Our monthly meeting in Epsom on tuesday will be about calligrams, and if you want to know more more here is a definition, noun, a word or piece of text in which the design and layout of the letters creates a visual image related to the meaning of the words themselves.

Hilary Lewis who is teaching the class has found some images on the web that may be helpful, at least a jumping off place. You will need your usual calligraphy gear remember your parallel pens or the pens you usually like to work with and a practice pad like Zeta.

Christopher Haanes

Time to sign up for this workshop with

Christopher Haanes.

Christopher is a very highly regarded calligrapher and teacher and we are so lucky that he is able to visit us briefly before heading off to Australia where he will conduct several workshops before heading back home to Norway.

Italic might be the hand that is the most varied of all the scripts. One may ask if there really is a neutral italic. There is much variation even amongst Renaissance scribes, and there is a multitude of modern adaptations, stretching from formal, almost typographic styles to highly individual possibilities.

Advanced techniques like pressure variation, pen angle, manipulation, building-up, and retouching will be explored, as long as the student is ready to embrace them. The workshop will include lectures and demonstrations concerning the history of letters, the relationship between the printed and the written word, and technical solutions.

Skill level: Intermediate (students who can write an italic hand)  -  Advanced students.

A video showing Christopher writing latin letters. Here is his website if you wish more information click here.

A deposit of $120 is to be paid by the end of August with the final payment of a further $120 to be made by the 20th September. Direct payments can be made to:  010288-0137566-00  (NZ Calligraphers ANZ Newmarket). Please include your name and C Haanes in the appropriate  columns.

Date:- 5th and 6th October. Time 9.30am - 4pm. Venue is upstairs at 48 Windmill Road, Epsom. Please bring your lunch. Tea, coffee and juice will be provided.

Workshop participants practise sheets, thank you for sharing.

Peter Gilderdale was our leader for this workshop. A quiet but intense weekend that demanded concentration and the need for us to revisit our analysis skills. We were given several (12th-15th century) excerpts  of cursive every day hands (in latin) to decipher, then we were to develop them into useful useful, readable  hands we could use today.

We just started to find some sort of familiarity when the next alphabet was handed out. Peter was very willing to demonstrate, and was constantly circulating the room to assist with deciphering, and offering helpful suggestions for each one of our problems. 

The calligraphers from Warkworth joined us for the first day of the workshop, our other two travellers were in Auckland for the weekend. Bevan had travelled from Whangarei and Peggy had flown up from Wellington, it was good to see them all again.

Peter showed us how to write one of his favourite letters - 'e'. He covered ground on the basics:- pen grasp, tools, writing positions, hand, arm, shoulder movements and I was reminded how easy it was to let lazy habits take hold.

The last assignment was wicked and playful to arrive in the very last half hour of the weekend, we stared at an extremely intricate document full of cadells, fine decorative pen work and letters made up of oblique squares with the edge of the pen. 

Peter then asked us to select the 3 hands we liked best, all went round and listened to the discussion that followed and the reasons for our choices. Evidence that some of us were still standing. An excellent workshop.

More workshop practise sheets.

August Meeting

For more information please  look through side panel for contacts, times, dates, bookings and whereabouts.

Brief reports from our travellers who have returned from SSiW

Gill provided a few photos from her experiences at Summer School in Winter 2013.

Left to right: Rose, Hillary and Glenice in Melbourne, Olive Bull demonstrating Cnut Charter hand, Cnut practice and example sheet, Maggie and Rose at the Cnut Workshop. I couldn't find a website for Olive but here is the report from Melbourne, click this

Jake Weidmann's photocopied examples

Glenice has provided a few images to post here to show some examples of the tutor's work and what she achieved during the workshop.

Glenice Martin's examples

The above class was led by Jake Weidmann and if you want to see more of his work click here. There will be a fuller report later in our magazine.

Glenice Martin's work.

J.Weidmann's work

Glenice took another class with Heidi Willis, a botanical artist, and to visit her site click here 

There are many reports coming out about the whole event, for an overview 

of the tutors try this link 

Card Workshop

Jan Leonard continued her well planned series developing the use of her earlier calligraphy lessons even further.  As usual her notes for the card making were comprehensive and well thought out. Step by step plans for even the most challenged of us. Personally made cards are more valuable than any you can buy in a shop and the receiver knows that extra skills and time have been spent on them and that you value the family, friendship etc. The photo of Dale's piece shows an explosion or map fold, the card on the left is marked with fold and cutting lines.

Card Making

Come along and join us on the 2nd of July, 6.30 to 9pm

Modernised Gothics

This course will look at how gothic lettering can be adapted into more contemporary scripts, along the lines of the process used for developing the Marisco wine labels. We will start by looking at some more formal and informal gothic scripts and then merge them with elements of non-medieval alphabets in order to come up with new types of script. This process will initially be experimental, but the intention is that you will all be able to develop and apply your own alphabet by the end of the course. Here is the link to Peter's work at the Marisco web site click here

Tutor: Peter Gilderdale

When: August 3rd and 4th, 9am to 4.30pm Saturday, 9am to 4pm  Sunday

Where: upstairs at 48 Windmill Road, Epsom.

Cost: $140 total for the two days. Cheque or direct credit - $40 to enrol (non refundable fee).

Materials: Bring your usual calligraphy gear and if anything special is required we will post it here.

One member's view of the AGM: 

What a pleasant surprise to walk into a full room of people poised for the start of the AGM meeting, way ahead of time (no, I wasn't late), all the tables were set up and the chairs down. More than a baker's dozen which was a great improvement on last year, well done members. A healthy contingency from Warkworth had made the trip down in the dark and the rain, we really appreciated their effort. There was food covering the table down the back and with a few hot drinks we settled into the business. These are not the minutes by the way! All business on the agenda was discussed, new officers elected with more volunteers for the committee. Ideas and solutions were bought forward. After the meeting there was a social chat over a hot drink and the food. Good to see everyone willing and eager. The gilding video started running and I had to leave, with confidence that there was an interesting year planned. Hillary Barnes

The back row

Annual General Meeting

NEW ZEALAND CALLIGRAPHERS
To be held on Tuesday 4 June 2013 6pm at 48 Windmill Road Mt Eden.

Agenda

1. Choosing of Officers for 2013

2. Keeping out of town members in the loop. We would like a discussion about how out of town members could keep in touch better. In the past the liaison person would receive an agenda and minutes of committee meetings. The agenda would allow us to make comment on items coming up and the minutes kept us in touch with decisions made, and up coming events. Today the committee seems to be working more informally as there don’t seem to be agendas or minutes. From the Waikato Group

3. The blog is a great help to us, but not always sufficient. For example Deidre’s visit seemed to have been organised at short notice and we became aware of it on the blogsite only the night before the workshop took place. None of us was able to make the trip to Auckland at such short notice. We had expressed interest in be involved when Deidre came and were disappointed not to be there. While we wouldn’t want to travel to Auckland for an evening regularly, it is not impossible and members have done it in the past. We think it would help if someone on the committee was responsible for keeping in more direct contact with the liaison people. Or do you have any other ideas about how the links could be made stronger for NZCalligrapher members who are not in Auckland. From the Waikato Group

4. Review of Posting News Letters

5.

6.

7.

8. General Business

Please contact us by email if you wish to add any items to the agenda.

The Committee are looking forward to seeing you there.