Warmland Calligraphers

WARMLAND CALLIGRAPHERS OF THE COWICHAN VALLEY

February 2016

Issue #63

Newsletter Team

Newsletter Issue #63 February 2016 Regular monthly meetings are held on the Second Tuesday of each month from 9am to 12:00pm (no meeting in July and August) Mellor Hall Meeting Room, Exhibition Grounds Duncan, BC (Exceptions are December and June)

Editor

Barbara Qualley

Proofreader

Eleanor Harris

Cover Artist

Alice Young

Executive Meetings

Inside this issue

are held on the First Tuesday of each month at Linda Yaychuk’s home from 9am to noon All members are welcome!

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General Guild Information

is held on the Fourth Tuesday of each month from 9am to 12pm Scouts Hall, Exhibition Grounds Duncan, BC

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President’s Message Cover Artist

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October Galleria - Alphabet Border

Annual Membership in Warmland Calligraphers includes three online newsletters. Dues are C$30 for Canadian residents and US$30 for US/Int’l.

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Beautiful Letters of David Jones - Part 2

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October/November Meeting Programme

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January Meeting Programme November Gallaeria - Cadel

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Christmas Cards

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The Victorian Pen with Heather Held

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Graphite Techniques with Amity Parks

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January Galleria - Graffiti

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2015 City of Duncan Perpetual Arts Award Winner - Betty Locke

Playtime

Warmland Calligraphers of the Cowichan Valley (the Guild) is a non-profit group formed to facilitate the exchange of information between calligraphers, and to promote interest in and appreciation of calligraphy as an art form within the community. Membership is open to calligraphers at all levels of expertise as well as those with a love of beautiful writing.

Contents of this newsletter are copyrighted by the authors/artists.

Requests for permission to reprint any part must be made through the Editor. The views of contributors are not necessarily those of the Editor or of the Guild.

Members are invited to submit concise pieces for publication as well as to alert the Editor to conferences, papers, speeches and other matters of interest to our readers.

The Editor reserves the right to make editorial changes in material accepted for publication. These include such revisions or additions deemed necessary to ensure correctness of grammar and spelling, clarification of obscurities, brevity and conformity to the newsletter style.

Contact us at:

P.O. Box 2, Duncan, B C, V9L 3X1 Canada http://members.shaw.ca/warmlandcalligraphers

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President’s Message This is my last message as President before Ria Lewis steps into the position in April. In many ways these last two years feel like they have just zipped by, but in looking back I can remember so many things that have happened over this time. I am so looking forward to the next two years when I will still be a part of our amazing, enthusiastic and knowledgeable Executive, but not have to be quite as organized about agendas; that job will be done incredibly well by Ria, who has the gift for both organization and artistry.

Betty Locke and I were having a talk just this last week about how calligraphy fits into our lives; and the beauty of calligraphy is that it fits into people’s lives for so many different reasons. I enjoy its ability to connect people to one another; Betty loves the art that calligraphy is, and the constant challenge and artistic growth that comes out of working and studying it. I am quite a bit lazier than Betty, and do not enjoy the work part nearly as much! I am thinking that it would make a very interesting article to have our members write about why they belong to our Guild and why they do calligraphy. The diversity and the number of pieces in our monthly

Galleria show a broad range of interpretations of what calligraphy is to each of us. Even within Gallerias that have clear guidelines, I am fascinated by the variety in the pieces that are displayed.

I am also fascinated by how our Guild has a place for each of us. Sometimes we underestimate how much our contribution, little or big, makes to the Guild as a whole. As my very wise sister-in-law once said, “Never forget that you need an audience.” This was not in reference to calligraphy, but it holds for our Guild too. We have Betty Locke and Marilyn Boechler organizing world-class teachers for our workshops, and this is definitely a big contribution, but each person who attends a workshop is also making a contribution of both time and money. Everyone who shows up for a meeting is contributing their time, and everyone who organizes something makes our Guild work better. I always get the feeling of how much the members value each other and the work that we each produce.

In looking back over my previous President’s messages I feel thankful: for the people I have worked with, for the time I have spent being part of a

bigger group, for the instructors we have had and for our wonderful, warm and welcoming membership. I have had a chance to meet many of our newer members and also the opportunity to know our Executive members so much better. I am very grateful for the support I have had from everyone in these last two years, and I look forward to being able to support our group for many more years. Many thanks to all of you.

Lucy Hylkema

Front Cover Artist - Alice Young Alice is a GDC Certified Graphic Designer, with 20 years of experience in design and communications. She spent a decade working in the studios of multi-national ad agencies (Leo Burnett, Publicis, Ogilvy & Mather, BBDO) in Toronto, Canada before moving to Canada's west coast in 2000. She continues to work on local, national and international accounts. The focus of her design work is typography and hand lettering.

Her love of letterforms carries through to her practice as a calligrapher. Her calligraphic work spans a broad range of applications – from commercial (logos and workmarks) to just-for-fun (greeting cards) – to exploratory fine art (asemic calligraphy on canvas).

Her calligraphic paintings on canvas have been exhibited and sold internationally. Along with fifty other international calligraphers, she recently participated in the International Exhibition of Calligraphy for 2015, held in Moscow, Russia at the Contemporary Museum of Calligraphy. Her work, “Our Path”, remains in the collection of the Museum.

Most recently, Alice participated in the One Tree Exhibition at the Robert Bateman Gallery in Victoria, BC. She currently has a series of on-line classes using the Pilot Parallel Pen at skillshare.com FEBRUARY 2016

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October Galleria - Alphabet Border Around a Quotation

Barbara Qualley

Betty Locke

Mieke van der Vliet

Barb Dressel Simons

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Judy Lowood

FEBRUARY 2016

Trudy Kungold Ammann

Ria Lewis

Charlotte Whiteley

Marilyn Boechler

Denise Rothney

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Linda Lax

Margaret Kells

Marion Craig

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FEBRUARY 2016

Judi Hopewell

Pat Wheatley

Anne Atkinson

Bonnie Cruickshank

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The Beautiful Letters of David Jones - Lorraine Douglas Part 2 of 2

Class members were asked to write a one-liner telling of an ‘aha’ moment or nuance that they learned in the class.

I was thrilled to learn how to emboss well.

Marilyn Boechler

Interesting insights into the psyche of the man as well as layout tweaks suggested with size and orientation of the letters and repeated letters for variety.

I found the handouts were excellent reference material.

Through the David Jones course I have enjoyed an added dimension to my calligraphy experience.

Lorraine's class introduced me to an important calligrapher who wasn't afraid to stray from the traditional hands and invented variations on his letterforms to make his work stand out artistically.

Judy Lowood

I am looking at my art and feeling much happier now that “perfect” has gone out the window and “playful” and “imaginative” and “David Jonesian” have entered.

Carolynn Dallaire Margaret Kells

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Lorraine Hoy

The use of negative and positive space.

Marilyn Lundstrom

Laura Erikkson

Judi Hopewell

Light travels through letters by joining them together - up, down & sideways.

Loved learning how to 'flood' a letter.

I will look at letters with a more curious eye from now on.

Susan Miller

David Jones lettering is not prescriptive (pen widths/nib style) and other hands can be incorporated with it.

One of the things that I valued and appreciated was the use of tracing paper.

Inspired me to diligently exercise the magnificent Jonesian colour palette and lettering.

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October Meeting Programme - Calligraphic Cadel Different strokes that make up a Cadel were demonstrated by Judi. We then moved on to creating, one step at a time, the letters “S” and “H”, incorporating the designs we had practised.

During our October programme, Judi Hopewell guided us through the process of creating Cadels.

There was a definite contrast between German and French Cadels, the German being heavier and blacker and the French lighter and more delicate.

The biggest rule of thumb was to keep the spaces between the strokes the same width as the strokes. The size of the Cadel depends on the size of the piece and can be done in various colours.

Judi demonstrated a number of different Cadels from various countries.

November Meeting Programme - Graffiti The November programme was prepared and presented by Trudy Kungold Ammann and the subject was Graffiti.

and we worked on developing our own 'tag' or monogram using an example of the graffiti styled demonstrated in the handouts

Trudy discussed the history of graffiti which started with Latino and black Americans wanting to express themselves publicly in as many places as they could. Their aim was to be as prolific as possible in order to achieve recognition. However the graffiti artists had to write at night to evade the police, as they were portrayed as common criminals and vandals in the urban world. By the 1980's graffiti was well established and American graffiti became recognized as a world art form.

Trudy had spent a lot of time preparing for this activity: the handouts gave a clear impression of the different styles, the information was very interesting and the activity following the presentation was most enjoyable.

Thank you Trudy for all your work on this subject .

- Margaret Kells

There are several main graffiti styles, which were identified in the handouts prepared and distributed by Trudy.

We practised some of these styles 10

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Although Cadels look difficult to create, following Judi's step by step instructions made the experience easy.

Judi is an excellent teacher, which made the program very enjoyable.

- Linda Yaychuk

January Meeting Programme - Focal Point Lucy Hylkema presented information on the importance of a focal point in a piece of calligraphy, using the Elements of Focus.

Lucy described how the focal point had to 'shout', while the text had to 'speak' and the background had to 'whisper'. The focal point has to be part of the whole, but distinct, either in style, colour or size to enable it to stand out from the rest of the text.

Note how the focal point changes in these two layouts

Placement of the focal point so that it becomes the most eye-catching part of the piece, is important.

Using the quote for the February Galleria we designed quick sketches using the points Lucy had brought to our attention.

- Margeret Kells

November Galleria - Create a Cadel

Judi Hopewell Laureen Woodruff Jane Taylor

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November Galleria - Create a Cadel

Marilyn Boechler

Marion Craig

Linda Lax

Judy Lowood

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Trudy Kungold Ammann

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Our Christmas Cards - 2015

Gillian Mouat

Barbara Qualley

Carolynn Dallaire Charlotte Whiteley

Anne Atkinson

June Maffin

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Christine Hill

Ida Marie Threadkell

Pat Wheatley

Trish Peebles

Susan Miller

Marilyn Boechler

Denise Rothney

Judi Hopewell

Linda Yaychuk

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Marion Craig

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The Victorian Pen with Heather Victoria Held

BEFORE Gillian Mouat

Judi Hopewell

Gillian Mouat AFTER

Trish Peebles

Barbara Qualley

Janet Peters

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Betty Locke

Judy Lowood Marilyn Boechler

Janet Peters

Joyce Gammie

Marilyn Lundstrom

Denise Rothney

Liz Moss

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A picture is worth a thousand words…

You can certainly see what a joyous two days we spent doing off-hand flourishes and florals with Heather Held.

My report is not going to tell you how to ‘do’. It is going to be a shopping list of Heather’s recommendations!

Tachikawa G nibs - flexible and long lasting McCaffery’s inks - wonderful hairlines. If not used regularly, keep in fridge. Organics go bad. Room temp to use, please.

Ziller inks - Easier to work with, but not as fine as McCaffery’s www.deserres.ca - Canadian online art store. Also retail in Surrey and Vancouver (2).

Strathmore 400 paper - good for planning. Nice responsive paper. Best price Deserres.

Dover Publications - Copyright-free designs and inspiration.

Tombo MONO Eraser www.rosemaryandco.com - Kolinsky Sable brushes. Series 323 and 33 recommended.

Diane Townsend pastels - www.pastelstudio.ca Crystals - www.lovetocrystal.com Swarovski Flatbacks - ss10/2.9mm - Indian Pink, Dark Siam Red, Crystolite Opal, Hyacinth - www.tamisplace - CRYSTAL CLEAR Swarovski Rhinestone Flatbacks Beacon Gem-Tac Permanent Glue - Michaels Google: outline flowers, Victorian scraps, gun engraving designs, William Morris acanthus www.archive.org - Guide for Drawing the Acanthus by James I Page https://archive.org/details/guidefordrawinga00pagerich Miniatum Ink - for gilding. An alternative to Instacoll and Gesso.

Winsor & Newton Brush Cleaner and Restorer

It was a “dark and stormy” day when Amity Parks tried to fly from Missoula, Montana to Victoria, BC. Her flight could not land in Seattle so back she went. Finally she was put on a flight that landed in Seattle but then she was not able to connect to Victoria until much later. Windy weather conditions made flying iffy.

When she commented that some passengers were “screaming” in the turbulence we understood how bad the conditions really were.

Lorraine Douglas who was to meet her and drive her to Duncan was kept 18

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up-dated regarding progress and finally to our relief Amity arrived safely in Victoria after 3pm.

PHEW!! Because of the lateness of the day and a dark drive over the Malahat it was decided to book Amity into the Travel Lodge for a good night’s sleep and Lorraine and Amity would come to Duncan very early on Wednesday morning. We were pleased that at last our presenter was near us.

They started out before 7am only to discover an accident on the Malahat which resulted in a six hour closure.

What to do??? Duncan Locke suggested that they return to Sidney and take a ferry to Saltspring Island and then a ferry to Crofton. What a good solution to this debacle!!

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- Barbara Qualley

Meanwhile students arrived looking forward to the workshop only to be told that the presenter was (we hoped) on her way. Texting kept us up to date. They had caught the ferry and with luck with the other ferry connection, they would be with us later in the morning.

Their safe arrival shortly after 11am marked the start of the workshop. I was pleased with the ability of the participants to put their time to good use while they waited. It was the first time in over twenty years as the Guild workshop coordinator that workshop plans were thwarted. This was a good lesson in “going with the flow” and taking things easy. Amity managed to pare down some of what she might have had us do in order that we had covered the pencil experiences she planned by the end of the day - after four o’clock instead of three. Only one thing remained which became the first thing on the agenda for Thursday.

I heaved a sigh of relief.

Truncated lunch times, later dismissal and an early arrival on Thursday allowed us to cover the work of the workshop.

The Cowichan Exhibition staff were very kind to us adding time at no extra charge. Our early start on Thursday allowed Amity to cover what had to be done and we were able to bid her a very fond farewell as she left for yet another ferry ride to the Mainland for her next two days in Langley.

It was fun to spend two great days playing and mark making with splatter messes and experimenting with new tools. Thank you for bringing some great products that we were able to purchase. Now I need to work on something that might be worth looking at!

- Charlotte Whiteley

- Betty Locke

Two excellent days with Amity, I enjoyed it all so much. She was such a treasure and very generous, pity we didn’t have a third day. My favourite part was the ‘Pressure & Release’ alphabet and the graphite/carbon application.

- Christine Hill

The Amity Parks workshop was a delight. Graphite was proved enormously versatile whether regular or water soluble. Given the start with Amity demonstrating initial techniques, imaginations were inspired to continue and the possibilities are endless. My favourite was shaving graphite into water-painted lettering and watching it develop. A terrific workshop! I do have to commend Lorraine Douglas, and Amity herself in getting to Vancouver Island and arriving at the Scout Hall within two hours of the appointed time! And Amity, without blinking an eye, went straight into workshop mode putting all hiccups behind her.

Amazing!

- Pat Wheatley

I loved Amity’s class. She was very organized and her workshop was wellpaced with demonstrations, practice and materials prepared for us. She made me realize that the lowly pencil has incredible potential and I am still working with several of them. What I love the most is that one can correct a mistake so very easily. I enjoyed learning the different ways of making a piece of work look great with shadowing, soluble graphite, celtic knot letters, variations of letters, etc. One of the best workshops I have attended.

- Ria Lewis

Pencil leads are made of graphite, a mineral, and clay. The more graphite: the harder the lead and the more clay: the softer the lead.

Graphite pencils are graded by hardness and softness. The pencil is marked by F, H or B for medium hardness or a letter and number combination. The combinations indicate the amount of hardness or softness. For example an H3 pencil will be harder than an H2. The higher the hardness the harder the lead. A B6 pencil will be very much softer than a B3 pencil and give a blacker line.

B pencils are easier to erase as the hard leads of the H pencils leave a groove in your paper.

- Linda Yaychuk

Wonderful, fun and very well taught.

I enjoyed this new and interesting way of doing Calligraphy. It is a great new-to-me tool in my calligraphy tool box. It was a pleasure to be able attend.

- Lenore Le May FEBRUARY 2016

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Amity is a great teacher. She is highly skilled herself, and manages to keep all levels busy and stimulated and motivated...that is something. She obviously has this class well honed and paces the classes well with great results. All those that took the class have used her teaching in recent work and it is amazing how much I have retained. I find it has improved my respect of the pencil, enriched my calligraphic design skills and renewed my love of simply drawing...this is a truly memorable class that I am so happy I took.... I would highly recommend it. She was worth waiting for and her notebooks were phenomenal. - Judi Hopewell

I loved this workshop. I can hardly keep the pencil out of my hand now. It was such a delight to learn what could be done with the mere pencil. I think that Amity did a fine job of teaching how to think about design and composition using a short quotation. She also opened up our minds as to the many possibilities of what a word offers as far as different manifestations of letters is concerned. Amity made her way around the room well to give individual assistance. After a very shaky start due to things that could not be helped, she was able to dive right in and make the best of the limited time. We all left with much to make our calligraphic life greatly enriched.

Amity is an exceptional teacher – her workshop was filled with techniques which could keep us all busy for the rest of the winter! I enjoyed using the gradations for interwoven forms and learning about the different qualities of the pencils in my box! Thank you to WCCV for inviting Amity and for the opportunity to attend. A real treat!

- Lorraine Douglas

- Betty Locke

For me the Amity Parks workshop was a calligraphic mind-expanding experience. Wonderful!

- Marg Kells

I found Amity's course informative as well as fun. It was a great introduction to graphite - a medium I have not worked with before. Amity was patient and encouraging.

- Trish Peebles

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January Galleria - Graffiti

Graffiti on schoolhouse - Irene McGeary

Charlotte Whiteley

Dave Carter

Debbie Craig

Judy Lowood

Anne Atkin

Betty Locke

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son

Denise Rothney

Marilyn Boechler

Judi Hopewell

Joyce Gammie

Gillian Mouat Margaret Kells

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Pauline Thompson

Gillian Mouat

Ria Lewis Ruth Rutledge

Trish Peebles

Leslie Healy

Marion Craig Pat Wheatley

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City of Duncan 2015 Perpetual Arts Award awarded to Betty Locke City of Duncan Perpetual Arts Award is an annual recognition trophy awarded to an outstanding contributor to arts and culture in the community by the City of Duncan. In June 2015 Joyce Gammie brought this Award to our attention, and our campaign began with members submitting Nomination Forms.

Betty, in the 21 years you have lived in Duncan, you have become a part of the whole community: from Newcomers, to Probus, Cowichan Lawn Bowling Club, Warmland Calligraphers, Hospice and Eldercollege.

We cannot think of a more deserving recipient of the 2015 Award.

- Barbara Qualley

To view the City Council announcing the winner, you can go to this link: http://cityofduncan.ca.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?view_id=2&clip_id=121

City of Duncan honours its bright lights Locke, who was on vacation and unable to attend Monday’s meeting in person, watched on live streaming video from a distance as Coun. Sharon Jackson presented her with the Arts Trophy.

“Since she and her husband Duncan retired to the Cowichan Valley 20 years ago, Locke became a founding member of the Warmland Calligraphers, and has watched that group grow from 12 to more than 70 members.

She has spent many hours volunteering as a teacher at Elder College.”

“Seeing her students grow and become proficient in their lettering and in related studies has been extremely rewarding,” Coun. Jackson said.

“Her own work reflects her love of colour and an interest in the quality of line.”

- Cowichan Valley Citizen - December 9, 2015

The keeper trophy and box were handcrafted by Dave Thompson husband of Warmland member Pauline Thompson.

The plaque (far left) was donated by Cowichan Valley Arts Council and will hang permanently at Duncan City Hall.

Glenn Spicer created the carved stone Perpetual Arts Trophy on display at Duncan City Hall 24

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