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Warming our hearts on a cold winter's night, Chris brought in her video player and we enjoyed writing along with Fran Strom in her Pointed Brush Calligraphy video. The video is an excellent introduction for the beginner as well as giving useful tips for the more experienced. Whilst Fran is sadly no longer with us, her videos are still available at http://ampersandstudio.anthill.com/
In April Haze McGraw treated us to an evening with a decidedly Celtic flavour.
Last October Hazel McGraw attended a two day workshop given by Aiden Meehan. At the April meeting she treated us to a lightning intro to Half-Uncials and Zoomorphics. In the time available we were, of course, barely able to scratch the surface of the subject, but it certainly whetted our appetites for more.
If that was not enough Hazel brought in her laptop computer and treated us to glimpse of the Book of Kells CD she had brought back with her after a recent trip to Dublin. Many thanks Hazel.
See November Newsletter for report on the workshop
May was elections month and, to no one's great surprise, the current Executive were acclaimed to serve for another year.
Of more interest, however, were the presentations made by Chris, Alice and Mike
Chris brought in a number of articles of interest under the general topic of Calligraphic Inserts.
One particularly interesting tidbit was the use of solder as an interesting embellishment for cards. Just melt some plumbers' solder and let it fall and splatter on to a smooth surface. Careful it is hot.
When it has cooled, carefully, remove from the surface and there you have a very decorative three dimensional artifact to glue to a card. The silver colour works well on black or other dark colour. Chris recommends attaching it with white glue which dries transparent.
Mike demonstrated a simple origami envelope that can be produced from a piece of rectangular paper.
Alice, as usual, threw herself whole heartily into the project and demonstrated a number of folded and glued books, notelets and similar: all eminently suited to that special Calligraphic touch.
While the cats away the mice will play. So, while her husband, was away for a few days, Alice got to work. Long nights and no husband under her feet enabled her to complete a number of tasks. Most notable was her multi-part accordion book.
In essence the book consists of a number of pieces of thick paper strips folded in an accordion manner. The fist strip is folded at 1.5" centres, the second at 2' and the third at 3".
Alice cut windows in the two smaller strips and then sewed all three together at the forward seams. After attaching the whole to stiff card end pieces an attractive accordion book was produced.
Alice shows her various accordion books
Mike Whittington
