Calligraphy Conference

Just returned from attending a Calligraphy conference at Sonoma State University. It was the annual Passionate Pen Conference,  https://www.thepassionatepen.org It was the first time I attended one and could only afford to be there for two days but it was wonderful! I have always loved calligraphy and letter forms, and enjoy teaching my students a Calligraphy unit each year. I hadn't received any instruction in calligraphy since my college days, which were a long time ago. There have been a lot of  changes and new trends in calligraphy since then. Artists are doing a lot more painting and interesting backgrounds with the calligraphy. It was very enjoyable to create using different media.

I took a one day workshop from Nancy Culmone, who does beautiful calligraphy in color and more.  She creates one of a kind, exquisite books with painted backgrounds and calligraphy.  She was teaching a one day class, followed by a four day class.  Wish I could have stayed for the four day class as well. She is an experienced, talented, generous teaching artist.  She taught us how to transition from one color gouache paint to another using brushes to back load the color onto the pen nib.  It takes a lot of patience and practice and is very meditative once you start doing it.

Above are a couple of her finished pieces.

This is one of her practice pieces that we were trying to emulate. I don't have anything to show that I did in the class, because with it only being a day, it was all practice. Hoping to finish something presentable to show here in the upcoming weeks.

Now, back to getting all my supplies and samples ready for teaching a fun soy wax batik class to members of my guild this Saturday.  

Newest Ice Dyed T Shirt

We had incredible rain, thunderstorms and lightening Saturday night.  It sounded like the sky was cracking into pieces.  In Paso Robles we received almost three inches of much needed rain.  Unfortunately, some people had flooding of water and mud.  We didn't have electricity for awhile and no internet until late yesterday evening.

Here is a picture of my latest ice dyed shirt.  It is a j jill shirt which flairs out slightly.  It has a nice drape to it, but its shape looks a little odd in the picture.  I did a different kind of folding for this one that resulted in the mirror image design.

Above is a closeup.

Newest Ice-Dyed Quilt

This quilt was finished the day before putting it in my show at the library,so I didn't get a chance to blog about it. This quilt was created  from two beautiful ice-dyed pieces of fabric which I cut apart and put back together. Below are the fabrics with which I started.

  

I cut both of them apart into the same shapes, then shuffled and sewed them together carefully.

 I cut the quilt apart again, fusing it to black fabric.  

Below is a closeup of some of the hand embroidery that is throughout the quilt.

I really enjoy the process of hand embroidery.  My earliest experience with embroidery was learning how to do it at about the age of 11, as taught by my mom,  on pre-stamped towels and dresser cloths.  Remember those blue stamped fabrics with days of the week, or teacups, girls with watering cans, etc?  All the women in our family (4) would work on these in the car on our long family camping trips from Wisconsin to New York, Washington, California, etc. Doing it again brings back lovely memories.  I find handwork to be a very meditative process.

New Solo Show at the Paso Robles Library

On Wednesday, my wonderful husband, who has a very good eye for details,  helped me hang ten quilts for my new solo show at the Paso Robles library in Paso Robles, California.  My last solo show was in 2010 and was the culmination of work done for my Master's Degree in Art Education. Eight of the quilts in this show are ones made since 2010, two are from that original show.

If you are local, hope you get a chance to check it out. It will be up for the month of July.