Calligraphy Christmas cards for inmate penpals, 2014
I created these Christmas cards for my penpals. I used ink and paint, Parallel Pen (black) and brush (gold, silver, white). Also used gel pens for added touches and lettering. We had excess green card stock so I used that, and cut it to 1/3 of an 8.5 x 11″ page so they’ll slide right into a regular long envelope without folding.
Someone else commented that it was a lot of hard work, Nah. It was all fun and easy. Continue reading
The last few classes of Barbara Close’s workshop in November were spent learning gold leaf gilding on an intricate illuminated letter. We transferred found fancy artwork to our papers and added the color and gold leaf. I found this pattern on the Internet and it became my project.
Illuminated O class work, Nov. 2014
People have wondered how to get my prints, calligraphy book, videos of my work, and the iPhone apps I created on how to do calligraphy. I have set up this one page to display all the links to those resources.
This page will move down as more posts are added, so I made it a menu link at top so it will be easy to find.
Order prints of my work from: http://www.etsy.com/shop/stevehusting
Order calligraphy book from: http://www.lulu.com/spotlight/stevehusting
Steve’s calligraphy iPhone apps on the App Store: http://www.iTunes.com/apps/learnitaliccalligraphy
Steve’s YouTube channel (to see videos of app and book): http://bit.ly/1rsBJBf
Steve’s calligraphy web site: http://stevehusting.com/calligraphy
I’m taking Barbra Close’s newest workshop series, and she’s starting us off with brushwork. Following are a couple of projects I completed. The orange lettering is from a class handout containing five quotes and we instructed to choose one and make one word larger for emphasis. This is my second attempt at the quote. The tool I used is below – I’m very, very impressed with the pen’s ability to do small detail work. You can tell the size of the work by the pen.
Quote for classwork with brush. Steve Husting
I’ve let my Copperplate calligraphy go for quite a while. I started practicing again, using the excellent Vitolo PDF handout from online (iampeth.com – “video workshop handout” link). You can compare the two to see I’ve still got a way to go. I practiced the basic forms over and over, then put them together to form letters. Later I did more letters, connecting the same letter together to try for consistency in form. Very difficult to do.
Copperplate Practice, 9-20-2014
I collected these quotes from handouts given by various calligraphy teachers, from books, magazines, and other sources over the years. Each quote offers food for thought and helps expand our understanding of our art. Continue reading
I received a 2-DVD calligraphy set by Denis Brown called Italic Rhythm. It was beautifully filmed, edited, narrated, and demonstrated by Denis. He also supplied the music and designed all the printed work – the box and printouts.
Italic Rhythm 2-CD Set by Denis Brown (posted with permission from Denis Brown)
I entered my handmade calligraphy flag book in the OC Fair this year. I wanted to enter the illuminated manuscript (of the post below), but it wasn’t ready by the time the entry date. So I entered the flag book at the fair and entered the illuminated manuscript in the Muzeo exhibit in Anaheim. The flag book came away with Honorable Mention among the entries. I hope to enter the illuminated manuscript into the OC Fair next year.
I visited the OC Fair to look at the offerings. The only items of calligraphy were my small flag book (unfortunately positioned to make the calligraphy very hard to read, and it was cramped among the offerings), and a larger framed work by Lee Garigmeyer in Celtic lettering, complete with painted ship in the lower right corner and fancy scrollwork on the left side. It received 2nd place.
It was clear that the artwork I’ve seen among members of calligraphy guilds would give this guy a run for his money. If you are in the Orange County, CA, area, I encourage you to enter a work. I will try to enter as many pieces as I can next year. Let’s fill a table with calligraphy over there and show the public that calligraphy is alive and well!
I’m starting on my first illuminated manuscript. I settled on the two verses for the 16 x 20″ piece, and the arrangement of the words. Next, I needed to work on the color and decorations. Here is one of my color samples, after determining the sizes of the letters:
illuminated ms color test
On the left are several ideas for border treatments, but I don’t think I’m going to be using any of them. I’m starting the guilding of the piece today, then on to the lettering. I’ll use Instacoll and gold leaf (patent gold) I’ll post updates when I get further along.
Update: After starting the lettering and adding the gold leaf, I let it all dry. The next day I started the rest of the lettering — and smeared the last word of the third line, brushing my finger to the right. Start over!
