20th Century Inspirations & 21st Century Techniques (Carl Rohrs & Julian Waters: 5 day)
Skill Level: Intermediate and Advanced
Besides sharing a longtime friendship and deep respect for each other’s work, we have always both been fascinated and inspired by the calligraphy and lettering design of some of the 20th century’s most original practitioners of your and our favorite art-form. Both of us have repeatedly slipped references and homage to our heroes’ work into ours (both overtly and slyly) while maintaining our own style and use of modern calligraphy techniques. The class will be an in-depth workout employing those moves (using broad edged pen, flat and pointed brushes, ruling pen and you name it) combined with exposure to the work of a multitude of unusual 20th Century masters. How about Bertram, DaBoll, Brudi, Hoefer, Kapr, Koch, Korger, Linz, Menhart, Nienheysen, Post, Salden, Salter, Schmidt, Schneidler, Spemann, Stähl, Toots, Trump, Zapf? Some you know, some you think you know, some you don’t, but fascinating and innovative calligraphers one and all.
We are confident and foolhardy enough to promise that this combination, when swirled with YOUR own psyche and way with a line, will begin to produce a new and more informed sophistication in your work.
Our winter of preparation will be to dig deeper into the stores of our research and travels for sources of inspiration, both obvious and surprising, well known and obscure, to combine with the techniques we have both come up with after decades of being hunched over our drawing boards, designing, polishing, stretching, torturing, and experimenting with letters of all kinds.
We have a lot in common but differ in our personal styles and methods in so many ways as well. No matter how we both approach it, though, we know that terrific calligraphy begins with what happens between the ears as well as between the fingers grasping the tool. Both of us have devoted our careers to finding both direct and unexpected ways in technique, inspiration and inventiveness to make the richest and most intricate details in letters of all styles and we want to share it with you. Between us we have 70 years of calligraphic action, and when you throw in all those other artists, the time become incalculable! So expect inspiring sparks to fly as we all interact in a week full to bursting with different and surprising approaches to calligraphy.
(The workbooks will be at least 160 pages of great lettering resources, with most of the material unavailable elsewhere. Plus, we will be using the new, indispensable way of teaching calligraphy: an image capture camera will project the live action for all to see clearly from their seats as they work along. There isn’t a bad seat in the house anymore.)
Supply List: A few of your favorite pens (Mitchell, Brause, Speedball, plus one fairly large one you can push as well as pull strokes – a 5/16” or 3/8” Horizon is ideal); a sharp flat brush (1/2” WN 995 is ideal); pointed brush (plastic like Pentel Color Brush or natural like WN Series &, about a #4); a ruling pen (Julian has loaners if you want to try his); non-waterproof ink; 1-2 tubes gouache (WN Indigo has the best power for the way we will work); layout bond practice paper; pad of very smooth almost slippery paper like bond; some more textured paper (Strathmore Charcoal 300 Series is Carl’s Favorite, Bugra, Canson Ingres or MiTientes); pencil and/or colored pencils; ruler. Optional: white or bright colored gouache and/or ProWhite or Dr. Martin’s Bleedproof White and dark colored papers.
Supply fee: $25 for bound workbook
About the instructors: Carl Rohrs has been a freelance lettering artist and sign painter in Santa Cruz, California for more than 30 years, and has been teaching lettering and graphic design at Cabrillo College since 1984. He has also taught workshops for unsuspecting calligraphy societies and conferences around the US and Canada, as well as in Europe, Australia, Japan, and South Africa. Hobbies include golf, typographic errors, and spilling paint on good clothes, but he’s managed to keep the splashing of ink on students to a minimum.
Julian Waters’ most important teachers were his parents, Peter and Sheila Waters, and the legendary type designer Hermann Zapf. Professor Zapf later chose Julian as his successor to teach the summer master classes at Rochester Institute of Technology in the early ’90s. Julian’s career began as a book designer; he has since specialized in fine lettering design. Waters’ many corporate clients have included the US Postal Service and National Geographic. Among his font designs are the award winning Adobe Waters Titling Pro and the Jefferson, a custom typeface family for the Visitors Center at Jefferson’s Monticello. He has received awards from the Type Directors Club, Graphis, Art Directors Club, Print, and Letter Arts Review, among others. Waters’ work has been represented in many international exhibitions and publications. He has had solo shows in Washington DC, Norway, and Iceland. During the 1990s he taught lettering and typography at the Corcoran School of Art, and in 1997 was honored as the Rubenstein Memorial Artist in Residence at DC’s Sidwell Friends School. In 2003, the Washington Calligraphers Guild issued the publication Work by Julian Waters: From Sketch to Final Art. http://www.waterslettering.com/
