Letters as Subject (Suzanne Moore: 5 day)
Lettering skill level needs to be high
Letters as Subject: Written, Drawn and Painted. Students will examine and explore their own lettering and those of other artists, and through a series of exercises, develop and build on their lettering and design skills to create first black and white variations and then move on to color renditions of letters, words and phrases. Wet and dry drawing, then paint, non-press prints and layering of lettering will create intriguing interpretive designs, complete or to complement additional text. We will consider the subtleties of letterforms, design solutions and a selection of techniques that will give each student choices from which they will choose to create evocative letter-based work.
A pre-class assignment will be sent prior to the class. Contact Suzanne at scarletandmaeve@yahoo.com if you haven’t received it 8 weeks before class.
Supply List: Pencils (2B, HB, 2H, 4H); hand sharpener; white eraser; triangle (metal if you have one, 8: minimum on one side); rulers (18” min. one see-through one metal); gouache (jet black & white); 5-6 inexpensive mixing brushes; palette (Dr Martin’s plastic with deep wells); selection of favorite papers 12×18 minimum size :1-2 for lettering, 1-2 watercolor, 1-2 Ingres heavy especially deep colors, (Please note many papers are supplied with materials fee for use in class); 4-5 sheets layout paper(18×24); a selection of diverse mark-making & writing tools (pens, brushes, balsa wood, ruling pen, twigs, palm-leaf stem, bamboo whisk – anything you can dip in ink!); a few brushes (5-8) of various sizes to use with gouache: select from #0 to ¼” (round, angled and flats-nylon bristles); pen holders and nibs of various types and sizes; bone folder; small pointed scissors, small break-off knife; cutting surface (18×24, mat board OK).
Supply Fee: $25
About the instructor: Suzanne Moore is a lettering artist, painter, and printmaker whose eclectic interests fuse in the diversity of her artists’ books. She melds word and painted image with form, content, and structure into spaces that invite the reader to engage, examine, and inquire. Her books blend abstract and representational imagery, rich color and surface treatments with textual content and contemporary lettering to create work that obscures the line between word and image, legibility and abstraction. Suzanne’s work is exhibited widely, and her books have been acquired for public and private collections in the US and Europe. Among them are the Pierpont Morgan Library, The Library of Congress, and the rare book collections of Smith College, Wellesley College, Harvard University, Bowdoin College, and the University of Washington. She lectures and teaches in the US and abroad on contemporary manuscript book design, conceptual ideas in book design, and on painting and collage techniques.
