Playful Letters (Carrie Imai: 2.5 day)

All Levels

So, OK – you’ve been studying calligraphy for a while. You’ve disciplined yourself to maintain pen angle, slant, pressure, proportion and spacing. Your letterforms are respectable, but they look stiff. You look at the work of other calligraphers and admire the liveliness and expressiveness of their letterforms, but aren’t sure how to get it into yours. That’s what this workshop is about. It gives you the tools to make expressive letterforms, but better yet it gives you permission to PLAY!  But this is serious play that will open up new doors and potentials to your letterforms. We will manipulate, jiggle and twist our pens. You will be guided through a number of directed exercises to help you “learn” to play. Soon you won’t need direction. I feel that as calligraphers, we are artists that use letters and words to express emotion on paper, as the painter uses still life and landscape.  This class will help loosen you up and give you a whole new slant on your letterforms. There will also be time for show and share in order to compound the learning.  Lots of “light bulbs” go on in this class. You will risk, drop your guard, make a mess, have a great time and surprise yourself with some of the liveliest and best lettering you’ve ever done!

Supply List: 1 or 2 Automatic pens #4 or #5 preferable (or comparable Coit or Horizon Pens); various pens in various sizes (Brause, Mitchell, folded, pointed, quills, bamboo); Pelikan 4001 or Private Reserve ink (any color) or walnut ink; Prang paint box or tube watercolor and palette; Layout bond paper 11×14 is best; few sheets each grid paper and tracing paper; some scraps of better papers (Fabriano Ingres, Arches WC, Canson, Arches Text Wove); mixing brush; water pot; rag; scissor & X-acto knife; glue stick; any and all tools you love, tools you hate, tools you had to have but haven’t used, tools you don’t know how to use; and adventurous spirit and a mind open to new ideas.

Supply Fee: $10 (for handout notebook, experimental tool kit, and papers and supplies pre-cut for projects)