Pretoria Calligraphers Explore Uncial

A rainy day and a warm and friendly afternoon.

A group of 12 calligraphers gathered in Penfriends Studio this afternoon to explore various aspects of Uncial. We started with Greek uncial and moved to a modern day font.

Try out some exercises. Find pictures of old manuscripts. Look at the lettershape. Observe letters that you are familiar with. How do they differ from the Uncial you already know?

Write a line of Greek uncial letterforms.

Write a block of letters. Use black, grey or white paper. Use different kinds of ink.

Explore, experiment and create a great monogram using your initials and the uncial letterform.

Crazy Calligraphy!

Not only have we been making Peace posters but we have been painting plates for a project which hopefully will highlight calligraphy and its versatility.

Here is one comment from Michael Warner, organiser of the Peace posters in the USA:
We arrived back this afternoon from a nice long Spring time walk with the grand daughters. Opened the mailbox and what peered out from the inside at us? My grand daughters were thrilled to no end to see something "... ALL THE WAY FROM AFRICA!" Well, to tell the truth, the 7 year old was thrilled because she can now find Africa on a world map. The 3 year old was thrilled because ... her sister was. So we cut the tube open and all sat around and looked at the beautiful banners from the other side of the world. "Grandpa ... the confetti is falling off." Hmmm, I have some regluing to do. Beautiful work. Flowing. Artistic. The works from France are dark and brooding. The Canadians are bright and flashy. The Australians have very controlled hands. What you sent us was so very smooth and soft. Almost ... delicate. By hands and by colors and layout. Really lovely work. The Guild sends its thanks and appreciation. I will send you photos when we hang - which has been pushed to early summer. Hopefully June, before we have our National Conference - Odyssey.

At the moment we have another project on the go: A few calligraphers have been doing an Uncial update with Heleen de Haas in Cape Town and feel that we don't simply want to STOP. So we each working on a final 'project' to give away to friends at the end of the year. So as I said - calligraphy is crazy here at the moment.

Cape Town Calligraphy

Have just returned from a wonderful week of teaching and sharing in Cape Town.

Classes from the Non-verbal Impact of Letterform, In the Art of seeing the Invisible and Thinking out of the Box were the challenge.

All students were encouraged to participate fully and with as much enthusiasm as possible.

Not only were we able to share teaching but had a wonderful day in the city itself. Cape Town was hot and the mountain was clear.

The evenings cooled down - although teaching in the heat - and keeping everyone awake was a challenge, we all shared and enjoyed a great time.

Saturday workshop

Presented a workshop in Pretoria on Saturday. A creative afternoon of photographs and calligraphy was enjoyed by all twenty one participants.

I chose some of David's photographs and with some discussion about layout and design, we completed beautiful images.

We used gouache, tracing paper and fine nibs.

A great way to enjoy a Saturday afternoon.

New Classes 2010

Thursday is the start of the Penfriends Studio Classes 2010.

Tables turned, seats moved, equipment polished - all ready for the new year. Oh and I forgot - new notes and music too!

Creativity is very much part of 2010. Colour. Calligraphy. Creativity. The three C's of the classes.

Apart from the 3 C's, we have a great friendship as a group. So here we go to a great new year.

Back Home and Writing

What a place Argentina is! Exciting and fun. Beautiful and surprising. Antarctica is of course another tale altogether. Remarkable is all I can say at the moment.

I have updated my notes for 2010 and hope that we will have a creative and colourful year. The studio has been cleaned and re-set out and I hope the change will make everyone aware that change is good!

I will be attending workshops in Cape Town and Johannesburg and will also be presenting a workshop in Pretoria in February. I find all this very stimulating as presenting new ideas and expanding creative thought is always a challenge.

Look here for new creative ideas. I'll be adding them from time to time - perhaps even monthly.

A Review

2009, in spite of being a great travel year, provided everyone time for times of practice as well as plenty of time to complete various projects.

From the beginning of the year we explored various hands starting with Foundational with Sheila Waters as our mentor - via book not in person sadly! Her exquisite understanding of the form is inspirational.

We then moved onto Italic which was the main focus for the class in the second half of the year. Together with those calligraphic hands we continued the quest for creativity and the group certainly managed to forge ahead making small hand made books, decorated letters and simple letter weight designs.

We look forward to the break and reconvening in February 2010.