Lettering Apprenticeship

People across the Blogosphere are devouring resources related to improving their handwriting and lettering in order to spruce up their art journal pages, planners, and personal correspondence.

As evidenced by over 200 pins on my "Lettering, Handwriting" board on Pinterest, I am one of those people in search of the perfect handwriting that has eluded me since kindergarten!

Recently, I sat down with a whole screen filled with Stephanie Ackerman's doodles, lettering, and artwork, and put myself into the position of apprentice: studying her style, copying her work, looking to internalize her approach.

My effort, emulating Stephanie's artwork; I included only the first part of the verse.

I love Stephanie's quirky, playful, casual style that incorporates cursive and print, capitals and lower case, colors and black & white.  Her work looks so spontaneous, but those arrangements of words and doodles must be well-planned.

I made slight changes to Stephanie's version, mainly because of the size of my sketchbook page.

I also love how Stephanie works with Bible verses, favorite quotations, and inspiring phrases in her artwork.  There are so many possibilities for creating encouraging artwork based on my own favorites!

I made three different drawings in my sketchbook, and then reduced them by 50% on the copier.  (Once I accidentally reduced the 50% drawings by 50%, and got tiny little artworks from them!)  I cut and pasted them onto one page, and then printed it out on sticker paper.

Next, I cut each of the little stickers for use in my planner.

A couple of them made their way into this week's planner spread:

I added some red marker for "pop" on this one.

This was one of the tiny ones, and got some decorative tape and doodling in order to stand out.

At first, I was embarrassed when my 7-year-old asked me, "Mom, why are you just copying from her work?" But I think that copying can be a valid step in the process of developing my artistic style.  Just like the apprentices of the Renaissance era would copy the masters and even add to their works, I see this stage of copying as one step towards developing content, style, and and approach of my own.

In an article I found entitled, "The Making of an Artist," the author writes of Renaissance apprentices:

"Pupils...then learned to draw, first by copying drawings made by their masters or other artists.  Drawing collections served not only as training aids for students but also as references for motifs that could be employed in new works...Young artists also learned from copying celebrated works that could be seen in their own cities--Michelangelo, for example, copied paintings by Giotto in Florence's church of Santa Croce--and they were encouraged to travel if they could, to Rome especially, to continue their visual education."

What do you think?  Shameless copying, or valid step in the learning process?

If Michelangelo himself employed this method for learning, I'm going to take my chances!

Back in the Groove

I took an unexpected blog break this past week, and I thought I would catch you up on what I've been doing all this time.

For starters, I had the great good fortune to attend a reunion of my cousins in Michigan.

My cousins on my Dad's side of the family.  I got to hold the newest
member of the family!  (We're at the bottom of the steps.)

Several of our aunts and uncles came by over the course of the weekend, as well, so it felt more like one of the old-fashioned family reunions I grew up with.

I mentioned on Facebook that the gathering was exactly what I was hoping it would be.  There was plenty of small talk and silliness, but also lots of time for heart-to-hearts to really catch up on each other's lives.  I have a cousin in the Foreign Service, serving in Afghanistan, who happened to be home on a three-week leave, so she was able to share her absolutely astounding experiences in that country.  I have another cousin who recently went on a three-month vacation to South America, which was so interesting to hear about.  There were recently-ended relationships to discuss, and recently-beginning relationships to celebrate.  Everyone had jobs to discuss and explain.  Old family stories were rehashed.  Much beer and wine was consumed by the bonfire each night.  Getting to bed by 2 a.m. was considered early.

I had a couple stolen moments for doodling around.  I didn't expect to fill too many pages in my sketchbook, but I came away with one Zentangle (while folks were watching football) and one lettering experiment (sitting on the sun porch before others had woken up for the day):

Once I got back home, I faced another milestone:  my little girl, my first-born, my five-year-old, headed to kindergarten!  No doubt about it, I can feel the roiling layers of anxiety beneath my calm and confident exterior.  I am experiencing significant disbelief (as is she!) that she will now be going to school every day for years and years and years!

Here's Katy, taking that first step into kindergarten.

Back to school is also the season for taking care of all those annual doctor and dentist visits.  I splurged on a new pair of glasses, since the ones I had been wearing are now about 18 years old!  Here's a look at my new frames:

Hopefully now, with the school year underway, I can get myself back into a steady routine of blog visiting, art-making, and posting.  I hope you'll come along!

Artful Grid Lines

I took a little hiatus from working on Joanne Sharpe's Letter Love eCourse, but have jumped back into it to make sure that I don't lose my momentum.  I enjoy every lesson I do, and I walk away with projects each time that I'm pleased with.  I think that's a great testament to the quality of Joanne's instruction and assignments!

In one lesson, she has us creating artful, or "groovy," grid lines to use as a backdrop for our lettering.  She encourages using all different media, especially watercolor paints.  I kept it easy and tidy, and stuck with my markers for creating my lines.  In the future, I will try paints, but I was really pleased with my results using markers alone.

I created thick lines across the page with two different colors of markers, and then added additional lines with a thin black pen.  The black pen lines were the guides for my letters.  I used a Marc Chagall quotation:  "If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing."

Before I filled in the open spaces of my letters with blue, I took some pictures of the page, because I was afraid the blue might ruin it!

Do you like it better with or without the letter spaces filled in with blue?

Here are a few more close ups:

For my second page, I chose different colors and a different quotation.  Here it is without the open spaces of the letters filled in:

I used the e.e.cummings quotation:  "It takes courage to grow up and become who you really are."  Love that!  And here is the final product, as well as a close-up:

Finally, I did a third page, with a different color scheme:

This is a Ralph Waldo Emerson quotation:  "Do not go where the path may lead.  Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail."  When I went to my mailbox this afternoon, I found another postcard from Shannon's swap, and it had this very same quotation on it!  (I will feature the postcard in a future post!)

These projects were great fun, and I am generally pleased with how the pages turned out.  One thing I love about Joanne's writing is the freedom and spontaneity of her letters.  My lettering still looks very labored and forced.  I think that is fairly obviously because I am so new to it, and with additional practice, it will look more natural.  It's always good to have goals, right?

At first, I was really loving the portability of this class, because all I needed with me was my notebook and my little zipper case of pens.  But as my pen collection expanded during the course, and as I decided to keep all of my old pens together with my new purchases, things have gotten a little bulkier:

But, oh, it is delicious to keep all those colorful pens and markers together in one place!

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I got some very fun news via email the other day!  I entered a giveaway on Regina's web site, Creative Kismet.  She was offering a spot in a new online course running in April called the ART*FULL Sketchbook with Dana Barbieri, and I WON IT!  Now, I probably need a new online course like a need a hole in my head, but I just cannot resist the opportunity to learn new techniques, receive new inspiration, and meet new online friends with similar interests to mine, so I'm very excited to be a part of this class!  If you would like to learn more about it, check it out here!

More Letter Lovin'

I am working my way slowly but happily through Joanne Sharpe's Letter Love 101 course.  I keep up with watching the videos, but take my time to actually complete the assignments, so I'm only about a third of the way through.  I am really enjoying the assignments, though, because the pressure is OFF and the playtime is ON.

In my last post about the class, I shared my notebook and some of my practice exercises.  Then Joanne moved us into our mixed media notebooks, and for me, the fun really began!

I really loved the Whimsy Grids that Joanne showed us how to construct.  As far as I am concerned, the Whimsy Grids lesson alone was worth the price of admission!

I love the opportunity to use lots of styles of lettering in one piece, and a chance to include lettering and doodling.  I wasn't happy with the final look of my Derwent Inktense watercolor pencils; I'm still working on how to use them to best effect.  (The purple came out muddier than I might have liked.)

I tried another Whimsy Grid with a quotation from Gandhi:

And you might have seen another example of a Whimsy Grid in my post about the Pay It Forward project:

(I'm still looking for my third participant, by the way!!)

Joanne also encouraged us to try other stacked lettering layouts:





In another fun lesson, Joanne had us working on composition, arranging fun alphabets across the page:

For several days, I've been working with her second example of alphabet composition.  Before applying it to quotations, I did a basic alphabet:

Then I combined this composition style with some Bible verses that I have been memorizing.  Spending time on lettering is a great way to commit the words and ideas to memory!

So, while some of my classmates are working on lesson 23, I am way back on lesson 8.  But by not putting pressure on myself to go any faster (after all, we have access to the class forever), I am still very much in the midst of letter lovin'!

Letter Loving!

I am participating in Joanne Sharpe's online class entitled Letter Love 101.  She has set up a private blog for class participants, and posts a new lesson every day for the month of February.  She combines videos, blog post notes, PDFs, and even some of her own original art to inspire us.

Even before the class began, I ordered some new black markers that Joanne recommended for lettering on her blog.  I now have (what I consider to be) an impressive collection of black markers, and from our Yahoo group exchanges, I know that I am far from alone!

All black ink pens!!

Our "workbook" for class is a plain ol' black and white marbled composition books, which we have "dressed up" with duct tape and other embellishments.  For the first few days, I was less than pleased with my notebook, and even considered scrapping it and starting all over in a new one.  Today, though, I buckled down and "made it mine":

I even took a stab at "fancy lettering" for my Letter Love title, and was finally pleased with the results.

Back cover, featuring a gift of art from Joanne to keep us inspired

Inside front cover and first page

In the first lesson, we were invited to simply "play" with our markers, and create various alphabets in our notebooks.  In keeping with my "less than pleased with my work" mood those first few days, I had a slight inferiority complex over my alphabets.  After all, I am taking this e-course because I don't like my lettering/handwriting all that well! 

To show you how crippling a dose of "perfectionism" can be, I will confess that I thought about creating a "rough draft" composition notebook (to keep all my "ugly work" hidden at all costs), along with a "final copy" composition notebook (with work that I would think is "good enough" to share on my blog).

Seriously?

I got over myself, so you will see the good, the bad, and the ugly as I proceed through the class!

Joanne showed us how to create an inspirational sign for ourselves, which I chose to include in the notebook itself so it can go with me wherever I am doing my lettering. 

I had so much fun making it, that I made a second one!

It was fun to break out the colored markers after all of those black and white pages!

One of the perks of this class, by the way, is that I find it remarkably portable:  so far, I can take my notebook and zipper case of pens with me, and "letter away" wherever I choose!

Next, we played around with the word "art" in 20 different fonts.  I copied Joanne's interpretations of the font names, and then went back through and created interpretations of my own. 

I have to say that this exercise today really won me over completely to the class.  I could really see the possibilities for interesting lettering by playing in 20 different typefaces at the same time. 

I will continue to share updates on my progress through Joanne's class, but I highly recommend that you sign up for yourself (on her web site).  It's such an affordable class, with such broad applications, at such a "do-able" pace.  Once you purchase access, you can access it "forever". 

Love it!

Things to Do in 2012

It wouldn't be the New Year without making some resolutions, now, would it?

Last year, I made many, many very specific monthly resolutions, and then promptly lost the little book where I had written them. 



Much more effective for me was the practice of choosing a word that expressed my intentions for the year.  In 2011, I chose the word BEGIN, and kept it at the forefront of my mind as I started maintaining my blog, keeping an art journal, participating online in swaps and courses, and preparing for my first craft show. 

For 2012, I have chosen the noun WINGS (after considering alternatives such as BLOOM and GROW) to suggest a movement forward from the beginnings I enjoyed last year. 

I also thought of some general goals for the year, and created a page in my new art journal (which I am maintaining at the same time as my Book of Days).

I am working on interesting lettering for my art journal and other art pieces, using The Scrapbooker's Handwriting Workshop by Crystal Jeffrey Rieger, a Christmas gift to me from my mother.

The font I've used here is called "French manicure," and I think it's pretty and fairly easy to create.  I also played around with the new Derwent Inktense Watercolor pencils that my mother also got me for Christmas.  Because of the thinness of my paper, and the collage I had glued to the back of this page, I didn't get the very best results that I know I'll be able to get eventually.

My 2012 "To Do" list:  Eat well, run often, pray always, create art regularly, occupy the moment fully, invest in friendships generously, read widely. 

What's on your list for this year?

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Karenann followed my airmail envelope jotter notebook tutorial and created her own notebook.  Check it out here.  It looks great!

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One of the great things about collaging is you can have piles of things scattered all around your workspace, and sometimes things just come together seemingly like magic.  A few weeks ago when I had all sorts of magazine words and phrases on my desktop, these three pieces fell together:

Great, isn't it?