Season's Greetings

Once again this year I was delighted to be able to help with Assistance League© Glendale's annual "Festival of Trees" fundraising event by providing layout and design for the Save The Date, Invitation and Program. The fun part this year was that I was invited to create the artwork for the event! Apparently it was quite a hit so I have decided to share it by creating a few products in my Zazzle Store (with a few more to come in the next few days).

Thank You to those who have been following my blog for the past couple of years. Hopefully next year I will be a bit more prolific in the posting department. ; )

Whatever you celebrate at this time of year I hope your festivities are warm and memorable, and your new year brings all the best things your heart desires!

Extended Copperplate Calligraphy Workshop

While attending and teaching at the IAMPETH Convention in Phoenix this past July, I had the pleasure of becoming better acquainted with a lovely gal that I only briefly met about a year or so ago. When we were not learning new stuff (or, in my case teaching or demonstrating some kind of technique), we enjoyed chatting about calligraphy and the other things we found to have in common. As a result of all of this, she asked me to teach Copperplate calligraphy to a group of pointed pen enthusiasts in Murrieta, California, and I was delighted to accept.

So, beginning this October, I will be teaching a 6-month Extended Studies Copperplate Workshop. Classes will be held on the second Sunday of each month, through March, and will be 8 hours of instruction. To be exact, the dates are Oct 9 - Nov 13 - Dec 11 - Jan 8 - Feb 12 - Mar 11.

There are 2 spots available and I would like to invite you to attend! It is intentionally a rather small group, so you will certainly get a lot of individual attention.

The focus of the class will be to learn and develop skill in the Copperplate hand, through instruction and lots of practice. Time will also be devoted to explore and experiment with various products and media, develop some small projects which will hone your newly-minted skills, and to learn some tricks of the trade using tools that just might surprise you! The last two classes will include instruction in flourishing and using it successfully.

If you're interested, please contact Carol Landford and she will fill you in with all the details!


P.S. And, yes, the title for this post was hand calligraphed by yours truly. : )

Designer's Bible

OK, perhaps not exactly, but it should at least be on the short list of books in every designer's library, and that of anyone engaging in the business of selling hand lettering or calligraphy -- there's a section in the book just for us!

What am I talking about? The Graphic Artist's Guild Handbook of Pricing and Ethical Guidelines. It is helpful to have several of the past editions as well as the latest, as each of the books has different reference tables that I find extremely helpful when pricing, especially for commerical work. Make sure you get yours soon!

Crystal Harris and Hugh Hefner Wedding Calligraphy

So, now you know ... my latest invitation project was this! It only took one or two samples to get the calligraphy style right and then it was on to the border to create the flourishing, something I had been wanting to try for a while so this was a perfect opportunity to see what would happen. My first glimpse of the invite came by way of a tweet by @hughhefner. Congratulations to the happy couple!

Together Again For The First Time

This past weekend I had the great pleasure to host calligraphic artist Annie B. Cicale, who was in Los Angeles to teach a workshop. Her book has been in my library since the day it was published (well, just about, anyway) and since we hadn't met before I was delighted to finally have an opportunity to study with her. Although we were really tired from the workshop, being letter fanatics to the core, we couldn't pass up the opportunity for a very special photograph. (In case you need a hint as to what it's all about, her initials are ABC, and mine are XYZ.)



P.S. One of the must-have books for your calligraphic reference library is The Art & Craft of Hand Lettering by Annie Cicale.

Cartes

This past October I had the extreme pleasure of working with a bride on accessories for her wedding. As a matter of fact, Jen Lauren Grant is, herself, in the wedding industry, and is a photographer. Here are a couple of photos of the cards I did for her. Anyway, Jen's photographic work is just beautiful and she has a lovely blog on which she wrote a very nice testimonial about me. Thanks, Jen!

Razzle-Zazzle

Today my custom postage was featured in a post at Felt & Wire, Mohawk Paper's blog, and penned (or, perhaps keyboarded) by writer extrordinaire, Alyson Kuhn, from whom I have reverently borrowed the title of this post. Take a look now, but be sure to also bookmark Felt & Wire, to make sure you can go back often to peruse the excellent content.

My appreciaton extends to Alyson for today's post, as well as the post she, a.k.a. AOK, wrote on Tuesday, Monograms à la modern, in which she discussed my monogram designs that I offer through the Felt & Wire Shop.

Those of you who have been reading my blog may already know that I have calligraphic Love postage stamps available for purchase in my Zazzle shop. And now, thanks to a lovely bride named Kendra, available in the shop as of this week, is an all-new Rsvp stamp, designed in calligraphy to coordinate nicely with the popular Love stamp.

Both the Love and Rsvp stamps are offered in a range of colours, but should you not readily see your scheme, they are customizable to those of your choice!