Sunday, October 16, 2011
More Tao Portfolio Pieces
I've been experimenting with some of the techniques we learned in Mike's class last week end. Here are two pieces that are kinda finished. I think there might be some things I could do so I'll let it simmer for a bit.
I've also had a recent find of over 300 sheets of Strathmore Grandee Felt heavy paper. The size of the sheets are 26" X 40". Huge! I spent some time tossing around some of the sumi ink on them and after drying, tore the sheets down. This is the size we worked on in the class. Here's a bunch of them I'll be working with.
Here's a few pictures of some watered down sumi using shapes of the alphabet with a large folded pen.
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
The Tao Portfolio
The Calligraphic Society of Arizona of which I am a member, hosted the renowned Mike Gold last weekend for his workshop entitled The Tao Portfolio. Mike is a very gifted, talented and skilled lettering artist employed by American Greetings for many years. I was honored to take part in the process of creating my own personal Tao Portfolio.
Taking passages from the Tao te Ching, we created several pieces. Mike encouraged us to jump out of the calligraphic box many of us are contained within. This was a formidable challenge. Trained to create letters with specific criteria-shape, dimension, height, etc. he asks us to break all these rules we learned and treat the alphabet as the artform in itself. Legibility is not the relevant issue. Here's a lovely banner he created with all those 3" squares created by each one of us attending the workshop.
One of the buzz words of the workshop was "trend" and how art is showing up these days and gaining momentum. I dunno. What goes around comes around, right? I think I'll wait until the reverence of letter forms and their rightly place in the world, returns.
In the meantime, however, I'll jump the bandwagon with others to explore this dimension. Here are some of my Tao pieces created.
Taking passages from the Tao te Ching, we created several pieces. Mike encouraged us to jump out of the calligraphic box many of us are contained within. This was a formidable challenge. Trained to create letters with specific criteria-shape, dimension, height, etc. he asks us to break all these rules we learned and treat the alphabet as the artform in itself. Legibility is not the relevant issue. Here's a lovely banner he created with all those 3" squares created by each one of us attending the workshop.
One of the buzz words of the workshop was "trend" and how art is showing up these days and gaining momentum. I dunno. What goes around comes around, right? I think I'll wait until the reverence of letter forms and their rightly place in the world, returns.
In the meantime, however, I'll jump the bandwagon with others to explore this dimension. Here are some of my Tao pieces created.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Sweet Darkness-A Paste Paper Book
David Whyte's poetry occupies a special place in my heart. Here's one I hand lettered in my paste paper book. Arches Text Wove.
Love After Love-A Paste Paper Book
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