Art Day Techniques

I was thrilled when Carol invited me to an Art Day, explaining that we would show each other an art technique. All the participants were members of the Houston Calligraphy Guild.

Each person taught some form of art, bringing materials for the others. One day three of us made paste paper in Carol's garage.

We met on Saturdays every two months for several years. Carol was the hostess, her husband Cooper made delicious dumplings for us! We met all day. During the last year and a half we had the same five women participating. 

One Art Day I handed out cardboard boxes from Michaels. We collaged the top, bottom, sides and inside of the box which I learned from Teesha Moore in her Curious Little Box workshop in Spring, Texas.

Carol taught us fun background techniques using large salt crystals in wet watercolor paint and we made a book with our samples.

Then we used an embossing tool with brass sheets. We embossed over clip art, smeared with ink, and when dry - wiped with steel wool.

Fran taught us Contemporary Decorated Capitals, using Micron pens, Ziller inks and watercolor.

I love meeting with other artists for play days. Any Art Day fuels my passion for creativity! Do you make art by yourself or also with groups? I would love to hear from you.

©Anne Rita Taylor 2016

Top Ten Reasons...

I changed the name of my blog this week: from Paper Crafting to Art Craft Share. I was motivated to blog by writing a blog twice a month for Arnold Grummer Paper Making. And I may continue with them; I’m taking a short break from paper making projects. 

My blog remains the same: talking about workshops I have taken plus my varied interests: making books, calligraphy, and all that comes in between including art journaling and DIY crafts.

Here are my Top Ten Reasons to Art, Craft & Share:

1.   Inspiring others.

2.   Developing new ideas.

3.   Learning.

4.   Sharing information.

5.   Going on a rant!

6.   Creating home decorations.

7.   Playing with crafts.

8.   Collaborating with friends.

9.   Exploring an unfilled need.

10. Having fun!

The world needs us! We are needed because we are happy and we do not horde information - we share what we are doing. We are - each of us - unique. Please let me know what you think too!
©Anne Rita Taylor 2016

Exploring Italic Calligraphy

I started learning Italic calligraphy through a Tutorial Program given by the Houston Calligraphy Guild (HCG) in 1999.  I had tried writing calligraphy on my own; I was OK but I wanted to get better.

The 6 month - 6 lesson - correspondence course randomly paired me with a teacher. I was lucky to have Fritzi Harry. She gave me encouragement and also let me know when I was faltering. 

I was given a detailed supply list: I had to write with a pen staff and a nib, no felt pens allowed! The 6 lessons included learning the basics of lower case: Minuscules - and upper case: Majuscules, ending with Design Principles and a final art piece using a minimum of 25 words.

I mailed my lesson to Fritzi and she mailed it back to me with a piece of tracing paper over my writing. She let me know where I succeeded and where I needed improvement. She even gave me gold stars!

We used this informative little textbook by Lloyd Reynolds. After 6 months I received a lovely Certificate at the September HCG meeting in 1999, written in Italic of course.

Practice and more practice

Through the years, I took other Italic hour-long workshops with the HCG. Recently I studied with Peter Thornton: Italic Variations at the annual calligraphy convention held in Dallas in 2014. I had fun learning how to loosen up after following the guidelines for many years!

If you want to learn Italic calligraphy, try it on your own first with the Lloyd Reynolds book, plus online courses, then find someone in person to share their experience with you about their hand lettering.

Please let me know how it works out for you. 

©Anne Rita Taylor 2016

Collaborative Art Journaling

©Anne Rita Taylor 2016

One of my collaborative painted pages

There are many ways to make art with Mixed Media - layering paint is one of them. When you Google: Mixed Media, you get 65 million results! Paint, ink and collage on canvas is the most popular form of art journaling.

Nicole's sample page

Last Saturday I went to a Meetup group with a price tag - $20 - Whole Hearted Art with Nicole Bray. Nicole’s blog showed she was knowledgeable about art and I thought it would be fun too. 

On Laura’s page I wrote “PASSION” plus drew the daisy.

Also I understood the word “journal” to mean writing. I brought a sample of my art journaling for show & tell - there were four us - and they were surprised that I wrote in my journal.

An art journal page of mine from 2009

In this three hour workshop we painted first in either primary or secondary colors for 5 minutes, switched our pages with our neighbor who then painted in the opposite warm / cool colors in our pages.

Laura finishing a page

I was having fun and also was perplexed, my pages seemed over-worked. It was actually fun to throw caution to the wind, playing with Nicole’s stencils. She explained about the color wheel and the use of thirds on a page for a pleasing arrangement.

Valerie painting her page

Besides instruction, Nicole provided brushes, acrylic paints, stencils, and she gave us each a piece of 11 x 15 inch water color paper. She had a great hand-out for us: 18 Must Have Mixed Media Supplies. Plus I found out about a nice circle maker and cutter by Orbis too.

Nicole's page after collaboration

We finished by painting another layer; we could obliterate the entire page if we wanted to…  Or we could find a face, plant or animal to emphasize. --- Please let me know what you think of the layered painting process. Do you use paint layering in your art journal pages?