All that Glisters

This is my piece currently in the CLAS All that Glisters Exhibition. I had a great time at the private view in London meeting up with old friends at the Oxo Gallery and then a whole afternoon stewarding a week later. What a venue!  It was great to see the surprise of people who just walked in off the embankment who didn't know about contemporary calligraphy. There were also lots of visitors from calligraphy groups from around the country. 

There is still time to catch it at Bath and I will be stewarding again there - hope to see some more old friends and new ones too there.

I should add that this is done using a thin pointed brush with built up strokes using different gold gouache paints from Winsor & Newton and Schmincke on Ingres paper

Lay Members Day

Back to London again for the third time in as many weeks to Lay Members Day and the embarrassment of having my work in the exhibition criticised in public. I have to say I think the crit of the members exhibition is rather ponderous and of limited value - it forced Ewan Clayton to limit his erudite and fascinating talk, on the history of writing, into 35 minutes and then it was time to rush for the train home (only one an hour to the sticks!)

I did my bit for the organisation of the day by persuading three new members to join the SSI (Society of Scribes and Illuminators) and I bought myself some new watercolours. I don't know why I haven't done so ages ago. It was Lin Kerr's workshop on Adolf Bernd that inspired me to do so and I also took a leaf out of her book and made myself a concertina of all my watercolours in almost the same order as in the tin - old and new together. The new colours are so luscious and easy to build up that I think what I thought I had as artists colours may only have been student quality after all - well they are at least 30 years old!