Rinka Ronka Redux

©Jody Meese 2016

Another commission, a result of previous iterations of a little ditty sung every morning at the preschool. This time I actually thought to document my process and thought I'd share it here, missteps and all.

Last year I created the first "Rinka Ronka" illumination as a donation to the auction fundraiser...

© Jody Meese 2015

...which led to another...and another...

©Jody Meese 2016

...and then one of the moms asked me to create a piece showing the melody as well as lyrics. Even though (or perhaps because) I have a background in music, I was a bit stumped at the prospect of incorporating the notation into a cohesive piece of engrossing. I sent her two concept sketches (the second one borrowing a border from Angelo Rassu)...

...and she preferred the first, specifically that the lines of music were straight across.

I started working on that design.

I did some gilding with gold and palladium, and used different colors for the notes, but...meh. It just wasn't working for me, so I set it aside.

Eventually, I came across this image of a William Morris tapestry design.

William Morris tapestry

I'm a big fan, and was intrigued by the idea of working on dark paper. I did some sample swatches in gouache and colored pencil on ivy Canson Mi-Teintes paper, and loved the way the colors popped on the deep green background, the gouache (right-hand column) more so than the colored pencil.

William Morris tapestry design

I worked up a sketch making the words larger and the musical notation smaller than the previous design. I planted one of Mr. Morris' fantasy flowering bushes on each side (minus the monster acanthus) and strung the musical staves between them. I tried to compensate for the 'weight' of the treble clefs, time signature, and larger letters on the left by adding more flora on the right, some of it encroaching on the music to fill space in lines with shorter text.

© Jody Meese 2016

I scanned the sketch into Photoshop and cleaned it up a little. I printed it onto Borden & Riley #90 Vellum Sheer Trace, covered the back in white chalk, placed it chalk-side down on the green paper, and began to transfer the design by tracing over it.

It was working fine, though a little messy (not to mention arduous). I had decided to pick up some white Saral transfer paper to use instead (the graphite color didn't show up well enough) when it hit me--I wonder if I could print right onto the green paper? And the answer was yes.

Ready to go! First the Instacoll, three coats to compensate for a little bit of roughness in the paper (even though I used the smoother side)... 

...then the 23k gold leaf...

...then the pale green foundation for the leaves, to set them off from the deep color of the paper.

With a little inspiration from a walk in the neighborhood...

...I started in on the flowers and branches, having lined in the music staff with a Pentel Slicci .08 gold pen.

The melody was next, and then the text.  The leaves, branches and lettering were outlined in black ink.

I wrote the melody first with Sumi, but it wasn't showing up very well, so I went back in with a black Sakura glaze pen, which is both glossy and raised. I think notes kind of look like birds on wires!

I felt the flourishes across the bottom weren't carrying their weight in the design, so I went over them with Kölner Miniatum Ink and applied gold leaf.

All of the text and flourishes were shadow-lined with white pencil...

...which I then decided I didn't like, and erased the white pencil on all but the first line...

...which I then decided I didn't like either! So it ended up the way you see it at the top of the page (for now!). I made a decision not to tool the gold (again, for now!) because I didn't think it needed it, and well, you have to stop somewhere.

This project was a delight to work on, and I'm a little sad to see it end. Thanks for following along!

Talk to the Animals

© Jody Meese 2015 Bristol board, gouache, 23k gold leaf, Finetec 'Evening Gold', Moon Palace Sumi Ink

This one was hard to photograph, but the colors are pretty true in the scan above. It was a commission to be given as a gift to a recent veterinary school graduate, to hang in her new office.

The gold is tooled with the traditional pattern that I think of as curled fern fronds.

I wanted the animals to be subtle, so I "hid" them in the border. Best of luck to the newly-minted veterinarian!

A is for Animal

Gouache, colored pencil, gold leaf, Finetec on Bristol board

Here's a sneak peek at a commission in progress!

Rinka Ronka Reprise

Goauche, gold leaf, Spectralite, Finetec, ink, colored pencils and crystals on Bristol board

It's auction season again and I was asked to donate a piece to the school where I worked for 25 years, until I 'retired' last June. If you follow this blog you may remember that last year, the curse was broken and not only did my three little pieces raise some serious money, there were people who were willing to match the highest bids so I did two more. This one is essentially the same design as last year, with different colors.

This is the song the children (and their parents!) sing each morning as they file into the classroom. A choir of angels!

My New Best Friend

So I've been playing around with colored pencils lately, and in one online tutorial it was suggested that one use a "colour shaper" tool (apparently used primarily for making designs in clay) to apply masking fluid, which is gooey gluey sticky stuff to keep the page white wherever it is applied, creating a spot of light on, say, an apple. And since I'm doing a lot of engrossing these days, my first thought was...Instacoll!

Instacoll (used for applying gold leaf), is great stuff but devilish to get out of a brush--also gooey gluey and sticky. Some teachers say to use a good brush and clean it well; others say not to. I have a dedicated brush labeled "Instacoll", but it's not exactly in pristine shape. Not helpful for the old brush control... 

But lo! Enter the Royal Sovereign Colour Shaper! It's a silicone tip (no bristles) and the Instacoll rubs right off it, good as new. It comes in different sizes; the one in the above photo is a #2 but I just bought a #0 (both pictured below) and haven't tried it yet. The tip on either one is fine enough to work  the small details.

Royal Sovereign Ltd. Colour Shapers #2 and #0

Anyone else playing around with these? How are they working for you?

B is for...

I always leave the annual IAMPETH conference full of enthusiasm and fresh inspiration, ready to experiment and stretch my comfort zone, and this year is no exception. What a week! There is much to tell, but I'll start here: colored pencils! Bob Hurford taught a short evening session class on the topic and I've been playing around with illumination using Prismacolor Premier pencils. Definitely slower than gouache or watercolor, but for me, easier to control! The "B" is an outline by E. E. Marlatt; the gold is Finetec Inca.

Call & Response

16" X 20"

Playing around with chalk on black paper, vintage style with Sickels lettering. The dry run:

And got to use my section liner!

The (Second Half of the) Year in Pictures

Some of my designs for Ultimat Vodka Holiday Campaign

One of five San Francisco venues for Ultimat events in November/December

Very special commission

Commission: walnut ink, watercolor and Finetec gold

Zig Posterman pen on chalkboard fabric

Chalk on display board

Tooled gold leaf

JJ Monogram, pen and ink

JLM monogram, pen and ink

CMS monogram, pencil sketch

Gouache, gold leaf, ink on hotpress watercolor

Piece done in Risa Gettler's Visigothic Versals class; ink, watercolor pencil,  Finetec gold

Twelve for '13

Longest name I've inscribed on a diploma, or maybe on anything!

Here is this year's edition of the Marin Waldorf diploma, for which I created and printed the outline, then taught the class parents to paint with gouache and tool the gold. Each year's is a unique design.

Signs of the Times

You just never know where a love of lettering is going to lead you! When there was a work stoppage at the San Francisco Symphony in March, they asked for some signs to replace the hastily scrawled ones they had been using on the picket line. Here are a few of them:

Truth is, these were only slightly less hastily scrawled...I had just three evenings to churn them out. The large sign--which I'm shown below climbing onto the kitchen island to make--was carted around town to identify the musicians while they performed in parks and on street corners.

One of the striking musicians found work as my studio assistant!

Who knows if it was the signs, but the strike did settle in just eighteen days...whereas last time (1996-97) it was ten weeks. Just sayin'...

A very tired sign maker.

Next frontier: tequila bottles. ¡Stay tuned!

Joy to the World!

This project took quite a while to gel, but yesterday it finally came together! I started several weeks ago with an actual scale diagram, taking in to account the television, the cabinet, two framed pieces of art, and even the beam. Oh, the obstacles we face as artists...

The script-y words took a different form--couldn't quite pull off the ribbon look. Of course, with chalk one can keep "fixing" things forever... Unlike the signboards for the school, this is real chalk (not Zig Posterman); my guests tend to be better behaved than the preschoolers. It also doesn't rain inside my house.

My husband kept telling me to add color to the "illuminated" R, but I was curious how far it could go with just black and white. What do you think?

Happy holidays to all, and keep looking for the joy!

Shades of (Paynes) Gray

Rosemary Buczek design, my attempt at monochromatic painting...

In the "better-late-than-never" department, here is my post on the IAMPETH convention, which took place in Milwaukee in early August.

Me & Jane Farr

Best part by far:  hanging out every day with Jane Farr and basking in her talent, knowledge and all around wonderful-ness. We pretty much owned this corner of the hotel's spacious and beautiful bar.  Miss you, Jane!

Watching the masters in action was well worth the price of admission (to the conference, not the bar, although it wasn't unusual to see artists like incoming IAMPETH president Bill Kemp or Barbara Calzolari set up at a table in there...).  I also got a sneak peek at Harvest Crittenden's masterpiece certificate for IAMPETH president and conference chair Debi Zeinert in progress.  Here, she's gilding.  What Harvest can do in a hotel room in between classes and socializing, I can only dream of doing with a six-month sabbatical on a desert island!

As it happens, "A Study in Monochromatic Painting" with the inimitable Rosemary Buczek is the only class I took that Jane did not...and her excellent blog posts on the workshops of Joe Vitolo, Pat Blair, Kathy Milici, Barbara Calzolari will tell you all you need to know about the other classes I took!

Here's the article I wrote for Penman's Journal:

Rosemary Buczek

Rosemary Buczek:  A Study in Monochromatic Painting

By Friday morning of IAMPETH week I was thoroughly steeped in black and white, and wondering if perhaps I ought to have signed up for something involving color.  But “A Study in Monochromatic Painting” was my next scheduled class, and it turned out to be just the ticket:  while it is true we worked with just one tube of Winsor Newton Paynes Gray (and a touch of Dr. Ph. Martin’s Bleedproof White), the result was exquisitely colorful!

Rosemary Buczek sample sheet for workshop

Master Penman Rosemary Buczek guided us step-by-step with warm enthusiasm and expertise.  With the smallest dab of Winsor-Newton Paynes Gray--and an armload of brushes, rulers, pens, water containers, blotting towels, and other assorted supplies--forty eager IAMPETH members set out to embellish her beautiful rendering of the apt phrase, “The pen is mightier than the sword,” in the style of P.W. Costello and other early 20^th century engrossing artists.

Rosemary Buczek design

Starting with the basic design, printed on very heavy hot press paper by Rosemary’s husband Steve, we re-outlined the shapes and letterforms with pen and waterproof ink.  Not only did this give definition to the design, it was a good way to acquaint oneself fully with all of its details.

With our pointed round watercolor brushes (#0 #1, #2), we created small sample sheets for ourselves, practicing painting the Paynes Gray in a variety of ways and creating levels of color saturation: dry into dry (for the darkest, most opaque shades) and dry into wet, wetter and wettest (for progressively more transparent tints).  We learned how to use the light of the paper to give further dimension to the design elements, and very helpfully, how to correct when the paint did not distribute itself as intended by rewetting and moving the color around. 

We then applied our newly-learned techniques to the study piece, beginning with the sections to be painted in the darkest shades and working toward the lighter areas.  Thanks to digital technology, we were able to watch in enlarged detail as Rosemary demonstrated the teasing of color from the darkest areas to the lightest, creating a background shadow that set off the piece handsomely.  Some letters were painted with the very palest tint, others with the deepest shade; both were embellished them with bits of white applied with ruling pen and pointed pen.

Rosemary Buczek design

To be sure, Rosemary was able to de-mystify a technique which, with practice, will be simple and dramatic addition to this engrosser’s bag of tricks! It was a fun and inspiring class.

Rosemary Buczek design

end of article

The banquet on the final night was great fun, with Joe Carbone apparently playing "Where's Waldo?", appearing in every picture I took!

Me, Joe, JP Panter

Pat Daley, Joe, Harvest Crittenden

Joe & Harvest

Elizabeth Kenney & Joe with special party headpieces?

Next year:  Albuquerque.  Be there!

Envie Envy

This was my entry to the Graceful Envelope Contest, which is co-sponsored by the Washington Calligraphers Guild and the National Association of Letter Carriers.  The theme was the letter "D", and the entries had to be mailable and postmarked.  It's mostly pen (G-tec, Slicci, Pitt) and pencil.  The texture of the paper did some cool things to the shading, completely serendipitously.  The "D" is Finetec gold, burnished and tooled.  Of course, this scan was pre-mailing so I have no idea how it looked by the time it arrived!

The results are out and my amazingly talented friend Ruth Korch won Best in Show!!!  No doubt you've seen some of her other winning envelopes online and on magazine covers, like this:

Ruth Korch

and this:

Ruth Korch

Ruth's, and the other winning envelopes will be posted here beginning August 8, and for those of you in the DC area, on display beginning in September in the lobby of the National Association of Letter Carriers building.  Can't wait to see the fantastic array of creativity this event elicits!  Congrats to all for postal awesomeness.

Best in the Business

Sweet discussion this morning over Father's Day brunch:  my kids say that not every "father" is a "dad", and theirs is a gem and definitely a "dad"!

Hence this doodle on hot press paper:  Pitt marker and brush pens, pewter Derwent metallic pencil, gold pen, and gold leaf over Instacoll.  And the debut of my section liner!  Any irregularities due to user error...

Sayonara Sylvia

A longtime colleague is departing at the end of this week, and it is bittersweet for her as well as for those of us staying on.  For some time, she has wanted to teach at the same school her children attend--which will significantly simplify her life, we hope--but she has been with us for many years and we all feel like family.

She loves orange, and wears it well.  I wanted to make a going-away card for her that expresses both her favorite hue and the fire within her that makes her so strong and ambitious!  Inktense pencils, lightly brushed with water, give a flame-like feeling.  For the ornamentation, I remembered learning from Harvest Crittenden how lovely it is to combine gold leaf and shell gold (see the halo in this post);  this is the "poor man's version" with gold leaf over Instacoll, and painted Finetec gold and silver.  I love the dimensional look it gives!

The shadows on the Sickels lettering are Zig gray suede (a heretofore under-appreciated brush pen that has patiently awaited attention in my studio) and HB graphite;  outlining is done with a fine-tip Pitt pen.  The paper is Crane's correspondence card, mounted on a piece of old greeting card (cut with deckle scissors), a piece of metallic gold (ditto), and a Fabriano Medioevalis card.  The final touch was a scattering of random crystals from Michaels, glued on.  Hope she likes it!

Engrossed in Graduation

Once again I was delighted to be asked to design a diploma for the graduating class of the school my kids attended oh-so-long-ago, and to work with the parents on the illumination while the eighth graders were off on their class trip.  The Engrossing Saga I attended last fall was still very much with me, and I went for a kind of turn-of-the-twentieth century look with a twist: part color, part black-and-white.  

The idea is to keep it simple enough that the group can complete the painting in a three-to-four-hour crash course in engrossing.  The design was hand-drawn (Sickels alphabet), calligraphed (Johnstonian Italic), scanned and cleaned up in Photoshop (both twenty-first century luxuries), and inkjet-printed on New Diploma Parchment, whose praises I must join the chorus and sing!  I inscribed the names in Copperplate with Moon Palace Sumi, chose a gouache palette and mixed the colors.  For the gold we used Spectralite, which held up nicely to burnishing and tooling.  Outlining was done with a fine black Pitt pen, and leaf vein dots with a gold gel pen.

We settled into the classroom for a Sunday afternoon and several hours later...

...nineteen diplomas, ready for signatures!

It always amazes me to think that one could actually make a living as an engrosser back in the day!  If only I'd been born in the 1800s--and male, of course--this would have been the profession I aspired to.  Sigh.

A Sphinx @ Sixty

So, I turned 60 today!  I'm feeling pretty great about it, despite a young mom at work telling me she couldn't believe I was that old because I'm so "spry".  Ouch.

Anyway, I've had a great day, taking off from work and spending the morning in San Francisco to visit the stunning Cult of Beauty exhibit at the Palace of the Legion of Honor which includes, among multitudinous other treasures, many original William Morris drawings, fabrics and wallpapers.  More peacock feathers and acanthus leaves than you can shake a nib holder at!

Afterward, at the legendary Greens for lunch, we enjoyed great food and a great view (yep, that's our Golden Gate Bridge, turning 75 on May 27th...and I guess she's pretty spry too).

Then my sweet husband presented me with THE coolest gift ever!  You can tell you've been with someone more than half your life when he knows you would be over the moon to receive one of these:

Whatever is it, you might ask?  (The waiter at Greens did!)

Well, have you ever wondered how the old penmen did those amazing perfectly-spaced lines for shading and definition in black-and-white, like this

or this?

Bookplate, 1900

Many used a now-antique drafting tool called a Sphinx Section Liner, also known as a parallel ruler.

They've been very hot items on eBay since pointed pen people caught on to them, sometimes going for several hundred dollars apiece.  Michael Sull demonstrated one (which had been a gift to him from Harvest Crittenden) at the Engrossing Spencerian Saga last October.  I showed Bob Hurford's write-up on the subject (IAMPETH Penman's Journal Summer 2010) to Bruce and he was fascinated with how it worked.  Who knew what he was doing out there in his shop these last few weeks?

Is it not a thing of beauty?!?  Gorgeous, smooth-as-silk fiddlehead maple and elegant brass parts, the straightedge raised just enough to avoid smudging, and finished off with a beautiful engraved plaque.

Of course I had to try it out as soon as we got home!  The old masters would have used a ruling pen (another must-have drafting tool) but I went with a G-Tec for my first try.  In the photo I'm kind of using it upside-down and backwards, but as Sheila Waters is fond of reminding me, we left-handers 'have to figure out our own way of doing things'.  Of course, it works perfectly!  And I will treasure it always.

I think sixty might be my new lucky number.

Top Brass

Finished size approx. 12" X 16"

The GRAMMY-nominated Bay Brass (has a nice ring to it, does it not?) had organized a concert to honor the recently-retired repairman who has kept their horns--and those of most brass players in the area--in working condition for many years, and to benefit a music camp scholarship fund in his name.  Last-minute scroll request + free design reign + school vacation week = BLISS!  On break from my day job (only job, actually...), I barely left the studio for ten days;  my sweet husband kept me supplied with liquid and solid refreshment while I put to use some of the techniques I have learned in classes these last several years!

As I've said before, Pergamanata paper is a dream for corrections and that's my kinda paper!  I did have a little trouble with the brushed Finetec metallics buckling and flaking off the page, but after a brief consultation with the inimitable Heather Held (thanks, Heather!) I played around with the thickness and that seemed to do the trick.  Next time I would probably pre-treat with gum sandarac, another of her great suggestions.

My initial sketch (full-size):

As usual--and especially since this was a hurry-up job--I planned for it to fit in a standard-sized frame (in this case 16" X 20") from our local craft store.  With my trusty compact mat cutter I double matted it in blue and gold, 2" and 2-1/2" respectively.

Tools and supplies:  Moon Palace sumi; 23k gold leaf; Instacoll; gouache; Finetec gold and silver; Derwent graphite 3B; Zebra G pointed nib; Brause 1mm, 1.5mm and 3 mm;  Micron pigma 005; Uniball signo .18; Copic multiliner .03; Neopiko Line 2 005;  Pergamanata heavyweight paper.  And last but certainly not least:  X-acto knife with #4 stencil blade and Faber-Castell Perfection 7058B eraser!

Vintage Valentine

  

This was done with pencil and four black pens:  Pitt artist "S", Pentel Slicci .4mm, Pilot G-Tec-C .025mm, and Uni-ball Signo bit 0.18mm.  Background is gratuitous Photoshop awesomeness.

Penwork Where You Find It

"Elephant with Banner", Anonymous Colby College Museum of Art

The first time I attended Parents' Weekend at Colby College in Maine, I made sure to visit their impressive art museum, one of the finest on any campus anywhere.  I was amazed and delighted to find several examples of penwork hanging proudly in their American Folk Art exhibit.

They even mentioned old Platt Rogers Spencer!  Pretty cool, I thought, since I had just come from the Spencerian Saga...

Some detail on that elephant:

Then there's the King of the Jungle:

"Lion", C.L. Horton Colby College Museum of Art

And finally, a memorial piece by James Macomber.  Apologies for the blurry photos....

"Mourning Picture of  N.L. Willis", James H. Macomber Colby College Museum of Art

 The artist rendered his own name in Masterpiece Flourishing!

"Done with a steel pen"

A lovely visit all around!