For the Love of Lettering

Are you in love with letters?

Grab your favorite mark-making supplies and join the sweethearts of lettering!In this 3-session course, you will have the pleasure of lettering with 3 of my all-time favorite master calligraphers who I affectionately refer to as The Sweethearts of Lettering:

• Sharon Zeugin
  Calligraphy and Lettering on the Go:
  Tools and Techniques for Every Day Practice
• Mike Gold
  Line on a Walk and The Power of Two
• Carol DuBosch
  Neuland with Brush & Folded Pen.

Session Descriptions

Calligraphy and Lettering on the Go:
Tools and Techniques for Every Day Practice
Sharon Zeugin

Learn new ways of creating pleasing sketchbook/journal pages by integrating images (collage, drawn, abstract) with informal calligraphy, lettering and handwriting.

Journal/sketchbook techniques including:
• composition
• handwriting/calligraphy as line, texture, form, pattern and image
• simple drawing and watercolor techniques
• layering and altering pages
• handmade (stitch-free) journal

All skill levels welcome!

Sharon Zeugin makes art, teaches, and facilitates workshops in her Austin, Texas Studio, and throughout the USA, Canada and Italy. In addition to being a faculty member of numerous international calligraphy conferences, Sharon teaches locally in her studio and at the Austin Contemporary Art School.  Her award winning work appears in  the Speedball Textbook, Letter Arts Review, The Calligrapher's Engagement Calendar, Somerset Studio Magazine, and the Lark Book,"The Art and Craft of Hand Lettering." In addition to teaching & exhibiting her work, she works as a graphic recorder and sketch note artist.

Influenced by her training as a therapist, Sharon seeks to cultivate a safe classroom environment in which respect for body, mind and spirit are as important as skill building; where students are encouraged to experience art making as an experimental, intuitive and mindful practice. Whether teaching courses in traditional or contemporary calligraphy, mixed media art, art journaling, drawing, sketching or painting, Sharon's goal is to help students get over fear of the blank page.  When she is not teaching, sketching or painting, Sharon is busy performing with Austin Samba School, swimming, dancing, walking, tandem biking with her husband.

Line on a Walk and The Power of Two
Mike Gold

As lettering artists, we create compositions with line, shape and form. We use our letters and lines as design elements, but also as a means of telling a story, whether it’s presented in a literal or abstract manner. We tell that story with the structures we make and the contrasts we use. The two exercises presented here will show how that’s done. Some lettering background is helpful. Just as important is a willingness to not let any formal training get in the way of creative play.

Mike Gold worked as a commercial lettering designer for over 30 years, mostly in the social expressions business. But his real passion is exploring the corridors of calligraphy that have been less traveled, the path where words and letters are design elements with which to play with line, shape and form, where creating a visual statement is more important than writing a readable text. In both his professional and personal art, Mike breaks traditional rules to create contemporary, non-traditional work.

Collaboration has been a feature of some of his personal work. He especially cherishes the work and teaching he did with Judy Melvin and his 25-year involvement with Scribes 8, a collaborative group based in New Mexico. Over the last 15 years or so Mike has worked mostly on his own, developing a practice that builds on the traditions of the past, influenced by art and artists of all kinds. Being a calligrapher in the 21st century, Mike has matured at a time when calligraphers are moving calligraphy in new directions, creating new traditions, just as all artists have done over time. He still makes beautiful letters and write out texts, but also explores the abstract, the illegible and the conceptual.

Teaching calligraphy to inmates at a women’s prison is his most unusual teaching experience. His most unusual commission comes from Italian fashion designer Roberto Cavalli, who reproduced one of Mike’s designs on a line of clothing. Mike has an M.A. in Visual Communications and has studied with many outstanding lettering and design masters over the years. Mike has taught around the country and at several international calligraphy conferences. His personal work has been featured in Letter Arts Review many times over the past 25-plus years. He is the author of Lines to Live By (available through John Neal, Bookseller), which is Mike's take on being a non-traditional calligrapher in the 21st century.

Neuland with Brush & Folded Pen
Carol DuBosch

Neuland is the husky typeface that adapts itself to calligraphy tools with great ease. This 2-hour class will focus on Neuland script written with a flat brush. Writing with a brush enables you to do permanent writing on fabric, stone, wood and paper with ink, watercolor, acrylic or fabric paint. The simple clean strokes of Neuland are perfect for the flat brush, and the class will begin with brush basics. We will also work with an easy to learn variation of Neuland that is written with a folded pen and ink. Folded pen basics will be covered along with the delightful variation Neuland. There will be time for students to work on both the flat brush and the Neuland variation with the folded pen. I’ll cover several other techniques as demonstrations only in this class.

Carol DuBosch has been a calligrapher in Portland, Oregon since she was first introduced to nibs and ink in 1959 as a high school art student. In the 58 years since, she has gained a degree in Graphic Design and studied with every major calligrapher in the US and Europe. Carol has been teaching college level and private classes in the Northwest along with workshops throughout the United States and most recently in Italy. She has directed three International Calligraphy Conferences in Portland, bringing 500 scribes together for a week of studying and sharing. She is interested in every aspect of the field of calligraphy, from the formal invitation to writing on walls. Carol enjoys seeking out ways to stretch the boundaries of her art. As a life-long learner, she is always looking forward to the next new thing.

The there are 3 parts to each recording from live sessions:

• 30-minute warm-up session
  I will guide you through a series of welcome exercises and warmups to prep us for meeting with the sweethearts.
  

• 2-hour Lettering session with the Sweetheart

• 30-minute integration session
  We will review what we learned and share what we created.

Each session was recorded and now available in an online course that you can access anytime.