Typography on my Floor

I rusted a piece of my steel typography signage without a protective floor covering and look what happened! Many would be horrified but I'm quite excited about the effect. I love having a typographical floor in my workshop!

The Chipping Sodbury Vintage and Handmade Fair

I had a lovely day at The Vintage and Handmade Fair. It's the first time I've done a fair and I was a bit nervous as I couldn't hide behind the veil of an online shop. I actually had to sell my wares the traditional way!!! It was fun and lovely to have the opportunity to chat to people about the things I am passionate about, namely producing hand lettering the traditional way but adding a modern twist. I like the contrast between the gentle art of pencil drawing and then using a harsh industrial method to produce it. It's what I have always understood to be one of the foundations of good design, a contrast or juxtaposition. This doesn't need to be jarring. I like it to be complimentary.

The vintage style personalised metal signage went down well, perhaps because the possibilities are endless as to what you could have made up to go on your wall. I was hoping someone might place an order for a rude word but sadly no one did...

Above is my bespoke business card dispenser which cost all of 10p and was cleverly (if I do say so myself) constructed from an ancient Mills and Boon paperback by simply folding all the pages into the centre of the book.

I made mini blackboards out of old frames and then wrote prices and other useful bits of infofmation on them. It made people smile!

It all looked like organised chaos really but I got lots of lovely compliments which made me feel a bit giddy. I took my eldest daughter and we felt like we had a proper day out as we were surrounded by the loveliness of all the other stalls. I meet Michele who also sells great cards on notonthehighstreet.com and Jess Quinn whose small art was inspired and whose dolls had the most beautiful faces. The WI was there providing delicious cakes...I had a particularly good lemon drizzle.

My letterpress cards were popular and worked well in old office filling drawers.

I recreated the blackboard look on black card with white pencils and it made really cheap but effective signage. I was amazed that it looked so chic as I find it hard to put a look together usually because I get so over excited and have too many ideas!

Everyone loved the roses and they added to the stall and made it look pretty. All in all it was a fab day and I would definately do it again!

Stone Lettering

I've always loved this quote and spent a long time last year drawing the lettering for this piece.

It kind of marks a turning point for me because for 10 years I've been drawing formal roman alphabets and consequently have become a bit obsessed with 'getting them right'. By 'right' I mean that the proportions of every letter are perfect, the space within and surrounding each letter is balanced etc.

Whilst I understand that it is essential to have strong foundations when developing a skilled craft, and the key to breaking the rules in art and craft is to know those rules inside out, it has left me with a slight nervous twitch every time I do something which bends formality a bit...will it look rubbish? Will my peers snigger at its childishness? Am I producing something new and exciting or odd and confusing? I think that this is quite common insecurity for arty, crafty bods.

I started to find that the longer I spent 'perfecting' something, the worse it starting to look!

My friend Judith helped me. She wondered why I was trying to recreate a perfect letterform. Was it because I was trying to make the letters look like they hadn't been hand drawn? Fine... if I had intended that but what was my intention? For me it is to create a beautifully formed letter, beautifully DRAWN, not typed on a computer. I realised that to me, the visual beauty in a letter created by a human hand (rather than a machine) is in its imperfections which, in turn, make that letter pleasing to the human eye.

...And so eventually, with a lot of messing about,  this lovely quote by William Morris became some thing beautiful for my house! The lettering is my variation on a roman capital. It's a bit wonky on purpose as I adjusted the letters to fit and didn't drawn any lines to follow which I think is interesting.

Finally, Judith said that I must look at the work of David Jones ...
 

A lot of his work was purchased by the Tate in the seventies. It's a beautiful and free exploration of roman lettering created, I think, with pen strokes like the 'versal' lettering used in ancient bibles and religious texts. Its imperfections are beautiful and very inspiring.

Crayola Pen Lettering

Life's been super busy over the last few months and it's all coming to a head with our house renovation so we feel like we're overwhelmed with 'THINGS TO DO'. There is little time to put aside for creative projects so small moments of inspiration seem all the more exciting.

The little girl LOVES colouring and will spend hours carefully staying in the lines but only ever colours with one colour. A fairy, for instance, will be have a purple dress, face, wings, hair, shoes etc. Consequently the pens run out really quickly and are no use to anyone right? Wrong!! I was messing around with the rejects before they went in the bin and created some really exciting lettering. It looks a bit like brush lettering but was much easier to produce as the pen tip is much firmer than a brush.

The brilliant thing about these Crayola pens is than if you turn them on their side you get a really thick mark but holding them upright gives you a thin line. When they run out a bit they give a fantastically distressed look. To create this lettering you need to use the pen on its side (with pressure) for the thick 'down' stroke and on it's upright point for the 'up' stroke.

Quickie Homemade Card Idea

Sorry about the terrible photos, I had my camera on the wrong setting!

Here's a really easy card idea and you can base it on your own everyday capitals. It's easy because if you leave any letters out or your layout doesn't fit, you can just slot in a letter here and there and your recipient will think that you are very arty and creative (rather than forgetful and /or illiterate).

This is an excellent card for any occasion: a birth/birthday for anyone, christening, new house, good luck or perhaps two names for a wedding card. It doesn't need to look exactly like this as it's a design and technique which is flexible. Try doodling a few ideas with a biro next time you're on the phone and you will end up with interesting variations.

You need: A blank piece of card folded (a square looks good ) and a set of good quality colouring pencils (or just a few colours). I like to use high quality watercolour pencils because the pigments are a lot brighter.

1. With clear and simple capitals write your name/s, words, message. I have adjusted my capitals subtly by lowering the cross bar of the A and H and stretching out the O. You could use a square layout like this or just write it in a line.

2. Add weight to your letters. An even weight is easy to achieve especially with a really sharp pencil. Emphasise the beginning and end point of each letter by drawing a little line. Or draw a bigger line a create a serif, perhaps?

3. With a different colour draw the shapes which fit in between the letters leaving a little white outline space between the shape and the letter and then colour in...and who doesn't like a bit of colouring..but remember to stay in the lines!

4. For a slightly posher finish colour the inside shapes again this time adding a bit more pressure around the outside of the shape which will really crisp it up. Then lightly colour again with a slightly different colour. Purple or pink looks interesting over blue, orange and red also look good together.

Finally, add a few embellishments like hearts, stars, little bird etc.

Handwritten calligraphy wedding cards soon available on www.notonthehighstreet.com. Written in Walnut ink and opaque white on 100% recycled card.

Only Words Exhibition

I was really inspired by the lovely exhibition on at the New Brewery Arts in Cirencester at the moment. I always like wordy art as words really add another dimension to a piece and are given weight by the way the are presented. I especially like these lovely pieces made with pins and thread and a gorgeous snippet of handwriting that looks almost like ribbon.

 

This is one of a few examples of cut lettering which live in my garden.

Unlike the other pieces, which are drawn and cut by hand, this one was drawn by hand but machine cut. It is one of the pieces which I will be selling on notonthehighstreet.com...eventually!

I've had quite a few pieces in my garden over the winter and they seem to have made the baron winter garden even more so...in a captivating sort of way. As things have starting sprouting, and now fully in bloom, the pieces have added a different dynamic to the flower beds which gives me so much pleasure. My life is so busy at the moment that there is little time just to 'be' but when I do I like to sit on the bench next to this piece and watch the sun go down.

Whistle Stone

I was so delighted to pick up my 'whistle, whistle..' quote today from Judith's workshop. As you can see from the pictures, it started as a piece of calligraphy which I chopped up for the layout then photocopied. Martin then cut it beautifully onto an off-cut of stone. I wrote two pieces; one using lines and one without. This is the one without and both Judith and I agreed it was much more appropriate to the nature of the text..it was 'free', like the little bird. This piece is an experiment and will be put on to canvas and made into a print...so watch this space!

Calligraphy workshop

I did a lovely Wessex Scribes workshop at the weekend which was all about variations on the italic hand. We sharpened, extended and compressed it and then did it all over again experimenting with nib widths. For all you calligraphy virgins out there, that means basically changing the height of the letter but keeping the same pen size. This creates some lovely effects varying from a dense compacted hand to an elongated and elegant italic.

With such a variety of different lettering styles we wrote words words appropriate to that style. I loved the harsh, spikey, pointed italics and wrote words such as 'claustrophobia', 'anxiety' and 'frustration'. My enjoyment of the workshop meant that I was the complete opposite of the words I was writing and was thoroughly chilled out and relaxed! The photographs so some applied work with gouache on coloured pastel paper. The frosty one belongs to Francis and was so effective it almost felt cold to the touch. Louise did another gorgeously chilly piece white on black with speckled stars. The rough piece shows my experiments and the 'unforced rhythms of grace is my finished attempt.

Hand Lettered Maps

Look at this beautiful map produced by http://seagull.wazala.com/. It looks like all hand lettering and is a joy to behold. Very trendy thing now... hand lettering. Seagull's Hut have also got a Crayon Hand typeface for sale which is pretty delicious.