Roann Mathias Calligraphy

CREATE New Jersey

2012-05-08T13:42:00.002-06:00

I am so excited that I will be teaching at CREATE New Jersey this summer. If you are looking for something to do in July, check this out!
On Wednesday July 18 I will be teaching a lettering class during the day. Here are some photos:

In the evening on Wednesday I will be teaching "Tiny Beaded Book." It's a small book with a coptic binding with beads.

Mixed media demo at Memphis Calligraphy Guild

2012-04-11T15:40:00.000-06:00

At the Memphis Calligraphy Guild's meeting on Monday, I demonstrated several mixed media techniques. Here are some photos:

Samples of crackle paste and light molding paste on canvas:

Full size view of mixed media painting:

Detail of crackle medium on canvas:

Detail view of small collage pieces, with faux encaustic techniques:

This is an acrylic skin, made by spreading soft gel medium onto a sheet protector, and letting it dry overnight:

Experimenting with different placements of the skin:

The skin, trimmed and pasted onto a painting using fluid matte medium. It will dry clear.

GIlded Envelope Book

2012-03-28T19:47:00.000-06:00

In October I learned a new book structure (new to me). It was a book constructed with folded envelopes. Cutting the ends off each envelope created side pockets that are great for holding tags and other inserts. I fell in love with this concept and have been experimenting with it since then. This book combines that idea with experimental gilding techniques. Here are a few photos:

Gold applied over acrylic gloss medium:

View of several folds:

Light molding paste applied with a heart stencil, then gold added:

Full sheet of gold leaf applied, then painted over and stamped:

On this page – variegated gold leaf, and gold applied with stamps:

Another view of several of the pages:

I will be teaching some of these gilding techniques at Holy Angels Convent, April 20-21.

More photos from the Philly workshop

2011-11-10T15:28:00.001-06:00

Here are a few more photos from the weekend workshop in Philadelphia:

The lettering was done with parallel pens filled with either gouache or Twinkling H2Os.

Neuland Workshop in Philly

2011-11-09T20:09:00.002-06:00

Over the weekend I taught Neuland with the Parallel Pen for the Philadelphia Calligraphers' Society. They worked really hard, lettering most of the afternoon on both Saturday and Sunday. Here is what they did all weekend:

Lettering on black paper with gouache in a parallel pen:

Lettering on black paper with twinkling H20s in a parallel pen:

Everyone's finished books, showing all the techniques they learned in class:

Cloth Paper Scissors chooses 2012 artisans!

2011-10-14T09:00:00.000-06:00

This morning I was so excited to find out that I was selected as Cloth Paper Scissors' artisan of the year for 2012 in the Art Journaling and Bookmaking category!!! You can see the inside pages here: A Page a Day. I am so honored that my journals were chosen. Here are the photos of the winning books:

As always, thanks for looking!

Cool News

2010-12-09T21:43:00.003-06:00

A few years ago I was a featured artist in Somerset Studio magazine. Now they have a new publication that is a compilation of previous articles, and my work has been included. You can see the magazine here:

As always, thanks for looking!

Sneak Peak of Rozelle Sketchbook

2010-09-02T16:32:00.011-06:00

Here are some pages from the latest sketchbook event that I am participating in:

You can see more about the project at: http://www.facebook.com/rozelleartistsguild?ref=ts

Cool2Craft - Eileen Hull - ScoreBoards by Sizzix - TeaCup Blog Hop

2010-06-12T11:11:00.001-06:00

Here is a video of Eileen showing all the teacup designs that were done in the blog hop earlier this spring.

Sizzix Tea Cup Blog Hop

2010-04-13T10:11:00.009-06:00

Here's a sneak peak of my decorated Sizzix teacup. To see the rest of the photos go to: http://www.roanndesigns.com/blog/?p=362 after 9 AM on Wednesday 4/14.

Journal Art set to music

2008-10-13T18:12:00.005-06:00

This is my first "music video" featuring calligraphy from various journals and the song by Norah Jones called "Those sweet words."

And here is a video of me lettering in our class this summer in Chicago, thanks to Hiroko Shimizu:

Student Work from Black Magic Workshop

2008-09-24T10:29:00.007-06:00

The St. Louis Calligraphy Guild had me in to teach Black Magic over the weekend. The workshop is about using color on black paper for lettering. Everyone worked really hard, and there were lots of oohs and aahs as they saw how amazing these colors look on black paper. Here are some samples of what they created.

We started by mixing 12 shades of gouache and then testing samples on different kinds of black paper. We used Fabriano Ingres, Bugra black and Arches cover black.

Then we moved on to testing Pearl-ex pigments and Twinkling H2Os:

Here is one table covered with samples of lettering done by the class on the second day:

These two were done by a left-handed calligrapher using a parallel pen:

Workshop with Charles Pearce

2008-09-15T15:23:00.005-06:00

Over the weekend the Memphis Calligraphy Guild hosted a workshop with Charles Pearce. The topic was pen manipulation, and we worked with uppercase and lowercase Romans.

As he demonstrated on butcher paper at the front, we were able to follow along with his beautiful handouts. These handouts are the best I have ever seen -- with extraordinary clarity, drawings and notes. Late in the day on Sunday he demonstrated this funky alphabet based on the work of Arthur Baker.

One of the demos that Charles did in front of class:

My own work on some cold press watercolor paper:

More From Letters Mingle Souls

2008-08-04T11:59:00.002-06:00

There were so many exhibits at conference, and each one was equally breathtaking. This first photo is from the TreeWhispers Exhibit, which was hung in a kind of atrium from the ceiling and could be seen from both the main floor and the balcony above, where I took this photo.

Then there was the faculty exhibit. I took a number of photos, but since most of the pieces were under glass, they were hard to photograph. Here are two that caught my eye -- the first one is Rosie Kelly's book, which was in a case. I can never get enough of looking at her work!

This is just one panel of many that were hanging from a clothesline (for lack of a better word) by Lisa Englebrecht. I believe it was a book, with all the pages hanging next to each other.

When I arrived at conference I was greeted with excitement about my Martin Luther King painting. I was so honored and humbled that it was placed at the entrance to the Chicago guild's Exploration 2008 exhibit in this very prominent position. I still can't quite get over it.

One of the unique features about this conference were the Mini Workshops. It was like having a conference within a conference. Here is the book I made in one of the classes I took. It was so cool -- I just had to know how to do this beaded binding! Class was taught by Barbara Mann.

I have more photos, and will keep posting them until I run out! My dining room table is still covered with supplies from conference, and will have to be cleaned up before we have guests this weekend. And the big Martin Luther King painting is still in a box in the corner! Shipping that piece home was an adventure!

Gestural Writing with Yves Leterme at conference part 2

2008-07-30T12:45:00.008-06:00

Here are photos of the lettering that I did in the workshop. Yves' preferred lettering tool is the humble and unloved Speedball C5. So many experienced and established calligraphers (Sheila Waters comes to mind) have said that any Speedball nib smaller than a 3 is useless because of inconsistent manufacturing.* But Yves swears by them, and after a bit of warming up, they worked fine. It was hard to believe that we could get such lines from a lowly Speedball nib. The white paper is Arches text wove, and the darker papers are Bugra. The abstract color square in the first photo is done with my old favorites, Twinkling H2Os.

These little abstract marks were about 2 X 3" and done over some watercolor backgrounds that I had previously done in a journal.

* In a note of clarification Sheila said, "I would be talking about not to expect predictable sharp thicks and thins for relatively slow, precise formal writing. Gestural writing is quite different, needing speed, and Speedball smaller C series nibs would be fine for that....I would never use the term "useless" about any tool, especially nibs, because it depends on what you want to use them for..."

Thank you, Sheila, for the explanation.

Gestural Writing with Yves Leterme at conference

2008-07-28T11:30:00.013-06:00

My class at conference was gestural writing with Yves Leterme. He was an excellent teacher, patiently taking us through exercises to help us deconstruct the letterforms and then reconstruct them in a thoughtful but spontaneous-looking way. He was self-effacing, honest and generous with his demonstrations. He also is an amazing communicator, considering that English is his second language. It was lovely to lieten to his lilting accent!

We did pages and pages of practice work! Then around the middle of the 2nd day we started to do some things on individual sheets, like this repetition exercise, when we were allowed to add color! Everything that we did during the week was a progression, building in succession on what he had taught before. It was challenging to remember it all and implement in into new exercises as the week went on. Here are some samples:

Joan Machinchick's "artifex" exercise with color added:

Yves' "artifex" demo:

Another demo by Yves:

Two Japanese women were in our class and they were like stealth calligraphers! They just sat quietly and knocked out some amazing work! Here are a few pieces by Hiroko Shimizu that just blew us all away:

This is another example of the repetition exercise, done by Barbara Beattie:

Another repetition exercise by Yukimi Annand:

Letters Mingle Souls first impressions

2008-07-21T06:21:00.004-06:00

Wow! I am finally here and so far everything has been amazing! If I elaborate, it will all sound too gushy, so I will just share these first photos:

I am taking a week long class with Yves Leterme called Gestural Writing. Here is one of his demos:

This is Yves demonstrating at someone's desk in class:

In the classroom next door is Charles Pearce! Here is one of his class demos from the first day. I post it because it typifies what conference is all about (aside from all the socializing, shopping, and seeing exhibits!)

Charles Pearce

Reggie was impressed with Peter's suspenders and couldn't resist! They called themselves 2 good-old-boys from Tennessee!

Second half at Arrowmont

2008-07-06T10:00:00.013-06:00

What an intense week! We all worked hard during the day and most of us stayed in the studio til after 9 every night. Dan was generous with his time, coming back in after hours to help everyone or just hang out with us. Here are the books that I did, some of Dan's and some of the other students'.

My 4 X 6" book, with papers that I had decorated in advance:

The same book, open from the front, showing the papers:

Cover of my other wooden board book:

Both covers and spine sewing:

Detail of window, covered with mica and tiny brass nails:

Detail of back cover. Notice the crackled wood treatment. I made the tiny scroll myself, including the carved dowels, using an actual power tool!

Detail of the headband sewing, which was one of the most difficult things that we did:

Inside back cover with marbled paper under a circle of mica:

Inside front cover:

The tiny book that I started on the first day, finished off with a headband stitch:

Two covers not attached to a text block yet:

These two books are examples of Dan's. The top one is about 4 X 5" with blank pages. This is a detail of the spine, the stitching, the colorful way that he dyes the covers and the inset with the shells. Most of his books look like this.

This book is a sample showing the kinds of things we could do to the covers ou our books -- the inset windows, the mica shapes sewn in, the little pillow-shaped insets on the bottom right.

Ann's book:

Damon McIntyre's book:

Lynne's book:

Patty's book:

It was a great workshop and I am so glad that I was able to attend. From a calligrapher's point of view, it was wonderful to understand this structure better. I can imagine books filled with lettering done this way. I definitely came away with ideas for future projects.

Book Binding at Arrowmont

2008-07-02T16:56:00.004-06:00

I'm in Gatlinburg, TN taking a workshop with Dan Essig at Arrowmont. He is a wonderful instructor and here are a few things I have done so far:

This is a close-up of the coptic stitch that we are using (above)

This is the cover of that same book closed, and embellished (above)

Above is the outside of another book I did, with paste papers and calligraphy

This is the inside front cover of that book, with a window holding the butterfly image

And this is a wooden cover. It has been drilled, sanded, painted with 5 layers of paint, re-sanded and waxed! It takes a lot of work to make something look this distressed!

Student Work from Artiscape V in Jackson

2008-06-11T08:55:00.006-06:00

Over the weekend I was one of the instructors at Artiscape V in Jackson, TN. My segment was on transfers. We used Inkjet transparencies, printed with an Epson R260, and transferred with acrylic soft gel medium, gesso and alcohol. The participants ranged from newbies to experienced stampers/paper artitsts. Here are some of the results: (my apologies for not getting the names that go with these photos)

Transfer using gesso, then collaged onto cardstock, by Linda Campo:

Alcohol transfer onto watercolor paper; leaf stamps added after:

Canvas on the left, paper on the right:

Transfers onto canvas using gel medium and gesso:

Transfers onto canvas with stamping added:

What to do with your inchies?

2008-05-21T11:37:00.000-06:00

Inchie swaps are hot right now. Inchies are little pieces of art defined buy their size - one square inch. I'm not big on doing swaps, mainly because I don't know what to do with the art I get in return. This little modified accordion book, made from origami star shapes, is perfect for storing and showing off these tiny treasures. Here are some pictures:

Individual inchies, mounted on black cardstock:

Cover of accordion star book:

Book spread out:

Close-ups:

Newberry Lirbary Show

2008-05-17T14:31:00.006-06:00

These pieces of mine were accepted into the Chicago Calligraphy Collective's annual show at the Newberry Library. Exploration 2008 will take place from May 28-July 11, 2008.

Bound Together

So Simple, 9" X 12", acrylic and transfers on canvas.

The David Book

Paste Papers from the workshop

2008-05-01T19:15:00.005-06:00

Here are some of the paste papers that I did during the Rosie Kelly workshop.

On the second day we started lettering on the pages. I used twinkling H2Os, Dr. Martins Bleed Proof white and sumi ink to see what worked on the backgrounds.

I wanated to experiment with transfers to see if they would work with the paste/acrylic combination. The image of David was an inkjet transfer that I applied before the paste was laid down.

This page is the title page of the book I worked on in class. Rosie showed us how to emboss the border around the opening, and it looks really crisp.

This is what the page looks like without the cover sheet.

The Amazing Rosie Kelly

2008-04-29T18:47:00.003-06:00

The Memphis Calligraphy Guild just hosted two workshops with calligrapher and book artist Rosie Kelly. Here are a few pages from HER books, which are too beautiful to not post.

New Work

2008-04-21T12:44:00.009-06:00

Here are new photos from my most recent journal. The cover is marbled paper that I made several years ago. I bound the book with a coptic stitch. The inside pages are Arches text wove. I used Stampin' Up dye inks with plain erasers and stamps, then I blended the colors with a wet paint brush. All the text are selections from poems by my new favorite, e. e. cummings. The lettering is all dome with parallel pens filled with Twinkling H2O watercolors. You can see some of the sparkles in a few of the close up photos.

Detail of the binding