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!

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.

I Yam What IAMPETH

So I never got around to reporting on my first trip to the annual convention of the International Association for Master Penmen, Engrossers, and Teachers of Handwriting  ("engrossers", not "and grocers", as someone thought I was saying). Was there ever an organization more in need of an acronym?  I think not.

IAMPETH was held this July of this year in Phoenix, which I'm sure is lovely in the winter months. [Phoenicians, you have my total admiration for staying cool in the face of three-digit temperatures day after day. I do not possess that kind of stamina.]  The convention is a virtual candy store for, well, penmen, engrossers, etc.  The mostly half-day classes were enough to whet one's appetite for more on a technique, and to see the IAMPETH rock stars in action, up close and personal.  And just as exciting, to meet in person some bloggy-type friends--you know who you are!

By far the most addictive class I attended was "Leaf Script Capitals" with White House calligrapher Rick Muffler.  The wonderful Jane Farr wrote a terrific blog post with tutorial here;  go read it!

Since my flight home was delayed (we do fog here in San Francisco in the summertime, not great for air travel but nice and cool--okay, freezing), I had plenty of time to start doodling an alphabet while waiting in the airport.

The inimitable Master Penman Harvest Crittenden had sat in on the class and suggested that there would traditionally have been a pearl nested in the greenery, so when I got back into the studio I played around with that a bit...

...then tried a rose...

...an acorn (no peeking, Harvest!)...

...and some design elements borrowed from a random cocktail napkin I found in my kitchen.

I used it on a birthday card (a little sloppy, rush job!)...

...and experimented with metallics and gratuitous acanthus leaves.

Great fun and great possibilities!