My Introduction to ALAW

Hello all, I'm Lorinda from Victoria, BC, Canada and I'm super excited to be a part of A Letter a Week.

I'm just returning to my artsy self after a 7-8 year hiatus. I took an art class at one of our local art stores and the rest, they say, is history. Next thing I knew I was taking part in Art Every Day Month in November which was a wonderful source of inspiration for my budding return—and a great kick in the pants! Since then I've been playing with acrylics, watercolors, pastels (oil, pencil, and charcoal), mixed-media collage, and photography—basically anything I can get my hands on!

I've started this project with my dot alphabet. I'm making all of my letters out of only circles (my dots) and triangles. I'm using colored paper (2 x 13 colors) and origami paper for a bit of pattern. I wanted to keep this first attempt clean-lined and simple. For my second alphabet the skies the limit and I'm hoping to play with some sort of new (to me) media. I've seen the amazing variety of alphabets here on ALAW and am blown away by the vast array of materials used and the level of skill and talent. Thank you for letting me play along!

Here are my first six letters:

Mixing It Up

"B" for Bandicoot

 

                                                          I was working away on my little

                                                           letter "b" bandicoot and thought to

                                                            myself, why not mix it all up  just 

                                                            a little bit?  Why not just put all of

                                                            the letters of the  alphabet in a hat

                                                            and pull out a different letter each

                                                            week.  That  way it will be a big,

                                                            random  surprise  as  to   which 

                                                            letter I will be doing each week

                                                            and I will not be slogged down in

                                                            knowing exactly what  is  planned

                                                            for  the  next  year.  Does  any  one

                                                            else work like this?  Or would  you

                                                            rather have each letter  waiting  for

                                                            you in an orderly fashion  through

                                                            out the year? I kinda  like the idea

                                                          of  having new  surprises  to look 

                                                        forward to.  What do you think?

circle alphabet - next ones

here are the two next ones. sorry for the scan quality, the background is completely white in real life !

it's snowing and freezing here, can you imagine, -15°C ! happy you who are in summer time !

Elaine's dotty alphaabet

I have gone full circle and am back to more legible letters again, but I didn’t feel that these should have traditional forms either. I wanted the letters to have lots of movement, so I distorted them slightly by changing the angle of the stamp when printing, playing with their proportions and placing them at various angles within the square. This is the first of my 5 alphabets that is in lowercase and I don’t know why ‘i’ was the first letter I tried!

I started with a small wooden stamp which is a square with a hole (dot) in the middle and used a black stamp pad on layout paper. I ended up using layout paper because, together with the texture of the stamp pad, it resulted in a more interesting effect.

 I added different coloured sequins, more dots, ‘sprinkled’ throughout the letters, sometimes covering the hole in the stamp, other times not, to create even more movement.

These letters have been hard to photograph as it was difficult to get the shine and colour of the sequins to show up, so some of the letters are distorted and the paper doesn’t look white either.

                                                                                i

                                                                                v

                                                                               c

                                                                               b

Jenny's January Jaunt

This is actually the second version of my "dotty" letters - I may decide to use the first version as my second alphabet.  This one came from a doodle i did in a boring meeting - i liked the idea and developed it! The circle is gold powder on gilding mix and the line and letter are white guache.  The images are not too good, i'm afraid since my scanner is not speaking to my computer and I am not very good at photographing my work with a camera!

Fiona's first four letters...

I have really enjoyed the start to ALaW this year - I have sat in the studio fiddling around and have eventually come up with something I can work with.

I went for white on white (one of my all time favourite combinations) and pierced the letters through the paper. I only had the i-Phone over at the shed studio so the colours appear more dove-grey on dove-grey; but the sense of them comes through I think.

This is my response to the dotty alphabet - all those little pin pricks make such nice dots!

Here is where I have gotten to so far A, B, C and D

And this is what they looked like lined up together on a piece of blackboard - yum!

And then just because I am who I am - I took a shot of the multi-pierced piece of mat board I had been using to pierce into - the lovely pattern left was too good to ignore!

The alphabet is based upon the style of writing Charles Rennie Mackintosh used to use in his plans and designs.

Noela's start to 2012

I have decided to leave the 'dotty' letters till later - I have so many ideas that I can't focus on one as yet.
I wanted to try some conventional calligraphic style letters - just for the hell of it, and I love the fine control you can get with gouache paints- so here we have the first 4 letters.

• The font was one I found on the internet and I have changed some letters slightly,
• I have used my favourite colours - aubergine, deep purple, celadon, mauve, blue grey, beige,
• Background papers are mostly Canson Mi Teintes,
• Paint is gouache with Jo Sonja acrylic gold highlights,
• The brush I used is a taklon size 2.

I have a feeling that they are a bit plain, boring, understated??? but I will leave them for now - maybe something will be added later. I think I will make them into a T or maze style book, and perhaps add some more painted detail on the back.



I'm back, finally!

Everyone has done lovely introductions to this year. I have only just finished No2 alphabet for the 2011 blog and thought I would put a photo of the four I have done so far for mine. This is just about all I do these days and it keeps me going.

One day, when I retire from the library where I work in Community Information producing posters, brochures, banners and flyers to advertise our events, facilities and general goings on, I will hopefully have time to get back into my lettering art. I also still do the design and production of Colophon, the Australian Society of Calligrapher's quarterly journal.

I enjoy doing this and my job too - they are both creative, but all electronic. Not hands on.

I am going dotty, as I said on the 2011 blog, trying to come up with something for 2012. If I don't stress, I'm sure it will come to me. 

Good luck to you all this year. There are some really interesting things happening already.

Meg (also known as confuzed)

Lyndell - BCDE

It has been a struggle to find time to complete the letters what with work, family etc etc. I really enjoy doing them though.

First of all I painted a sheet of paper with Quink ink and then used bleach to make the dots. It's kind of like magic when the dots eventually appear out of the background. Lots of fun.

Kim Schoenberger - ABCDE

Ok, starting off with my 'dotty' alphabet - I'm taking on a different approach this time, instead of having every letter different I am chosing to do each the same and to be suitated on an ole pianola scroll defined in their 7cm x 7cm square by dots. Each letter will appear the same but the 'dotty' look will come from not only the border but from the formation of the musical notes creating a random pattern of a negative 'dotty' space. To take full advantage of this negative 'dotty' space I want to finish the piece off in a box like frame creating a light box effect, hence enhancing the negative space.

I quiet like the look, it almost has a kinda binary look to it.

I haven't quiet decided whether to cut it down to size (complete alphabet in one sheet) or keep it intact as a full scroll or atleast keep the top feeder part time will tell I guess, when time comes to framing...