The little exposed spine, blanket-stitch book is finished. It is so sweet.

How lovely it is to get so much pleasure out of just making a little book!

What is lovely about this binding is

that the whole book at every opening lays perfectly flat.

Today's offerings

The little book is all but finished.  The covers are in the press (heavy books stacked one atop the other) and will be ready thisafternoon for strapping & gluing. Yay!

A little card for Olive for her help with the stitching.

We found the stitch in Kieth Smith's Non-adhesive Bindings.

And the apples have been stewed and are the best I have ever tasted!

The garden of ...

Can you believe it. These are the second & third apples from our darling little apple tree. We ate the first one! We shared it so that there would be no Adam & Eve syndrome in this household!

Over the past few days ...

Flowers presentded to David Nuttall upon completion of the concerto March 10, 2012

It has been a wonderful and busy few days with the family visiting. David performed the Strauss Oboe Concerto with the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra on Saturday after which there was much fun and frivolity! A marvellous effort which did not go unrewarded. Well done David! 

His flowers above!

A couple of pics to share:

Ellen & Shane in the Tahune Forrest where the rivers Picton & Huon meet.

Amy, not a great fan of the swinging bridges but she braved it for the cause. And there were two of them sprung high above the raging rivers. She knew there was no going back.

Shane ... troublemaker on the bridge!

Two little wood nymphs!

The view from Mount Wellington, spectacular. This is where I live.

David & me up on the pile of rocks holding the trig station.

Amy, Ellen & Shane on the boardwalk lookout over Hobart, Mount Wellington.

From the board

Derwent pencil on gessoed & painted 3mm MDF board

I am not sure where these are heading, perhaps for another coat of gesso!

In the making ...

They started like this.

Three pieces of 3mm MDF board,

first gesso then I melded the inks, then crackling molding  paste now this:

A little bit more work (nearly there) then ready for the calligraphy ... back to the drawing board!

Tiny Journal

I was given this gorgeous little book by one of my students last week in Canberra. I am trying to find the maker but there are no more details yet.  When I do get the deatils I will acknowledge her here immediately. I know it is a lass.  I love the sewing technique so much I have asked my friend Olive if we can study it and reproduce it together.

As we live quite a distant apart (three hours by car), in a couple of weeks we will be getting together to create the covers and sew the book but this is what I have come up with so far.

The text block is arches text wove and the spine fold decorative papers are roo-poo papers that I have decorated, from the Burnie Paper Mill. So far my measurements are: text block 130mm x 165mm, the spine length is 130mm, the spine width is 11mm. This last measurement can be flaxible depending on the paper weights.

Watch this space!

Calligraphy @ the NLA

There is something very special about viewing original manuscripts, old and not so old.

An oportunity to study the "real thing" is something so rare we grab it when we are able.

The National Library of Australia has made this possible for book lovers, calligraphers

and interested parties through their Handwritten exhibition.

Viewing the collection finishes on 18 March 2012. 

The National Library of Australia, Canberra Australia

Venue for the Illumination Workshop 19 February 2012

The NLA Foyer

... with a bookshop to lose yourself in ...

The plushest classroom I have ever taught in!

Eighteen participants fitted beautifully with room to move.

Before we got started outside my favourite stained glass windows.

My wonderful assistant on the day, Pamela Kemp!

My thanks to the Canberra Calligraphy Society and my fellow tutors Jill Robertson & Angela Hillier. Enormous thanks to Maureen Worsnop CCS Treasurer, for her tremendous monetary efforts,

Brendan Dahl from the National Library of Australia who made the day run brilliantly and all my diligent participants who had fun while learning lots about illuminated letters.

Sincere thanks to Pam for putting me up and putting up with me!

550 emails later ... phew ... I'm exhausted!

Today ... off the drawing board

This is one of Bilbo Baggins song. It was in both Tolkien novels The Hobbit and Lord of the Rings.

I chose on purpose to use a similar style of simplified Uncial used in the film LotR.

The spirals symbolise the road going "ever on and on".

Korean stick ink, Brause nibs, designers gouache, pen-white, 23ct gold leaf and hand tooled spirals, metal nibs & brushes on 300gsm Arches hotpress paper.

Off the drawing board

Walnut ink, designers gouache, 23ct gold leaf, pen-white,

pointed nibs, dotting tool on 300gsm Arches hotpress paper

The names of the couple

and the date of their wedding are scribed in a flowing 23ct gold leaf copperplate

beneath the DP.

Apology Manuscript - take two

In the past couple of weeks I have created two more apology manuscripts

for the Federal Government. This time for the

Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

One is to be presented to the European Parliament by the Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd

and the other is to hang in the RG Casey Building in Canberra.

It was, yet again, an honour to be asked to prepare these documents.

Some swatches on the two different vellums.

The vellums came from the

Vellum and Parchment Work in Kildare Ireland.

Excellent service by Joe Katz!

Wiping off the excess gold.

I had to work the Coat of Arms upside down.

The soft and delicate colours I used to replicate the 1912 official Coat of Arms were achieve by many trials. I finally decided to use Derwent watercolours to achieve the best effects.

Close-ups! Always fraught with danger. 

A creative household

Reed makers David Nuttall, Joe Ortuso and Bettina Crimmins ... this went on all day!

Boxes of reeds everywhere!

I have found good uses for excess oboe reeds!

They make interesting toggles!