H O M E W E B S I T E E M A I L
Showing posts with label Lin Kerr. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lin Kerr. Show all posts

Monday, 15 October 2012

Procrastination & Obsession

Oh dear! I'm feeling rather overwhelmed because I've involved myself in time consuming things like joining committees and getting sidetracked by grandchildren.
And writing a blog 5 days a week.
Committees always take time and in a spurt of villagey energy. I've joined the church PCC - primarily to have some input on the logo design etc. because I'd like to be involved in something a little more cutting edge than the current design; I've joined the Village artwork team because our village has a grant for an artwork and I definitely want to be involved in the process there. Then there are a couple of other committees, Letter Exchange as speakers organiser and President of Oxford Scribes, which to be honest has not taken much time except that I feel I ought to be at various functions and contribute articles to the magazine.
I don't do much in the way of handmade cards - or try not to, but there's an 80th birthday coming up which deserves something special. Actually, if I do make handmade cards, I set the timer for 10 minutes and throw something together from recycled works of art. It usually take 20 minutes to half an hour. I can live with that! The 80th will take an afternoon or a day at least!
But I'm a working artist, and try not to get into too much chutney making and soft toys.




And I'm a grandmother. I have the kids once a week for an afternoon so when six year old dog-mad Izzy asked if I would help her make a toy dog, of course I said "yes" and we found a pattern on the internet for a Scotty dog. She made the ears, attached the snaps to the eyes and stuffed the tail. I'm a perfectionist - or obsessive about doing things properly, so I ended up spending an extra evening and morning sewing the dog. (Well the feet aren't quite right, but that'l do). The rationale is that Izzy'll learn to make things instead of just buy them, and learn sewing skills etc. An educational experience if you like.
So here's the dog. Cute, maybe and probably worth it but there is still a long list of stuff I really need to do...
Here's the website for other lapsed calligraphers and procrastinators:
http://www.sewingpatterns.org.uk/dog-sewing-pattern.htm



Friday, 28 September 2012

LX Exhibition 3 - Alpha and Omega



Here is the piece I finally submitted. When framed: 40cm x 40cm.
 The circle is screenprinted onto slub silk with black acrylic ink.
The lettering is handwritten with a pointed brush using gold acrylic ink.
The signature square is gold leaf on gum ammoniac, with very fine brush lettering - about 1mm high.






Letter Exchange Lettering exhibition:

Words Set Free
Mondays - Fridays
27th September - 19th October
9.00am - 8.00pm
The Free Word Centre
60 Farringdon Road

EC1R 3GA
Farringdon Tube Station




Wednesday, 8 August 2012

Behind the Scenes - Thistle watercolour

At the moment I'm keeping a lot of balls in the air - a couple too many, in fact. You'll see this from the next few entries from designing a font to screenprinting etc.

Having been invited to have a small exhibition of my orchid giclees I thought I'd better do one or two large watercolours as originals and looked around at flowers here because I needed a change from orchids. Many English flowers are typically textural and multipetalled- rose, peony, hydrangea - unlike the simple flowers I like painting such as the strelizia, agapanthus, orchid. I'm sure there is a botanical reason, but anyway after discarding fuschias because of their "little girl colours" I looked at wild flowers - I love poppies, but the massive ones have gone to seed. Buttercups are very sweet and humble but yellow does not scan well for my cards. Then I became fascinated with thistles.


This watercolour is quite large - 45cm, as you can see from the thistle itself - "Sea Holly"
Below is my "behind the scenes" bit. The blueish violets were done with Holbein Violet and W&N Ultramarine blue, green shade. I've discovered a new green - Schmincke Phthalo Green (pronounced Tallo)
It's quite bright and luminescent but mixed with Permanent Rose makes a breathtaking Prussian-sort-of-Green and mixed with Olive and Paynes grey makes a soft subtle shaded green.  I've always found greens to be a problem - Sap Green is weak and fugitive, Prussian Green is fugitive, some greens look just so synthetic and creamy, like green felt etc.

So here are some of my greens: left to right, first row:
W&N Quinacridone Green Gold
Phthalo + a touch of W&N Olive Green
Phthalo + Olive green + W&N Paynes Grey

second row:
Phthalo + Permanent Rose
Phthalo - pure (I don't think I'll ever use it pure)
Phthalo + more Olive

third row:
Phthalo and Olive
Manganese blue and Cadmium Yellow Pale
Olive Green
(you can see these are my own scrappy colour tests - so badly arranged!)
The Quinacridone, Phthalo and Olive are all transluscent and "cabbage" beautifully if water is splashed on them. I also ended up mixing the greens with violet to darken them.
I hope to show you the finished thistle by Friday or Monday.


P.S. Definition of PHTHALOCYANINE: a bright greenish-blue crystalline compound C32H18N8; also : any of several metal derivatives that are brilliant fast blue to green dyes or pigments 

Monday, 30 July 2012

Oxford Summer School - The crane flies



Top to bottom: Beryl Knotts, Oliver Leech, Viv Hanreck

Drawing Origami Cranes is a very good way of learning to draw flat planes in space using the pencil held up horizontally or vertically to help check the angles of the wings against an imagined vertical or horizontal. 
Participants block one eye to create monocular vision to 'flatten' the object and draw foreshortening correctly. This exercise is completed by using monoline lettering to write a piece of text that integrates and harmonises with the composition. I was delighted with the results!
One of my ongoing themes is the problem of how text and image can be combined to create an integrated artistic statement rather than a poem with a picture attached.


Wednesday, 18 July 2012

Rope of Words 5 - Collograph 2

I invested in a two-day workshop on collograph.
  • It's not worth learning this from books.
  • Teachers give a far better insight into the process.
  • The materials are supplied.
  • You need to learn how to use the specialist equipment - e.g. the pressure of the rollers etc.
So on the first day, we made our plates and put shellac on them.
On the second day we inked our plates and printed from them.


Here is the demonstration by Janet Lueck, a talented collographer (!?) at the Oxford Printmaker's Co-op. 
The plate is inked up.



This is done using a wodge of J-cloth or a 4cm square of mountboard and the thick etching ink is pushed into every single crevice. As you can see everything gets very inky and it takes planning to "work clean"
Here is the etching ink. These days when I learn new processes I photograph materials as a visual record to save taking notes. Etching ink is different from lino ink as it's thicker and stickier (at least, I think that's the difference) It comes in tins or tubes.




The inks are oil based, so you need a good hand cleaner from a shop like Intaglio. You can use water-based inks at school, such as Caligo or Speedball, but they aren't quite as nice to work with.


The ink is wiped off again.

This is called "burnishing the plate". It is the same idea as etching except that there is a greater variety of texture. The parcel-tape areas (see yesterday's blog) wipe off to just about zero ink, while the sandpaper and carborundum areas hold the ink. This needs fine-tuning as every wipe mark gets printed, so it can easily take an hour to get the desired effect. You need practise and to understand the materials.

We used Somerset Satin printing paper 300gsm. 
100% cotton art PAPERS
Printing paper contains less size e.g. BFK Rives, Somerset Satin or Somerset Velvet.
Watercolour paper is finished by pressing between cold rollers and has the texture of the felts. It is sized but not excessively. If you write on it, it won't bleed, whereas Somerset will.
Hot Pressed paper is 'sort-of ironed' between hot rollers and has a very smooth texture so it's good for super-sharp calligraphy but is just not so yummy to handle, as it looks a bit like card. 
I'm a bit of a Philistine here in that I would always choose the feel of the paper over the sharpness of the letters.

The paper is soaked and excess water is rolled off

OKAY, so the paper is soaked for anything up to 20 minutes, then placed between a few layers of blotting paper and rolled with the huge roller to squeeze out excess water. At OCP there are very large soaking trays and piles of blotting paper.
Then the plate is laid face up on the printing press (whoops, I forgot to photograph it) and damp paper is gently positioned on the plate. Newsprint is laid on top. These are standard precautions so that the blankets don't get your ink all over them for the next poor person in the printing queue.


The plate is rolled through the press

Janet laid three blankets over the plate/paper/newsprint and rolled the printing press over them. 
If anyone can recognise a 50's washing machine with rollers: well it's similar but much bigger, heavier and designed for printing large sheets of paper. Which makes collograph inaccessible without a printing press*
When Janet picked up her print, the ink had transferred - see picture on the left, and the print was embossed. The plate is on the right, print on the left.

I am sure you will agree that we have two works of art here, the plate and the print.
The plate is cleaned with ordinary cooking oil (not extra virgin olive oil - a waste!) There is always a residue of ink which gives the plate it's patina.

Back to my Rope of Words - I am concerned that this process is too monochromatic for this book, but I'll give it a bash and try to introduce more colour as I did in "Head". I do think its a great process though.


* There is a small home /school printer designed for collographs called "The Major-George A2 portable printer press" www.majorgeorge.co.uk
Kim Major George has also written a comprehensive book on collograph which you can view on her website.

Monday, 16 July 2012

Rope of Words 3 - thumbnails

My script has 10 chapters and is an adult fantasy story, so I thought an intro. illustration + 10 + cover is ambitious enough (although 22 illustrations would be nicer).
If I use heavy paper such as Somerset Satin 300gsm, I think I could have one folio per "section" of the book. Each page would be between A4 and A3 in size.

Here is the first thumbnail of a possible layout of a typical folio
Page size: 28cm X 34.5cm.
margins: 3cm on sides, 2cm at top, 5cm at base.
I don't think I'll go for the 15mm on the inner margins to make up 3cm, but might do 2.25cm to make up 4.5cm combined inner margins. Something to think about.
3
Page 1 and 4: Title and a line of words running along the bottom of the pages (the rope of words) 
page 2 and 3: Illustration on page 2, text with Illuminated cap. on page 3
If I did Collograph I could use a typewriter text which has a natural feel about it and could be screened nicely. I've just used Head in the meantime for the thumbnail.


But then I started thinking a bit more creatively. What about a cut-out so that the "chapter heading" is arbitrarily placed and the rope of words running all over page 1 & 4. In this case, the illustration would have to be on page 3.
Here is the second thumbnail of a possible layout of a typical folio


I'll keep mulling over this.

And the latest news:
In the meantime I have visited two galleries, one local and one in Hampshire with my orchid giclées and both have offered me space and taken the cards. Dolphin Art would like to have an exhibition with one or two other flower artists and demonstrations and the other gallery would like to put me in with a group exhibition to mark the Christmas / Autumn season. I'm going to have to produce a few more water colour pieces to have some originals. I have just stretched two sheets of paper 50cm square and will pop out to the farm shop to get some Sea Thistles to paint. I'm very happy about this. Don't worry calligraphers, there will still be lettering happening!


Friday, 6 July 2012

My first lino-cut

...well since I was ten.

Bear in  mind that I'm doing this intuitively with no books or advice, but two nice tools and the suggestion that the new vinyl is softer than lino and that some people prefer it. This is because I have a time scale - this lino cut need to be cut and printed within three days, so I opted for the green vinyl. The casual wavy edges are deliberate. I'm sure I'll benefit greatly in my next one after consulting books and having advice!



I traced it then remembered that prints have to be reversed, so washed it off and started again.
These tools are divine and I love lino cutting (quick convert). I'm going to do the grass lime-green and you can see how the tool has dictated the texture. I had planned to make a little rubber stamp with three bits of grass and stamp all over the print. This is much better.
I finished cutting this out then went off to the Printmaker's studio in Oxford.




The technician helped me plan registration of the second "plate" and showed me a super way of tracing the second design - for the lime green grass. Do a print onto paper, then while it is still wet, use the paper to do an inverted print on the second piece of lino. Now choose which areas to cut away.




Technical info:
Cutting tools: I'm not sure what make, but it has "Swiss made" on the tool and the sizes are L 12/1 and L11/3 - it is a V-shape 1mm wide and a rounded one 3mm wide.
Green Vinyl (reverse side is blue)
I'm still not sure how to transfer the design as the pencil barely showed. Must find out.
Ink: Intaglio oil-based ink with a gun - I used Phthalo blue mixed with Primrose Yellow in different proportions for the two greens. Once printed the print took 3 days to dry.
(Fortunately at this stage the rector had delayed to pamphlet with some details)
There is also an intaglio ink extender but I'm too ignorant about what the consistency should be or exactly what it does. Delays drying? Thins the ink?
Roller: Durathane roller (often a green colour)
Paper: For practice I used a cheap Kent paper 190gsm, but for the final print I used an utterly fab. Japanese paper called Tosa--Shoji.
Printing Press: I used a nipping press with a few felts - hooray, its like the book press I have and I had no idea that it would work with lino! And no eternal rubbing with the back of a spoon.
Blankets / felts: I'll have to buy some new blankets for my nipping press. Mine are thin felts from a paper mill. These are pure wool and like really thick felt. Sold at Intaglio by the square inch. (Scary)





I'm very chuffed with this new found skill.


Thursday, 5 July 2012

Lino Design for the little church

A little note to my America readers: Susan Moor is an English calligrapher who lives in Northern England and for the past number of years she has sat in Durham Cathedral UK and other churches, sketching and collecting material for her Artist's Books. Not to be confused with the other (also) wonderfully talented Suzanne Moore from the USA.

Below: we don't have a cathedral in our Oxfordshire village - this is our little church.



I am designing a welcome leaflet for All Saints Church and I thought photos just never look that great.
In fact the best view of the church is side-on, but no-one ever really sees that view. The only access path to the church by road looks up at it and often we only see the lych gate. So I took these photos and did my first drawing. I blocked in the areas of dark and light to help me visualise the finished result if translated into a lino cut.




The lych gate is charming, but for simplicity I decided to leave it out. I then simplified it a lot to create a design which would reproduce well if it was very small.




I decided to set it on an exaggerated hill and play with pattern and bold simple shapes.


Wednesday, 4 July 2012

Nice tools

I hate doing lino-cuts - but love the outcome. I have to do a little illustration of our village church for a pamphlet and find the average illustration of a little church very twee.So first I thought of "faking" a lino cut with pen and ink, then I thought, no, I need the printerly feel so I drew it onto a piece 10cm square of eraser- left from the rubber-stamp-letters I made. But this is plain extravagant and won't even get the right effect.Then I thought, hey, I am working at Oxford Printmakers: time to investigate lino cutting.

Now all of you out there who know all about this will laugh at me because I was basing my experience on the primary school tools we used. Ha-ha. So some research! I visited Intaglio Printmaker, a fabulous specialist shop in London, near London Bridge. intaglioprintmaker.com



Here is a photo I took of the interior of the shop, and here is a photo of the tools. I bought two tools - this seems miserley unless you have figured out the price, but rather two excellent tools than 10 cheap ones, and some proper lino (not the school sort) and an alternative vinyl which is softer and apparently quite popular today.

Oh, and on the way into the shop I saw this beautiful sign. I think the lettering was laser cut from one ply wood then glued onto a background. It looked like real wood and I'm fairly sure it was.



Lino Cuts - The next exciting adventure.
(It may seem to some of you that I just faff around all day decorating wine bottles and making bunting. 
Actually I do a lot of artwork but can't show and tell until the right time. I have done three pieces for the LX exhibition lately and have selected one to show; but you all need to wait until the end of September when we have the exhibition. So, in the meantime, I talk about how to wrap work in bubblewrap etc.!)

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Tuesday, 3 July 2012

A peek inside Susan Moor's books


Susan Moor developed a modern form of lettering inspired by the Cnut style which was similar to Carolingian. This is what we did at the workshop. Susan does her letterforms using a drawing nib Brause 66EF (extra fine) a flexible, but a strong nib. She has written in a pressure-release style getting slight thicknesses on her lettering where required - much as one does in copperplate.
In her books we see elegant scripts written in gouache over watercolour-washed pages. Susan often does a water colour wash on Arches Hot pressed paper, then works into it with chalk pastels, enriching and texturing the paper surface. It gives the paper a really good "tooth" and is a wonderful surface to write on.




I suppose because I have always grappled with illustration and lettering as a harmonious unit, it was extra special for me. In her research into lettering and images, she has studied the work of William Blake, Tom Phillips, Ben Shahn, David Jones, Burgert , Ann Hechle and Gill.  These are my heroes as well so this really resonated with me. 
(I'm going to return to the topic of illustration and lettering a due course because this is one of the reasons why I have begun printmaking)



And I know you are longing to see inside the massive tomes. 





Oh what amazing books! And what a wonderfully talented person Susan is. I am so inspired.

Thursday, 21 June 2012

Learning Italic

Capitals and minuscules:  Weekly, 3-4 hours for 6 months – 1 year
This is going to be a bit like my ideal Foundational Course, which should not be surprising. I think it begins to really diverge as we get further down the line with looser work, pen twists, wild flourishes and crazy tools. But the basics are just that: a solid training with enough interest to sustain the person learning. Foundational people may well want to progress to this.
Gestural people may have skipped Foundational, but they have lots of other hard work ahead of them.

My Ideal Italic Course - Minuscules
Tutor to supply an excellent exemplar or use a book such as Calligraphy made Easy by Gaynor Goffe

(I have to say this right here: Gaynor would have gladly written & worded the title – as she told me - and designed the cover, but no, the publisher knew better and got someone who does pretty awful lettering to do the title, using Gaynor's sophisticated Italic background. It happened to David Harris as well. It also happened to my son when he illustrated a book once – the jacket designer took one of his illustrations and made it a bit diagonal with a shadow and used some awful font – in the theory that "we know what sells" And was paid a disproportionate amount. End of my little rant.)

 My Ideal Italic Course - Minuscules
Tutor to supply an excellent exemplar or use a book such as Calligraphy made Easy by Gaynor Goffe
i)  family groups
ii)  n-necklace – anbncndnen etc. Short alphabetical word-list: ant, bat, cat etc.
iii) long-word alphabetical list: anthurium, buttercup, calendular, dandelion etc.
iv) playing with flourishes
v) writing with gouache, watercolour, Ink sticks of good quality (not the tourist gifts)
vi) moving down nib sizes
vii) layout of a long narrow poem with just two strategic flourishes
viii) as a historical base students would analyse Bernadino Cataneo*
ix) to get rhythm: Scriptorium or Continuous writing – lay out a pamphlet book of 3 folios of A3 to make an A4 pamphlet with classical margins. Write from left to right filling each line and breaking words at the end of the line even if its not logical.
x) for inspiration: Brody Neuenschwander, Julian Waters
xi) for artwork: working with watercolour and playing with flourishes and pentwists in abstract patterns.
xii) various small projects

Wearable Art - Kimono Series - Lin Kerr,
Exploring flourishes with a modern interpretation of Italic
My Ideal Italic Course - Capitals
 i) Monoline Italic capitals (these are narrower and sloped)
ii) refresher course on spacing
iii) edged pen alphabet in width groups.
iv) sentences in capital letters. (Not too much at this stage as it could be disheartening)
v) flourished capitals
vi) alphabet lists with flourished caps and minuscules: Alberti, Beethoven, Chopin
vii) moving down nib sizes
viii) scriptorium or continuous writing – lay out a pamphlet book of three folios of A3 paper. this time observe paragraph breaks and don't break words illogically, but still try for solid prose to get text blocks for rhythm.
ix) for artwork: a piece using some exciting technique like layering and including a few flourishes. It could be entirely in capitals or capitals and minuscules.
* Knight, Stan  Historical Scripts, Oak Knoll Press 1998



A Time to be Born - Kimono Series, Lin Kerr, using formal Italic capitals
I could go on and on with this series but actually I'm going to stop at this stage. Maybe some more about my theories and principles of teaching another day. I will certainly revisit why I love Italic so much, and also chat about gestural writing at some stage. I started with this after looking at Monica's fab.work, then being interviewed by a young Italian visual comms. student who was doing her thesis and wanted to consider "contemporary British gestural calligraphers" - interesting! Anyway the 2-day series has turned into an earnest 9-day series and I must get on with my ordinary life! Also writing syllabi off the top of my head is dangerous.

Monday, 18 June 2012

A bit more about Drawn letters

Working with an edged pen may not suit everyone who wants to create letterforms, but it certainly explains the historical formation of letter weight. It is assumed that most Roman Inscriptions in the first century began life as brush lettering (hence the serif?). It is for this reason that it is worth studying Foundational and Italic, but at the same time, students would want to begin drawing and copying letters by hand.


Capitals letters have many peculiarities not shared by minuscules.
i) Easy reading: A line of Capital letters is far more difficult to read fluently.
ii) Rhythms: These letters developed as individual letters, not as a cursive script, so without the natural flow, there are many subtleties to make them "hang well" together.
iii) Widths: If, say, the L was as wide as an O, there would be a huge gap in the middle of a word. So this is sorted out by narrowing the L and pushing the adjacent letter closer to it.
iv) Weights and pen angle: If the same pen angle was used throughout, N would be a very heavy dense letter and Z would be super-light in comparison to other letters. 
v) Flow: By making horizontals lighter in weight, the E is more comfortable and the B will fit into the same height much better.
vi) Consistency - Horizontal bars are usually in the same position in Trajan Caps -i.e. resting on the halfway line; but in the A it is dropped to make it visually balanced.
vii) It is a common mistake for beginners to make capital letters the same height as ascenders. they are shorter (unless the ascenders are stunted)
viii) And then there is the weight: If lettering is to be reduced for reproduction, the letter weight (X height) and serifs need to be chunkier. 
Once one understands these and many more nuances, one is better equipped to design a cohesive alphabet.
I remember Freda Sack of Foundry Types saying (in her own words) : "The aim in designing an alphabet is so that no particular letter jumps out and disturbs the overall harmony"
and in my own words - "unless on purpose", as Burgert did)

"t" reproduced with permission from Tom Perkins
Tom Perkins: detail of a final drawing for a letter carving

I'm not at all the expert here, but it seems to me that the triumvirate classical training of Foundational, Trajan and Italic can only be good. After that, I'd leave it to Tom Perkins and other teachers of his ilk to "design a drawn letters course"

And one more thing: You know Ben Shahn (one of my dearly beloveds) used all those funny naive scripts with odd N's and "painfully copied" decorative versals? Well, he began by learning drawn letters and could also draw the most immaculate Trajan O with consummate ease! So there!


Wednesday, 6 June 2012

beginnings


Whew, the Jubilee is over, the bunting is down and the gazebos are packed away. What an amazing atmosphere of celebration and fun we have had despite the rain. I think my lasting "vignette" will be of the young women standing upright in their boat in the open, opposite the Queen as they sang to her in exquisite voices as though it was sunshine pouring down on their heads and not rain!
So its back to lettering and such.
I "taught" myself Italic at the age of 14 in prep. time at boarding school when I was bored with studying! I had a book by George L.Thompson called "Better Handwriting" which my mother had bought for my two left-handed brothers whose writing was virtually illegible. And it worked for all three of us! Their writing became readable and I developed a passion for calligraphy.


Italic has half as many strokes as the cursive we learnt at school, fewer "up" strokes and fewer loops. Its' simpler capitals are Roman-based not Copperplate-based. The number of loops and movements in a copperplate G written by a disinterested little boy with poor pen control and a biro boggles the mind. Yet somehow handwriting in schools so often seems to bypass Italic in favour of all sorts of other complicated scripts.


I am a full member of Letter Exchange (LX) www.letterexchange.org and as Speaker's Organiser I recently had the privilege of entertaining Monica Dengo from Italy as she visited the UK to address LX. I am awaiting images from her of her fantastic artwork, but in the meantime I'd like to tell you a little about what she is doing in schools in Italy, with a grant and a blessing from the Italian education authorities. (Give Italic back to the Italians, yeah!)


When her son went to school she was appalled at the style of handwriting which is taught early on, and later as handwriting is almost dismissed because we are going digital! 
Monica had been doing gestural artwork alongside sophisticated calligraphy in her commission work, but went right back to the very beginning with a vocational zeal to do something about school writing.




To mention just a few aspects, she covers :
a) The bare bones of skeletal writing to for kids to start learning.
b) Each letter has the potential to be joined.
c) When letters are joined they don't really change shape.
d) Capitals letters are Roman in origin not Copperplate.
e) Lettering is made fun by playing with lettershapes in colours.
f) Children's literacy is increased by teaching them letter recognition in different styles of writing.
g) There is plenty of scope for additional fluency and flourishes with skill, enthusiasm and maturity.
g) Monica has designed a font that teachers can use in conjunction with her book in their handwriting and other teaching. This font is a "nice squeaky-clean Italic monoline" This font will be available to buy at some stage, so watch this space.




f) Her book "Pick up your pen" is now published in Italy, France, Estonia and USA. It can be purchased at Amazon UK and is the starter book for kids. 
I'll be telling you about her lettering teaching for adults tomorrow and in the meantime you can view her website www.freehandwriting.net.
If you want to find out more about this amazingly talented artist, read my blog tomorrow and google Monica Dengo.
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Tuesday, 5 June 2012



Remember the bunting and the banner I made for my daughter Megan for "The Writer's Circle?"

Well, I attended my first ever writer's workshop and I must say, it was fab. It was very interesting being in a workshop where I was out of my comfort zone - as a participant in an subject where I lack confidence. Sure, I write. But I don't do imaginative writing or novels like everyone else on the workshop. This was very good for me, because I give lots of workshops in art and I need reminding about participants can feel.
Megan's on-going writers each read an extract from their novels in various genres from "Dark Urban" to "Fantasy" while we sipped our wine and listened. This was followed by a game Megan invented called "The Premise Circles Game" 


We were in groups of 3 or 4 per table. We brainstormed and took cards which provided prompts to use for creative ideas to build a story outline.


In the photo above you can see two of the cards: Premise & Place.
Hey this was fun! Our final story line was a bit crazy but what an enjoyable hour!
Of course the story took on a life of its own, owned by all or none of us!
No-one could quite tear themselves away from the workshop when it ended!


Well done Meegs!
www.megankerr.co.uk