Artful Lettering

Art is when you hear a knocking from your soul - and you answer.
                                                                                 ~Terri Guillemets


I am just fascinated with lettering and so it comes as no surprise that I signed up for Joanne Sharpe's Artful Lettering from A-Z while at CREATE.  If you haven't had a chance to learn about Joanne, please check out her blog right here, right now.  As with all the other instructors, Joanne is a wonderful instructor and a sweetheart of a person.  She gave everyone a goodies bag full of yummy markers, pens and paints including Faber-Castell big brush marker in a color, Faber-Castell Pitt Calligraphy pen, metallic pens, Glaze Sakura pens, a white Uni-ball, and paints by LuminArte (Silks Acrylic Glaze, Twinkling H2O's) and so much more!!

Our first project was to make a lettering sampler.  This was hers...

And this is mine, for as far as I've gotten...

Joanne then demonstrated various lettering techniques that we were going to use to put together a collage on a black gesso canvas panel...

These are just a few of the various techniques that we played around with...

But the best part of this workshop was learning about products that I wasn't even aware of.  Did you know that you can get watercolor on completely dried paper?  All you have to do is use a brush that's dipped in water and put it on the paper.  The colors are intense.  This is the color of the paint...

And this is the color of the actual paint on the reverse side...

I ended up purchasing two separate and different packs from Joanne.  She's even got one produced for colors that she's chosen with her name...

I was also fascinated with and purchased at the artist fair on Friday evening, Parallel Pens.  Totally awesome!  I also tried out and loved Tombow markers.  At the artist fair, Joanne shared a table with Lisa Engelbrecht and I saw this fabulous book and just had to buy it...

which was filled with delicious ideas...

FYI, Joanne Sharpe talked about getting an advance on her new book, which will be about Artful Lettering!  Keep your eye out for it.  Tomorrow I'll share my workshop that I took with the ever popular Pam Carriker.