Staying Refreshed

 Without turning a page in a calendar, I know August is approaching by the sounds of the bumblebees in the Japanese Anemones along my garden fence. The first sounds I hear while I sit at my garden swing with my morning books and my cup of coffee is the garden music of those bumblebees. It can be overwhelming and mesmerizing. The anemones remind me to appreciate every last ounce of summer before the inevitable change of the season. I did not plant these beautiful flowers, they just drifted into my garden from my neighbour's yard and I welcome them with joy each summer.

Though these summer days are passing by just as quickly as the blossoms open and fade, I am enjoying a summer of being refreshed by my favourite flourishes and favourite books. As a summer project for Ardington's Flourishing Club, I set a challenge to practice bird flourishing. I know several students are practicing these lovely designs and I have enjoyed become more and more fluent with these little winged beauties.  The practice of bird flourishing brought back a flood of wonderful memories for me and I have used this summer season to refresh my mind and my practice with the styles that drew me into the calligraphic world in the first place. In my heart and soul there are the designs and patterns of ages past. I love the opulence of the Victorian era, the jewel tones of the Medieval and Renaissance worlds and the ornate pattern designs of William Morris. I am just as at home with a little mouse scampering across a page of Beatrix Potter's Work as I am with a page of historic Italian Hand penmanship. I can be moved to tears by a children's book and the older I get, the more I realize how important it is to pursue the things that you love. Actively pursue what brings you joy!

I think there can be such a sense of refreshment in revisiting your favourite things. This is also a valuable form of practice. Some of my absolute favourite pieces of artwork were flourishes or illuminations I have done over the past several years. They get tucked away in a portfolio and forgotten. But leafing through the designs again, makes me want to do more and more of them. As I flip through the pages of my portfolios, I see the heart motif over and over again. I will likely never stop doing that motif, but I learn something new about each design I create.

Italian Hand practice also follows similar flourishes and even similar words on the exemplar page but each stroke of the pen and each letter that I create, refreshes my mind and my skills with the pen. There is a welcome sense of comfort in this practice.

I think you know that you are still passionate about a subject through your desire to continue to work on it. If you are feeling a bit stuck at times, try to review some of the work you have done in the past and see what sparks with you.. Try not to fall into the trap of comparing yourself to others or feeling you should have progressed more than what you see on the page. Trust the speed of the journey you are on and be content. Progress comes at a different pace for all of us.

After all these years as a calligraphic artist, I still feel the bounce in my step as I open the studio each morning. I want to get the administrative tasks out the way so I can work on artwork. Looking at the past has refreshed me in so many wonderful ways this summer but I am also brimming with new ideas. The Fall edition of the Ardington Flourishing Club will be a Rhapsody in Blue. Blue flourishes in many shapes and sizes and all done with the passion for the pointed pen. 

The Festive class planned for The Gentle Penman online for October is Festive Faire. Once again, the increased study time in offhand flourishing had me diving into carousel horses and scroll designs with the vibrancy of Fairground art. I will give you a sneak peek here. The class will explore flourish infills as well as a simplified inlay technique. 

These designs can be a bit intimidating at first glance but when broken down into simple shapes, they are wonderful to explore. Registration is open for both of these fall courses and I am almost ready to send out an announcement about my November Study Day.  I will keep you posted about it! As these days of summer seem to rush by for me and I know I will soon be immersed in my fall line up of classes this theme of staying refreshed is so important to me. I truly appreciate all the labours of the pen and the diversity of studies I have been exploring. I love making discoveries, working through all the ideas and releasing new classes. But I never tire of the sound of the nib on the paper, or the feel of the pen in my hand as I begin a tiny flourish on an envelope or a large illuminated piece. This work is such a joy and I am so very grateful to attentive students who are eager to learn and find that same joy and peace in the process.  Sending hugs all around. Thank you to all who read this blog, correspond with me and take time to attend classes or watch the recordings. I hope you have a beautiful August. Enjoy each day as it passes knowing that there are treasures to find!

A Summer to Flourish

 Happy July1st dear friends.We are well into the summer season already and I am savouring the warmth of the days knowing that this season is so short. I enjoy the morning sunlight filtering in through the windows as I begin my daily tasks. My workload is large even in the summers but I tackle the tasks slowly always taking time to recognize the beauty of these days. 

I have just completed some amazing classes for Ardington School. We had a wonderful time looking at Medieval Details in the Flora and Fauna class which has inspired more study for me! I am always happiest when I am immersed in research. And we completed the April, May, June edition of the Flourishing Club. If you want to join us for September, October and November, you can register online. As we worked together on Vintage Victorian Flourishes, I was reminded of what enticed me into the world of pointed pen in the first place. It was always the delicate flow of the script and the incredibly intricate world of offhand flourishing. 

Seeing ribbons, banners, birds, quills and scrolls on the page was so intriguing to me and I am convinced that learning how to flourish with the pointed pen is the key to enhancing your calligraphic skills as well as training your eye and your hand as you work. There are no guardrails for this process. There are no expectations of perfection and these flowing patterns and ornaments can take on any form you wish to create. 

Each design is infused with wonder and possibilities. The designs can be intricate or simple, in colour or left solely as pen and ink. You can choose to add words to the image or let the image speak for itself. 

The designs can be completed relatively quickly and can serve well as a daily practice ritual. I always hesitate to suggest a daily ritual even for a short period of time as some students can find this difficult to commit to, much like New Year's resolutions. But what if it was a fearless ritual? What if you had no expectations to share your work on social media, or even to keep what you do? What if you simply flourished and kept what worked, and discarded the rest? This is the freeing and enabling aspect of offhand flourishing. They are small, done on any convenient paper surface that you can find, and can be done with any fluid that you want to use in your pointed pen. They will free your thinking! I find them a resting place for my mind because they don't force me to conform to any alphabet or any one style. They are transformative!

My favourite book to explore with offhand flourishing is Ornate Pictorial Calligraphy reprinted by Dover Publications. The book offers a little bit of instruction but tons of historic inspiration. From there, you can begin to flourish up a storm.

This summer, I have bee doing daily bird flourishes as well as floral flourishes as I prepare for Wildflower Wonders for The Gentle Penman.

To flourish is to blossom and to grow! It is to expand your skills as a calligraphic artist and it is a pathway to a peaceful process. The short summer season is the perfect time to add some sort of daily or even weekly flourishing ritual to your practice. There is a lighthearted joy that can be found in this process.

Even if you make a dozen mistakes a day as you put ink to paper, you will be building skills and confidence along the way. I think that too many people self edit and believe they don't have a natural instinct for flourishing. I certainly did not have any natural abilities or talent for this art form. It was an intense desire to learn, to practice and to observe the strokes, and a lot of discarded papers along the way!

But the love of the flourish has never faded, in fact it grows every time I put pen to paper. If you would like to join the Flourishing Club or Wildflower Wonders, I would love to share the joy of pointed pen flourishing with you. There is a whole world of discovery waiting for you as you put pen to paper. 

I hope you have the most beautiful summer dear friends. Thank you for reading the blog, sending kind messages and for supporting the classes I offer. I love to see you Flourish!

The Thread of Gold

 

Is it really June? Why can't I slow down time, at least during these Spring and Summer months. These are the seasons that bring me abundant joy and are brimming with inspiration.  I have made it part of my daily practice to pause and truly notice the day. I have written about this in multiple posts but this practice is easily forgotten and dismissed. This is the only June 1st of 2025 and it has a beauty that belongs only to this day.  Part of the practice is to notice the changes in the sights and sounds of the garden. The robin's song is rarely heard. I hear the Carolina Wrens, Starlings, Orioles and Bluejays prominently. During my evening walks, I can hear the Red Winged Blackbirds. If my studio windows are open, I can hear bumblebees. All these sounds make up the music of the day. What a joy!

My morning reading ritual is still going strong. I am the most pensive during the beginning of the day.  I currently have a stack of 6 books on the go as part of the morning reading time. I just finished Marjolein Bastin's View from a Sketchbook which gave some amazing insights into her process.

But as I prepare for studies with my private students, I pulled the book Cicely Mary Barker and her Art.

Cicely Mary Barker is best known for her Flower Fairies. She loved nature and depicting her Flower Fairies but struggled with being a Children's Book Illustrator and wondered if she should devote her time to themes that were seemingly more important. Like Kate Greenaway, well intended critics liked to chime in about her work and tell her what she should be doing. But there are quotes in her book that I admire and I wanted to share them here.  A letter from a family friend urged her to ignore the critics and he told her that her work  'shows imagination and originality of thought- the most precious things in art.' He then quoted Dante " If thou follow thy star thou canst not fail of glorious heaven." And your star is your own individual power of thought and imagination-the thread of gold that goes through all good art.' This passage really struck a chord with me as an instructor. The most important aspect I can bring to the student is helping them become aware of their own thought process and imagination. They each have a voice and a vision to create on the page. Their voice is that that "thread of gold" that brings the work to life on the page. Rather than copying from an image or an exemplar, I feel the best path forward is finding your own personal expression of artwork. This absolutely includes calligraphy.  Although I look at historic models, I am constantly finding a way to adapt those models to find a flowing script that is beautiful for my purposes now. I hope this makes sense. Look at history, but don't be defined by what is already captured on the page from someone else's pen or brush. Find your voice. It is important and it has a place in this world now. We are all such unique people, why would we want to all create the same thing? 

These thoughts keep me grounded and focused as I create my instructional classes. I used the inspiration of The Black Hours for the upcoming course Midnight Garden for Ardington school in September. The class is currently sold out, but you can inquire about a waiting list for this class. As I worked on the course notes and the artwork, I wanted to find ways to make these black rinceau designs an expression of that "thread of gold" that is my own voice.  The joy of discovery and thinking through all kinds of conundrums with the process is part of this journey! After a lot of failed experiments I found an accessible way to create these Midnight Garden pages. Admittedly, providing an image that could be traced and copied by each student would be an easier path, but when I see the incredibly expressive individuality of each student, I realize how powerful this "thread of gold' can be! I see student work that far exceeds my own expression and expectations. This could never be achieved through copying.

 Looking ahead on the schedule, my June classes are sold out but if you want to Flourish in July or later on in September, both Ardington School and The Gentle Penman will be hosting my flourishing classes. The Flourishing Club at Ardington is a three month program while The Gentle Penman Wildflower Wonders takes place in two sessions. 

 Flourishing is one of the best ways of creative expression and the voice of the individual can really shine through. It can take time for a lightbulb of understanding to turn on, but once that light comes on, your vision will illuminate the page! Flourish with joy my beautiful friends. Put pen, ink, watercolour or pencils to paper and find that thread of gold. The more I read about my favourite artists, the more I realize that they draw or paint to please themselves. That is what makes their work so timeless and unique. Enjoy this beautiful month dear friends. 

The Practice of Peace

 I don't understand how the winter months can feel so long but Spring seems to fly by quicker each day. Here we are on May 1st! I have a few forget me nots in bloom in the garden and the violets are peeking up through the grass and the green colours around promise me that the garden will soon be abundant! Did I mention before that I love Spring?

I feel like I bounce into my studio each morning. There is a symphony of Robins singing their early morning songs, followed by a chorus of cardinals and finches. These are the happiest sounds of the season for me and they cause me to wait and listen before I begin my daily tasks. The music that they bring to the air is so important to me and brings me such a sense of peace. Those little songs throughout the day help me stay grounded in my work and in an attitude of mindful peace. As the sun goes down and I reluctantly close the studio shades, the evening song of the Robins keeps serenading me until I feel as if I have worked enough for the day. For me, the Spring is about noticing. It is about appreciating the glimpses of nature that come into my day. I feel as if I am a more effective artist if I can dampen the digital noise of the day and just listen quietly to the sounds of nature. 

I just finished teaching Floral Whispers for the Gentle Penman online. I tried to convey to the students how much coloured pencils can contribute to our sense of peace and mental well being. We can be mindful and deliberate in our coloured pencil work and the whole practice of putting pencil to paper is so calming.  This year, the classes I have been teaching seem to build on each other. Not only for the students, but for my own understanding of the mediums I have been using. Floral Whispers deepened my appreciation for coloured pencils.  I will continue to work on Flora and Fauna in special class for Ardington School in June. I will be sharing techniques for dry brushing on paper and vellum as well as some insights for painting florals, cast shadows, and other intriguing details from Medieval Manuscripts. 

I am eager to share this class! This class is currently sold out but you can join the waiting list if you are interested. 

I will be returning to The Gentle Penman in July for Wildflower Wonders which will be a beautiful class exploring Floral Flourishing! I have had many requests to offer another floral flourishing class and this will be a wonderful opportunity to incorporate lovely wildflowers into your flourishing repertoire. Registration is open online for all skill levels.  

I will be closing registration shortly for my Fascinating Floral Rinceau Study Day in May. Honestly, I get completely lost in the practice of designing rinceau and could spend endless hours exploring the possibilities. But there are so many projects waiting for me to complete that I will have to turn my attention to other things.  Floral Rinceau is truly fascinating and the students who took the class in November of 2024 have continued to create amazing designs. I have added to the course notes with more discoveries and I am excited to share the Study Day on May 17th. All details are on my website. 

Each project I work on seems to be infused with extra peace for me. I am drastically limiting my intake of news to try to maintain this sense of peace. I am also deliberately continuing to create courses and classes that are especially intriguing to me. Beatrix Potter who continues to inspire my work believed in creating artwork that pleased herself rather than others. She needed to be enamoured with her subjects in order to create her best work. There was certainly stress involved in her process and in her deadlines, but her best work was produced when she was happy with the subject. As each day seems to rush by faster and faster it seems more important to me to produce the work that makes me the most happy and bring me the greatest sense of peace. I love what I do as I work with my hands and it seldom, if ever, really feels like work to me. I hope wherever you are in the world and whatever circumstances are surrounding you, that you can nurture a sense of the practice of peace in your daily routine. I will be cheering you on all the way. Hugs all around. 

Blossom by Blossom, the Spring awakens.....

 The first crocus has appeared, bloomed and faded, but it was appreciated! Their sweet little blooms come and go so quickly, but they were anticipated, and met with such joy when they finally did bloom. I feel that with each little petal that appears, the birds get louder and more cheerful as they sense the brighter days on the horizon. Spring really is my season. It is always so welcome. And it has awakened.

This year, I feel as if the season is especially beautiful as it coincided with my reading of The Secret Garden by Frances Hodgson Burnett. If have not read this classic book, I highly recommend it to be read in the Spring. The theme of the healing powers of nature and nurturing a garden ring through loud and clear. Some of the writing is so thoughtful, that I would put the book down and write out passages in my journal. It felt like such a gift to take time to read this book during the Spring. I will return to it again next year. It really is a timeless story for everyone.

When Mary and Dickon begin to look after the Secret Garden, they determine that they do not want it to be a 'gardener's garden'.  They want the garden to have a freedom to it. They remove the weeds that are choking out the flowers but they let the garden grow freely. This resonated with me and I made connections to my own calligraphic journey. My approach to calligraphic hands is not rigid and austere. If I were forced to adhere to one exemplar or absolute rules, I would never have persisted. I always want my writing to have life and joy. I want there to be to vitality in the hand rather than hard lines of perfect rules. We can be analytical and thoughtful as we learn the strokes that comprise a hand, but we are not machines. Our expression of a hand will have our own nature infused into it. Calligraphic writing is as much about feeling a script as it is understanding the strokes.

I think that is why Flourishing was such a natural addition to my calligraphic work. I could play with the pen and let the flourishes flow freely on the page. To flourish is to bloom, and  blooms represent joy and life. I feel especially thoughtful as  I am about to teach a long term study class in Italian Hand for the EPPC online.  The class will launch later this month and it is the second time I have taught Italian Hand in this long term study format.

This class will be well seasoned with my own interpretations of how we can utilize this gorgeous script and really make it bloom on the page.We study various approaches to the hand as well as how to truly study without trying to replicate the thoughts and methods of the instructor. The course does have a lot of homework but I do my best to make the assignments joyful. I believe there are some spaces in the course if you are up to the challenge of a long term study experience. For those who want to expand your pointed pen skills in flourishing, the April, May and June edition  of the Flourishing Club through Ardington School is open for registration. We will be working on Vintage Flourishes inspired by Daniel T. Ames. I am so excited to share these beautiful expressions of classic offhand flourishing. The Ardington Flourishing Club is a caring community and I love seeing the student work that is created after each session. 

 For those of you who would like to add a small floral illustration to your calligraphic work, Floral Whispers will start on April 11th ( April 12th, Asia) at The Gentle Penman online. My approach to coloured pencils will be shared in this class. The subjects will be softly coloured or white petaled flowers which are great for beginners to coloured pencil work. Even if you are afraid to draw, I have a method to share with you!

I don't think I will ever tire of working with pen, ink, pencils and paint and my love of the natural world seems to permeate all of my designs. My study day in May is filling up and I am looking forward to sharing some new insights I have learned with Floral Rinceau, including playing with some Kate Greenaway influences. Registration is on my website. 

 Although I have been working with Rinceau, Coloured Pencils, Gilding and Italian Hand for years, just like the Spring, it is constantly new and refreshing for me.  Never underestimate the power of the work you do with your hands. The artwork you create, the message you share and what you choose to think about, makes a difference in the world. I hope you spend this wonderfull season surrounded by beautiful things. Appreciate the fragile beauty of a single bloom. Look at the petals and appreciate them as wonders of nature. The pansy that I have on my desk today is unlike any other pansy I have ever seen. I just need to notice it.  

Sending hugs and a message of peace all around. Do what you love dear friends. This is a beautiful world!