Jacqueline Sullivan

What I love about teaching is seeing the students take my techniques and apply them in their own unique way to their own Artwork.

This is a Gesso Technique on Muslin with Thread Calligraphy added. Artist: Nancy Kazlauckas

I taught last summer at Calligraphy Connection International Calligraphy Conference at St. John’s College in Minnesota. One of my students, Nancy Kazlauckas is a fabric artist. She does “Thread Calligraphy”. lettering with her Bernina sewing machine. She took the techniques from my “Glorious Papers” class and used them on canvas and muslin. Then she took them home and did her magic with “Thread Calligraphy”. Here is a photo of one of the pages of a book that she made. To see more go to: http://www.berninausablog.com/insp. Scroll to the December 30 entry by Nancy Kaziauckas – “Thread Callligraphy”. Thanks, Nancy for posting this!!!

In October, my friend, Wendy C. invited a group of us to once again come to her sign shop and do some sand blasting. Without much available time to prepare, I went shopping at HomeGoods for something to blast. I found this beautiful vase there. Then I went to the studio and wrote the word “Inspire” several times with a Parallel Pen. I chose the one that I liked the best.

When I got to Wendy’s sign shop, she scanned the word into her computer and sent it to the “printer” that cut out the masking film. Then I applied the film to the vase and masked out the rest of the vase with other film. We put it in the booth of the sandblaster and blasted away.  Wendy cut two masks out so I was able to do both sides! I was surprised at how well it turned out!

I was pleased to win an award for it in the November exhibit for Michigan Association of Calligraphers!  It was great fun to do and I am looking forward to the next time Wnedy asks us back. I am planning a calligraphic fixture for over my dining room table!!!

Boy, I’ve really neglected this blog! I think about it a lot, but never quite get to it…. So, It’s a New Year, and here’s hoping I get a little better at it!

I recently wrote out some of my favorite ways Yahoo Group for Calligraphers. I thought that since I had taken the time to write it out, I might as well take advantage and post it here.

My design quotes for students.

When explaining to people about how to choose colors to START painting with, I tell them: “If you wouldn’t put it on your body together, don’t put it on your canvas together”.

Also,
“START painting with somewhat analogous colors. Try to stay with colors that are within one quadrant of the color wheel. DO NOT cross
the color wheel until you are ready to define a focal point”.

When building a collage: Start with your 3 main pieces. small medium
and large. Get them placed and then build around them.

I define “Ephemera, strings, beads, metal pieces, even small gilded
areas as jewelry”. When outfitting ourselves for a special occasion,
the jewelry is usually the last thing we buy. So, I tell students, get
the dress first , the dress being the largest piece of the collage.
Then add the shoes, scarf, etc. The jewelry is the last thing we do.
Add the Ephemera (jewelry) last, and keep it small and focused.

How to decide if something belongs on a collage or not: Put it where
you think you want it. Study it for a moment. Take it away and study
the piece without it. IF you feel a “sense of loss” when the piece is not there, it should be there”. If you don’t “feel” like something is missing, it should not have been there to begin with.”

These thoughts may not apply in all aspects of art, but I find them
helpful to speak to students in trying to teach design. People are often
more visual than they often realize and these phrases, I hope, help
people to “tap into” their own visual sense. When I start talking
about principles and elements of design, people start yawning, so I
try to tell them in a way that is, perhaps a bit more humorous but
helps people realize that they are designing everyday in many ways.

My other phrase, when talking about “direction” which I feel is VERY
important in calligraphic works is “Draw a roadmap for the eye of the
viewer”, send them where you want them to go (focal point, next page
in a book, etc.) Lines of written words, flourishes, ascenders,
descenders, etc, are all very directional. When you are making
decisions about extending ascenders, descenders,etc. or making a
flourish at the end of a paragraph, etc, they can become arrows for
your viewer and it is important to be aware of how they are placed in
a work.

So, those are my favorite design “Quotes”, hopefully they will help others to make good design decisions.

Gosh! I just spent an amazing couple of hours in my studio! I was painting papers in “layers”. I would then scrape through the layers and expose some of the marks and colors from a previous layer, which I had let dry! I had my Ipod on – playing Aaron Copeland and I was dancing and brushing away – working hard at trying to get rhythmic strokes that will be repeated later with a line or two of calligraphy written over these layers of paint. Hope it works out to look something like what is in my head

As I was working and having such a great time, I was wondering, why on earth am I not doing this more often? It took me most of the day to decide what I was going to do and to get myself actually into the studio! Why am I so resistant to getting started?

While cleaning up I found these words, I think that I need them emblazoned on my brain somehow – or maybe I can project them very large somewhere where I can see them constantly!

How You Can Cultivate Creativity

by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

Try to be inspired by something every day.

Try to inspire at least one person every day.

Write down each day what surprised you and how you surprised others.

When something strikes a spark of interest, follow it.

Wake up in the morning with a specific goal to look forward to.

If you do anything well, it becomes enjoyable.

To keep enjoying something, you need to increase its complexity.

Take charge of your schedule.

Make time for reflection and relaxation.

Shape your space.

Find out what you like and what you hate about life.

Start doing more of what you love, less of what you hate.

Develop what you lack.

Shift often from openness to closure.

Find a way to express what moves you.

Look at problems from as many viewpoints as possible.

Figure out the implications of the problem.

Implement the solution.

Produce as many ideas as possible.

Try to produce unlikely ideas.

This is the type of papers I was creating. I worked on sheets that are 40″ long. The plan is to make it into an accordion book.

I gave a presentation on brush lettering last night for the Michigan Association of Calligraphers. This was the Spring meeting for this association, my “home” guild. We only meet four times per year. It was fun to be the presenter, even though I was well aware that there were many people in the room who were probably better at brush lettering than I was! But the absolute coolest thing was the system that our prez, Diane Stum Fekete and programs chair , Gail McGuire came up with to project my demo onto the big screen.

They used a Video camera plugged into a digital projector. The camera took the picture and the projector projected it. Everyone in the room (approx. 40 people) could follow along with what I was doing at my table! It was pretty amazing as well as exciting for us as an organization. This means that we can have more lettering demos at meetings, because now everyone in the room can see what the person upfront is doing! I was “wowed” by the whole idea! Here is a pic of me lettering with Diane looking over my shoulder – making sure that I kept everything in “view” of the camera!

Also in Portland at Collage was my Layers upon Layers class. In this class students built a collage on a stretched canvas. The canvas was covered with aluminum foil which was then painted to look something like “old metal”. Then molding paste was layer over the aluminum. Some students put images on the first layer coming out from under the pieces of aluminum foil. After the molding paste was applied, images were mounted onto binders board. Designs were stenciled in molding paste around the images. All of the molding paste was then painted. Some of the images were “antiqued” with a glaze made from fluid acrylics. The binders board with the images on were then glued to foam core and then glued to the canvas. In some cases, beads were hung from these dimensional layers. The collages done in the class were really striking and here are a few photos of them.

I will be teaching this same class in March at The Artist’s Nook in Northern Colorado. Hope to see you there!

I taught a couple of weeks ago at Green Heron Book Arts in Forest Grove. One of the classes that I taught was “The Meander Book” . Students in this class painted tissue and layered it on boards to form small 5″ s 5″ collages. These small collages – 32 of them – were then assembled into a “Meander Book”. A fun, sculptural book which can be arrange in many different ways – ever changing art!

Aren't the colors wonderful?

I returned on Monday from a teaching trip to Portland. It was a joy, as always, to see my friends from Portland! My gracious hostess, Alesia Zorn was fun and always willing to help me shop creatively in this wonderful creative town!

One of the classes I taught at Collage was my Textured Journal Class. Students were amazed that they could build this book in three hours! They all did wonderful books, the depth of the color on the covers doesn’t show so well in the photos, but trust me, the colors were deep and rich and the textures just made you want to touch these beautiful books.

I will be teaching this class again next month in Bellvue, Colorado at The Artist’s Nook.

Come join us if you can!

I had the honor and privilege of teaching for The Chicago Calligraphy Collective last November! It is always a treat to see my Chicago friends in letters, yet always sort of scary to think that they would hire me to come and teach them – they are all SO incredibly talented. But we all had a great time and fabulous art was produced. These photos are some samples of their class work. I am sorry that I do not know whose work it is, but if you see your work here – please post a comment and tell us that it is yours!

Metal Etching and Patinas

I FINALLY DID IT! Have been meaning for quite a while now to open an Etsy shop for my hand made cards and smaller collages! And today, staying home in the cold weather, I scanned a bunch of stuff and posted it. You can see the stuff at http://www.jacisull.etsy.com. I have more stuff in the works so check back often!

4" x 6" collage in 8" x 10" mat