Attended an amazing workshop led by renowned calligrapher Yves Leterme from Bruges.  How lucky were we?
The workshop was, 'David and Goliath - a Calligraphy Workshop on Contrast in Size'.
I learnt so much from Yves.  He was generous with his time, knowledge and his expertise.  It was gratifying to me that he praised my calligraphy.  Such a boost to my confidence.

I have managed to do a few more prints at home.  It is the usual - not enough time. 

What a wonderful course run by the fabulous Michael Burke. 
The first day was dedicated to making traditional paste papers. These are the ones that can be found in books that are centuries old.
Paste papers are made by mixing pigments (dry, tempera, acrylic, ...) into a paste made from flour, starches of other kinds, or more modern materials such as methylcellulose. Patterns can be made by brush strokes,  stamps, rollers, combs or any combination of these to make designs in the paper and let it dry.
One of the distinctive qualities of paste paper is the rich 3-dimensional patterns and designs.
The people best known for their paste paper were the Moravians from Hernnhut, East Saxony, in Germany. The early paste papers were monochromatic and the two most common colors were burnt sienna and indigo blue.
So this is what we used, trying to reproduce the beautiful papers from that time.
The first day we tried to reproduce the traditional patterns.

The next day we ventured out into modern acrylic colours and less traditional designs. 

In the first week of January I attended a five day workshop on printing.  Under the expert tutelage of Jo Hollier we explore dry etching, collographs and for light relief gelli printing.  It was a great week.  Exhausting but fun and informative.  This was something very new for me like I need another hobby.  I am now definitely addicted.  Now I need a printing press!

This is a book made from Manilla Folder.  It is in an accordion style.  Thank you to Carol for showing me this structure. I forgot how to finish it so I this is my own version.
I have used eco-prints for the covers.  It makes a lovely little book of approximately 15cm x 8cm.

How much fun is this?  I have made number 34 on the Top 50 Calligraphy blog list.  It is advertised as a comprehensive list of best Calligraphy blogs on the internet and I’m honoured and quite amazed to be part of it. 
https://blog.feedspot.com/calligraphy_blogs/

Each year the Canberra Craft Bookbinders' Guild put out a challenge to all members.  This year the challenge was to make a wordless book.  This was a challenge to me as my definition of a book (especially with my calligraphy background), has words or has been made to write in.  The most obvious answer to this challenge was to have blank pages but that seemed a little easy and did not hold much interest for me.  Next was to utilize the pages of lovely eco prints I have stored away but I had done that before and so not a challenge to me although it would fit the criteria. 
It was when I thought of my topic for this book that I made one page then another and it just grew and grew until one day after 48 pages I said 'that's enough!'  I thoroughly enjoyed making marks, embossing, folding paper and sewing into and onto pages.  I called the book 'My Place' and it is my interpretation of what is in my life and in the Canberra that I know.

Another fabulous workshop from Olive Bull.  What a wonderful tutor she is.  A  great weekend was had by all the participants in Olive Bull's workshop on ruling and folding pens.  Olive is repeating the workshop today and tomorrow!  What a dynamo!
Day one saw us using ruling pens exclusively.  Learning how to use the pen correctly was an interesting exercise for more than one of us.  Olive very generously allowed us to use her very special pens including the gold plated Brody pen.  Many envious calligraphers would have like to take it home with them.
To my disappointment I never did get that beautiful, gestural SPLASH across the page. More practice required.

Day two of the weekend workshop saw us exploring Folded Pens.  Olive had very generously made four pens for each of us, donating Frank Bull’s bamboo garden stakes for one of them.  Thanks Frank!
Many of the participants’ heads were still buzzing from the Ruling Pen’s workshop of the previous day where most of us had learnt many new skills.  Surely, we thought, Olive would agree that we had all worked very hard and allow us a quiet, easy day.  But NO! This day was just as full on, with Olive cajoling, encouraging and spurring us on.  Thank you, Olive, for being so generous with your time, resources and equipment including the very precious Brody pen.
We started the day making marks with the four pens Olive had made us.  These included a bottle top pen, a clarinet reed pen and two pens that rival the Luthis pens.  There was a general agreement that the best marks were made on the layout paper and couldn’t be reproduced on ‘proper” paper.  Isn’t that always the way? 
Next was using our folding pen of choice and scribing a word (taken from a quote) in large letters in the middle of a page.  This word was then surrounded by the rest of the quote in smaller letters.  This David and Goliath layout was very effective for showcasing expressive folded pen lettering. 
We moved on to developing our very own alphabet.  This is a challenging exercise and I think that I unintentionally ‘made up’ an alphabet that looked suspiciously like some other alphabets I have seen.  We then used these letters to write a quote of our choice to see how the letters fitted together or if some adjustments needed to be made to the letterforms.
Just when I thought we might have a lull we were actively encouraged to experiment with either the ruling pens or the folded pens or both together to produce pieces and patterns with or without colour.
Then it was “clear the decks!” and time to turn all these examples into a Japanese style book.  I used paper that I had marbled previously.  I think that it looks rather nice.
To Olive’s credit all but one person finished their book for the final display.  What an achievement!  And how lovely to have a resource that can be used and referred to as well as potentially being added to in the future.
Thank you, Olive, for another memorable workshop.

Time well spent preparing for my workshop on Embossing.  It is quite hard to photograph embossing to make it stand out as it should.  I hope that all of the participants enjoy embossing as much as I do.