This year we have been gifted with great lectures from Michael Sull, Della Hutchison and now Heather Held. We are a very fortunate guild to have time and attention from these great historians of our craft as well as gentle sharers of knowledge and wisdom.
Heather gave us an overview of the origins and history of the Italian hand, reaching way back to the 1500's and right up to 1914, when the lowercase ceased to be used and the hand disappeared. It is a gentle and kind script, forgiving and forever creative. She then took us through an exercise on the lower case.
A fellow member shared her evening experience this way: This was an excellent program. Heather wowed all of us years ago with a hands on half-day program on a Saturday when she taught large monogram pointed pen caps - all decorated. We had at least 30 to 40 participants. I went on to make a small ornamented monogram for a friend using her initials, J and L. We applied a highly reflective gold watercolor in combination with colored pencil work. I was happy with the results.
Heather has really grown into her art and is so accomplished, as well as being a good teacher. Thanks for all of your work in the planning and taking care of all of the myriad details so that we could all have an interesting learning experience. I appreciate having the handouts as well. This seems like such an easy approach to this style. I like the idea of the "forgiving nature" element that Heather introduced. And, I will most likely take a straight holder and suggested nibs along for practicing a bit on vacation.
If you have images from the program that you would like to share, please visit our Padlet (member link found in our Members Only pages).