Moving Right Along

Trust me, it's been killing me not to update.  I've been taking lots of pictures and had so much to share but.... you know how it goes: busy, busy, busy.

So here's what's been going on in Calligraphy:

My summer order has been trickling in slowly, but surely.  Not necessarily in order of importance, unfortunately.  I got the "Calligraphy Kit" boxes and some felt tip pens.  Each student has a cubby (there's an "A" and a "B" cubby, each with 10 shelves.  To make room for everybody they have to share, so if a student is assignmed A4R, they are cubby A, shelf 4, on the Left side.

I had my T.A. label all the boxes with masking tape and a Sharpie, then label the markers.  Hopefully this will encourage streamlined materials get out/put away and avoid thievery (hopefully).

 

We've been continuing our warm-up sketches each day, some are prompts, where they create letters/words inspired by my prompt, sometimes they copy alphabets from a hand-out.

In the last couple of weeks our hand-out drawings have been:

Hand Outs: 

Decorative Signage

Tattoo Letters ~I had them copy this alphabet then design a tattoo with them.

Prompts:

Letters with Shadows                                                 "Newport Harbor" Backwards

Doodles Behind Letters                                              Lizard Letters

The students were also responsible for a homework assignment in their Composition Books.  So far we've done three:

#1.  Collage of Letters

#2. Connected Signatures

 #3. Number Cluster

In class, since we're still waiting for or nib sets and ink, I gave a lecture on the History of Writing (see last entry)

 I had them practice a basic Roman Alphabet in their Composition Books, then write the Pledge of Allegiance in the same font.













Next, we had a lesson on the History of Writing Tools using this Power Point.

Luckily, I had some extra feathers on hand from my Crafts Class to make Quill Pens.  I just used a box cutter to slice off the tip of the feather at an angle, then used scissors to cut a small slit at the tip.  I did have SOME ink, and some baby food jars that I had saved from when my kids were babies, so I made a few jars of ink for them to use.  

First, they just practiced with the Feather Quill:

 Then I let them use a pen with a plastic handle and steel nib (I had some of those on hand from YEARS ago), and had them write the Gettysburg Address.  I wanted them to write a document that had originally bee written with a Quill Pen.

Next on the agenda: Contour Letters