S as in Sarsaparilla

 A little filigree
initial with a few gold dots to delight your eyes during this holiday season.

These filigrees will be the subject of my next online course in English on January 22 & 23.

If you are interested, you will find more information here.

Merry Christmas

 It's that time of year so I'm sharing with you something quick made with liners, just to show that I'm thinking of you this time of year.

And if you don't find what you like under the tree, I've just updated the agenda with face-to-face classes as well as the list of online classes.

Blue circle

I had a leftover blue, so I took a piece of paper and filigree. The circle in the center  is about 2.5cm in diameter.

And I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you that there are still a few places left for the online course on filigree that will take place this weekend. During this course we will discuss the elements present in this little realization.

Information and registration on this page.

Online store

 I will not surprise you if I tell you that Christmas is coming. So I'll tell you that I just opened an online store on my website, you can find it here.

I have put some of my latest creations there, including this one:

And if you don't find what you're looking for, you can always contact me for a personalized commission. :-)

Chapels

 I have been neglecting you lately, I apologise.

I'm posting on social networks because it's quicker than describing my whole journey and taking the time to really address you here.

So a new message so that those who are not on those evil networks can see that I am still thinking of them.

These days I'm working on a commission from the town hall of Plouider, a small seaside town in Finistère.

I like this township, they plant a tree for each birth in the township and asked me to calligraph the children's names so that we can know which tree corresponds to whom. I did it last year and will do it again this year.

But today, it is another project: to calligraph 3 fragments of poems about the chapels and to put them around the Saint Fiacre chapel. The order is to do it on slate, it's up to me to choose how.

So I decided to use Art Nouveau lettering and acrylic paint on large 40x40cm slates. The advantage is that I will be able to use the same layout for the 3 poems and thus have a unity of treatment that I would have had more difficulty in obtaining with another writing.

Here is the first text, a french translation of Shakespeare.

And whilst I've got your attention, I'd like to talk about something completely different. I have been selected to participate in the Write on the Edge International Calligraphy Conference in Sonoma, USA, next summer, and as part of that I have just answered a number of questions about my practice. You can find the transcript of this conversation here. And if you want to register for the courses, you can find the description of my two contributions here and there.

Versals

 Apart from some filigreed initials, I'm not doing much at the moment, except adding material for my online course about puzzle versals.

Here are some examples of letters I'll be talking about during this course.

If you are interested, there are still a few places left :-)

info and registration link on this page.

Puzzled versals

 It is often difficult to find compositions to enhance a short sentence or a single word.

Luckily, there are solutions!

You are a star !

I'm offering a class on puzzle versals and how to use them for small compositions.

It will take place on November 13th & 14th, more information and registration on this page.

And don't forget, we are all stars!

Filigrees online course

 There are a few seats left for the next online course in English about filigrees on September 25th and 26th.

Information & registration there

If you speak French, there's another course on October 9th & 10th.

Swedish challenge

 For those of you who are not on instagram, I am currently participating in a little challenge launched by a group of Swedish women.

It's about calligraphy words or expressions in Swedish.

Here are my first realizations.

tindra which means "twinkle"

äntligen fredag which means "thanks god it's friday"

fika for "getting together over a cup of coffee"

Online filigree courses

i 'm doing a small series of filigree letters again, a little bigger than usual and with some gilded dots.

This is the occasion to announce 2 online courses on filigree.

The first one, in English, will take place on September 25 and 26, it is the first course of the series.

The second one, in French, will take place on October 9 and 10, 2021, it is called filigree 2 but can be taken without having done the first one, they are 2 courses of the same level.

You will find more information and links for registration on this page.

And I leave you with my last creations, have a nice sunday :-)

WIFI code & contest

 I have fun with lettering and after my supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, I wanted to do something else without really knowing what.

And then I thought that this kind of lettering, not necessarily easy to decipher, could be useful. You're tired of not remembering your passwords or your wifi code but you don't want to display them too obviously? I can write them down for you!

As an example, here is a wifi code containing 8 lowercase letters, 9 uppercase letters, 2 special characters, 4 numbers and 3 latin abbreviations.

The first person to give me the right transcription as a comment on my french blog (go to the bottom of the page : https://cutt.ly/6WrOP1X) will receive the original of this code as well as a small filigree letter with the initial of his choice.

And to help you even more, here is a version of the same code without the decoration.

need glasses ?

To answer this question, you can test yourself with this Monoyer chart (it's the french version of the Snellen chart) in Art Nouveau style.

As usual, I couldn't help but put filigrees on it

Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious

 In honor of World Calligraphy Day, a new version of the famous Mary Poppins word.

I should have chozen a shorter one, this one is difficult to show in one picture, here is a version cut in 2, a bit bigger. The actual size is 1.5cm for the letters.

Welcome

 Welcome to little Alexandre, born last week.

To celebrate his birth, a filigree initial with, for once, a bit of color.

Waiting for inspiration

Or rather, while waiting for things to become clearer in my head about my next composition, here are my morning scribbles.

Four little Payne's gray initials with their filigree. You've already seen dozens of them, but it's always nice, isn't it?

QWERTY

 After a first keyboard in the medieval style, here is a keyboard in NEULAND and embossing.

This time I only put the letters of the alphabet and not the other keys and besides, the letters are a little bit bigger than the embossed keys, keys which are not all the same size. :-)

The garden of delights

 I call it by this name because of the well-being it provides in exchange for the care we provide but it's just my garden.

Here is a calligraphic version in NEULAND variations which lists almost all the contents of the place.

And could I do it without filigrees?

Of course not, I even invented some new patterns for the occasion

And, for once, I put, not only color, but GREEN !!!!

Lots of different greens, mixed with red, blue, yellow, brown but still greens.

The scale is not always respected but the layouts and the general shape are.

Have had enough ?

Well, here it is again.

2 small filigree initials to announce an upcoming online course on the subject.

It will be on August 21 & 22, 2021, online and in English.

Registration here.

The letters are 2cm high, the A is in walnut stain, the C in watercolor and the dots are gilded with gold leaf.

ABC workshop

 I haven't posted anything on this blog for ages, too busy elsewhere.

Summer is here, time to make the workshop more visible for the tourist on the go.

I am open every Saturday morning from 9:30 am to 1 pm and at other times of the week, as soon as I am at work, the workshop is open.

You will have noticed that my taste for shimmering color mixes is becoming more and more pronounced with time.

Ionization

New version of the periodic table of elements. After a reinterpretation of the first version of the Mendeleïev table, this time I used a classification of the elements by energy of first ionization.

The abscissa of the graph is the atomic number (Z) and the ordinate the energy in electronvolt (eV).

Some elements are indicated by their symbol written on an embossed square, the others by a simple golden square with the atomic number in Roman numerals.

For the decoration, I used my small arched filigrees and a copy of the traces left by the disintegration of particles in the CERN collider.

Finally, I added some equations used in the field of ionization.

and here is the final result

22

 I was recently commissioned to do a street number in the Art Nouveau style and with my inevitable filigrees. I did the work on paper and with walnut ink, it will then be engraved, probably on metal by people with the necessary laser engraving equipment.

And while I'm on the subject of filigrees, I'd like to take this opportunity to announce a new (and final) online course in french on the subject on 22 & 23 May.

If you want to participate, you can register here.

Again...

 A new filigree initial, in the same style as the previous one. A D this time, still 3 cm high, still gold leaf, Payne grey for the letter and Prussian blue for the filigree.

I as in filigree

 I'm back to my obsession and present you with the latest one, a Payne grey initial I with a Prussian blue filigree and a few gold dots on the leaf.

And I'd like to take this opportunity to tell you that there are still a few places left for the Filigree 2 course in English on April 10th and 11th (registration and information here).

The letter is 3 centimetres high, a little bit more than my usual small initials.

Evening gold

 Personal interpretation of the first lines of the novel Vol de Nuit by Antoine de Saint Exupéry, in Art Nouveau lettering, watercolour and gilding on paper.