Workshop reviews

NOTAN - a workshop with Gwyneth Hibbett on Saturday 9th March, 2024.

‘Notan’ is a Japanese term that means “light-dark harmony”. It is a design concept that explores the relationship between flat areas of dark and light in an image, and how to arrange them in a pleasing way. In this workshop we will be using Notan with both lettering and designs, with a view to thinking about positive and negative space, and creating eye-catching calligraphic compositions.

On 25th November 2023 several lucky people enjoyed a workshop on how to bookbind a simple stab-bound sketchbook usner the guidance of Sharon Shaw.

We learned how to bind single sheets together for a collection of sketches and colour trials. We began with a simple four-hole Japanese style binding and then adapted the method to create more elaborate sewing patterns.

Dressed in her trademark colours of red, white and black, Rachel gave SLLA members a one day workshop on abstract designs and large letters using a flat brush. Starting with examples of her wonderful abstract designs, Rachel explained to participants how they would be using a minimal palette to create maximum effect in a piece of work.

The last SLLA workshop of 2018 was Monoline Lettering with Mark L’Argent. Mark gave us a demonstration in examples of basic Monoline compressed capitals. He explained how to achieve harmony in groups of letters and how to change the emphasis by moving crosslines on letters.