Many years had gone by since I had taken a weekend workshop offered by a regional calligraphy guild. But when I saw the work a friend had done in a class taught by Rebecca Wild of Port Townsend, I eagerly signed up for the next one Rebecca was teaching in our area. It was held in Olympia, WA, in late January and sponsored by Nib 'N Inks calligraphy guild.

Rebecca ingeniously devised a series of projects for us based on the artistic imagery and painterly textures of 19th/20th c. painter Paul Klee. As you can see below, we worked in a 5" square format while employing calligraphic marks, layers of powdered pastel and/or liquid acrylic color, debossed texture, and small hand-lettered writing. Layers were sealed with acrylic matte medium before more texture elements were applied. 

Bold and finer sumi-e ink strokes taken from our own signature form the anchor elements here. Powdered pastel and stenciled shapes were added next.

After masking off one band of space on the paper, broad strokes of transparent acrylic color went on next. We then debossed fine designs which were then enhanced by smudging pastel into the paper and through hand cut stencils.

Working boldly with a new material, we applied heavy black oil stick after painting diluted acrylic strokes onto the paper. After tinting cold wax with powdered pastel, we thinly applied it to the paper. The last step was to use a tool to inscribe through the tinted wax for a subtle text.

For further biographical information about Paul Klée through a comprehensive, interactive web page, please visit https://www.davidzwirner.com/artists/paul-klee.

It was pure pleasure to spend two days experimenting with new art mediums and design approaches. Rebecca hands out step-by-step instructions for all the techniques she uses; there are so many, with carefully thought-out sequencing, that we were advised to keep the directions on hand when using her techniques at home! She gets my highest recommendation as an instructor.