A ruling pen workshop to rule them all

Join the ruling pen workshop

The key things you need to know about the upcoming ruling pen workshop with Rachel Yallop & Michael Clark:

• 15 & 16 October 2016, 9.30 - 4.30
• The Village Hall, Rectory Lane, Cradley, Malvern WR13 5LH
• £120 including lunches and evening reception on Friday 14 October
• Contact rachel.yallop@btopenworld.com to book your place

Rachel and Michael come from different calligraphic cultures/backgrounds yet ascribe to very similar beliefs about design, colour and order. This workshop is a challenge to break down your ideas to their basic components and then build them back up, based on the need to engage and educate the viewer. Michael and Rachel are capable of both the restrained and the outrageous, but in their joint designs, it sometimes requires one, or the other, to seek out the subtle while the other responds with the riotous. In this workshop there will be a thorough exploration of the ruling pen that each teacher has spent their careers trying to master: and their ability to paint different moods and emotions.

The ruling pen, for us, is the most expressive tool we have at hand. Unlike many of the tools in our arsenal that have specific purposes, the ruling pen requires you to determine what it will ultimately produce. The results can be as idiosyncratic as the wielder. It is capable of everything from explosive and brutal to delicate and subtle, traditional or contemporary. In our case we have always treated words done with the ruling pen as a process, both directed intentions, and skeletal forms that can be amended. The exciting thing is that success is nothing more than a string of failures that finally pay off. If you look at lettering in this fashion, always with your eyes on the process and not the finished product, fear disappears and learning begins. With the ruling pen this is extremely important. Each venture provides valuable insight into its potential.

This class will explore the myriad possibilities of the ruling pen’s “line” and begin with familiarising the student with the tool(s). We will move on to honing handling skills and then to working with expressive “words”. From there the class will work with word groups and alphabetic compositions and ultimately page texture experiments. A group project will be incorporated into the workshop ... a collaborative effort to ‘affect a phrase’; this exercise will bring home the concept that first stroke down informs all subsequent decisions. This class is about experimentation and learning without judgment. The ruling pen is we think the most individualistic tool available.

About your teachers

Rachel and Michael have many years teaching experience, both internationally and at home. Rachel Yallop has pursued a freelance career specialising in creative and expressive calligraphy for 30 years. Her love of letters stems from a lifelong passion for drawing, with her original works exploring form, space, tension and freedom of line. Rachel is a Founder Member and past Chairman of Letter Exchange and an Honoured Fellow of CLAS.

Michael Clark is a commercial lettering artist and font designer who resides in Virginia, USA. Two of his fonts won international awards and he has been featured twice in Letter Arts Review. His work is a mix of traditional and contemporary lettering for book covers, logos, CD covers and titling for magazines and printed ephemera and the web.

The venue: The Village Hall, Malvern

The Village Hall is a beautiful 16th century building close to the church in the picturesque village of Cradley. It lies to the west of the stunning Malvern Hills and is just five miles from the spa town of Malvern itself. Malvern can be reached easily by road and rail.

For booking and accommodation information contact Rachel at rachel.yallop@btopenworld.com