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November/December Workshop: Inner Garden Letters
with Marina Soria
November 7, 14, & 21, & December 5 & 12, 2026 (Saturdays)
TBD PDT
$150
Level: Intermediate/Advanced
Marina says: as an artist, I always return to the themes that inspire me. In
2019, I visited the gardens at Giverny. I had long admired
Monet’s work, especially the monumental paintings he created
later in life—works that, due to his failing eyesight, verge on
abstraction. That visit moved me deeply. I wrote a short poem
and created a body of work, including five artist’s books and
two limited editions, inspired by Monet’s gardens.
It is my intention to share with you this journey—my
experiments, discoveries, and reflections. After all, who among
us does not hold memories of a garden? A story recalled by
the scent of a flower? A real or imaginary place where we have
wandered? Isn’t a garden, in many ways, a metaphor for our
lives? Even Heaven is often imagined as a garden.
Together, we will explore the importance of text—how words
can carry emotions and moods—and how these can be
expressed through color, form, and design. We will study
nature to develop original alphabets, experiment with
watercolor, gouache, and pastels, and explore how stories can
come alive in the form of books or artworks. We will also play
with techniques such as paper cutting, abstraction, illustration,
and simple pop-up bindings.
Please join us on this creative journey, where calligraphy will
become a means of telling our stories.
Welcome to our inner garden!!!Information to come soon…
Past 5-day Workshops:
Exploring Italic
Instructor: Matt Wright
$140 USD Now available pre-recorded class for $119 USD
Learn Italic calligraphy with our expert-led course. Focus on letterform consistency and design elements, perfect for beginners and those enhancing their calligraphy skills. In this course you will learn to write Italic calligraphy. Italic script is an elegant and adaptable style typically written with a broad-edge pen. In addition to learning letterform consistency, you will also focus on elements of letter spacing and design which will help you develop a critical eye as well as a hand. This is a wonderful course for beginners or calligraphers looking to work on their fundamentals.
What you will learn:
Moving from skeletal from to broad-edged nib
Organizing and laying out text
Majuscules and flourishing
Maps! Maps! Maps!
Instructor: JP Panter
$150 USD Now available pre-recorded class for $127.50 USD
Being able to read and MAKE maps can greatly increase your understanding not only of this world & our surrounding cosmos, but it also introduces new skills for collecting & visually interpreting data, history, cultural mythology (and more!) as well as how to produce a range of artistic possibilities for professional lettering artists challenged with big projects; everything from a map that works with a wedding invitation suite, to natal horoscopes, genealogical research for family trees & migrations, military campaigns, cemetery markers, tourism, parks, gardens, museums, resorts, and more.
Cartography sits at the intersection of information and imagery, and this five-week class will be jam-packed and inspirational. We will explore the fundamentals of a select types of maps (thematic, pictorial, area, topographic, etc.) in each class specially aimed at studio artists who wants to broaden their scope of work for their clients. Students will be creating notes and samples by hand, looking at traditional map making methods (that can be later photographed and scanned to digital) to serve as a springboard for your future projects.