NICOLE GALINATO

Excerpts from a Jazz jam session.

So I've known how to do calligraphy since 6th grade, and I come back to it every once in a while for occasions like greeting cards and invitations. Recently I had two birthdays to give (super cool fancy pop up) cards for and I thought I'd customize the envelopes nicely to make the effort feel more sincere. Since I don't practice calligraphy all the time, it takes some time for me to plan out things to make them look consistent, balanced and evenly spaced. In this case, I also came up with doing an ornate drop cap for each name while testing out the look with gold ink via trusty gel pen.  I then wrote out each name in the appropriate size in dark ink to trace out on the front of each envelope so I could go over each letter in gold with pen since I don't have gold calligraphy ink.   Starting with the space around the first letter, I lightly drew in the embellishment in pencil. Then I went over the outside border in silver gel pen as an accent to match the sil

It's been a while since I've sketched in general, but more so with nature and plant life. A trip to my local bayside park brought me some kite flying and tree sketching. I've always been intimidated by drawing landscapes and flora because I get caught up in all the details trying to match the textures on a minuscule level, but I took my sweet sweet time breaking this one down because the shape of this tree was so dynamic.