Meeting Minutes 13 October 2026

 Meeting Minutes 13 Oct 2026

Gilding 101 with Kathy Sullivan

17 were present-3 guests (Lisa Nowlak, Jeff Aleman, Leslie Gilbert)

 

Announcements:

**The 2027 Fundraising Calendars are in and selling for $20.  

**Reminder- the Guild Retreat is set for Jun 27, 2027 at the Hideaway in Monument.  Member’s cost is $475 for food/lodging/class-Big Bad Brush by Mike Gold.  Registration forms are available.

**The senior Center is having a big sale in the spring to benefit their organization.  Jacque encouraged us to think of them when cleaning out our art supplies.  

**Kathy S and Nancy penned about 60 bookmarks at the McAllister House Museum recently.

**Nancy will be teaching a couple classes on simple journal making at Cheyenne Mountain State Park.

 

 

Show & Share:

**Jacque had a number of lovely watercolors see did thru classes at the Senior Center. 

**Kristi brought examples of gilded leaves decorating 2poems she lettered.

**Nancy had a lovely versal ‘Happy Birthday’ card she planned to have printed along with an example of the type of journals she plans to demonstrate using old folders for the cover. 

**Cheryl had an almost complete little book made up of lettering on one side and a drawn and colored/painted owl on the opposite side.  Super cute.

 

 

Evening Presentation:

**Kathy began our meeting instructing us on how to apply the Permacol she had in addition to any instacol we may have brought with us.  We were to wet our synthetic brush, push a blob of adhesive around a small penciled square, reminding us our tables needed to be flat- and cautioned us to go slow so we didn’t create air bubbles.  This needed to dry a bit before we could apply the gold. She explained the best papers to use-hot pressed water color paper 140# or better- the smoother, the better- and the kinds of adhesive that works well with real gold leaf, and what works well with fake gold leaf.  She had little squares of trials she experimented with to see the best combinations of adhesive, gold, and paper for herself.  She even tried her hand at making her own gesso, but didn’t find that it worked really well. In the end, she said instacol works with anything-any medium like wood, paper, velum, and with any leaf-real or fake. It was a truly informative and helpful session.

    

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Meeting Minutes 8 Sept 2026

 Meeting Minutes 8 Sept 2026

Funky Versals with Kimmi Brown

16 were present

 

Welcome & Announcements:

**Cyndi said she was havening issues with finding an on-line company to print the calendars- appears the ones others have sued no longer do them.  She is working with a local printer to get them done.

**The Procreate Workshop will be held this Saturday from 9-4- cost is $75.  Kathy Sullivan will be teaching it at Candy’s house.  Contact Kathy for detailed devices to have with you. 

**Reservations for the retreat are now open.  Registration forms and fliers are available.  A deposit of $200 will secure your spot with Mike Gold who will be presenting Big Bad Brush in June.  We will open registrations to outsiders on Feb 1, 2027.

**We will plan to discuss adopting Venmo or the like for on-line payments in the future. 

**The new Speedball Textbook is available at John Neal!

**Tom informed us that the Institute for Catholic Culture is a free on-line class for art and art history.

 

Show & Share:

**Nancy brought a scroll she made for her SS class as an example of what we could do for a project.  She also brought a piece she lettered in Dutch Fractur as an on-line student with her guild in Seattle.

Cecelia had her usual array of beautiful work she is doing in Mike Gold’s on-line class.

**Candy brought her homework assignment ‘Crashing Onward’ for Cecelia’s class.

**Tom brought 2 pages of Proverbs 21.

**Jim brought a variety of marbled papers he did in a class he took in Italy!

 

 

Evening Presentation:

**Kimmi had a large book full of old Illuminated letters based mostly on Romans, but ‘fattened up’ to add illustrations inside and around the letter.  She highlighted a few that seemed a bit ‘Funky”- 4 fish positioned to look like a capital E, a dead wolf in the middle of a capital V, and the like to inspire our creative conscious. We were to design a versal, cut it out, and embellish it with a variety of papers/ cutouts, or designs to then add to a quote we brought.  

 

 

 

 

 Meeting Minutes 15 July 2026

Lombardic Letters with Kristi Lyons

18 were present- 1 guests

 

Welcome & Announcements:

**Christie Lee will be hosting our annual picnic in August at 6 :00. This will be a traditional potluck.

**We welcomed Ellen Gorrell who came as a result of meeting someone at Territory Days!

**Kathy Sullivan will teach a one-day workshop exploring Procreate for $75.00 from 9-4 on Sept 12.

**Mike Gold will be our ‘Big Bad Brush’ instructor for our Guild retreat Jun 24-27, 2027 at The Hide Away. Printed fliers were available at the meeting and digital fliers in the eDigest. The cost for 3 nights,8 meals, and instructor will be $475 for members and $525 for non-members.

**Kathy and Nancy plan to letter at the McAllister House in Sept as a community outreach. 

 

Show & Share:

**Tom was asked to write a dedication in the Book of the Gospels for St. Michael’s Episcopal Church. He used gouache and stick ink and he burnished a gold ink from Japan for the cross.

**Kimmi brought her 4”x4” travel journal from her recent trip to Iceland!

**Cyndi used Procreate to meld the back ground and photo of an original 11x14 piece she did in Italic.

**Cecelia had a variety of pieces she did in Mike Gold’s on-line class.

**Nancy’s work is featured in a book that was illustrated by someone else.  The book is currently in the running for an award!

 

 

Evening Presentation:

**Kristi had several pages of examples of Lombardic letters and did a terrific job giving a brief history before explaining how to draw ones she chose for us. Lombardic letters come in all kinds of varieties mostly used as illuminated letters. Gothic/Black Letter or foundational minuscules go well with the chunky, Uncial-like caps. The terminology she came up with to explain curves and letter positions was anything but standard.  It was a tricky hand to teach.  She encouraged us to look at Pinterest for additional ideas. 

Meeting Minutes 14 April 2026

 Meeting began and ended with no water in the building. Candy called maintenance and he restored it. 

Meanwhile, Candy found that in our locked cupboard all the A/V equipment was missing and replaced with artificial flowers. A concerning puzzle and conundrum. Maintenance also puzzled and went looking for the equipment.

We worked on “Plan B” since Sherry Weaver couldn’t demonstrate the planned presentation of copperplate lettering. It was decided to postpone it until June.

Wonderful Good News just as we were bailing on Sherry teaching… Maintenance arrived with bags with our A/V equipment. All intact and nothing harmed yet the puzzle remains as to how, why, and who moved our things.

VISITOR:  Aaron, who came for the first time at the last meeting, brought a friend, Mickey Howard (mcakes15@gmail.com). Both enthusiastically tried the new skills at the meeting. Aaron plans to invite his tattoo artist friends because “they need to learn these skills.”

ANNOUNCEMENTS:

CALENDAR: Candy reminded us about our calendar deadline and size (8x10 vertical). All entries should come to one of the next meetings (May-July). Voting will be at the August meeting for our favorites. Cyndi will scan them. Discussion questions about whether larger art is ok. Kathy Sullivan said she can scan larger for reduction if needed.

SERVICE PROJECT: Nancy Anderson shared about a Memorial Day weekend service opportunity that we have done before for Territory Days in Old Colorado City at the museum. It is early this year: May 23, 24, & 25. A sign-up sheet was passed with 3 of 6 positions signed up for. It will be presented at the May meeting also. The service project is making bookmarks in any style you prefer. Bring your own supplies.

PROCREATE WORKSHOP: Kathy Sullivan shared about her teaching day on using Procreate using an ipad and pressure sensitive tool. It is in our email news. It will be Sat. September 12^th at Candy’s house. The cost is $75. Before the workshop you must buy Procreate. It will be very helpful to use the demo programs that Procreate offers before the workshop so that you know the basics.

Sherrie Weaver is offering to host an envelope exchange.  Please let her know if you are interested in participating.

HOMEWORK: write your name in Spencerian (see photos)

Nancy Anderson: experimented with all her pointed pen nibs using Spencerian

Also sharing homework was Anne Dye and Jackie Thayer

SHOW AND SHARE (see photos)

Tom finished Proverbs 19

Someone (?) shared glass candle lids available for unique projects

Nel shared work done using the recent workshop skills

Candy showed a book she made with jelly prints and other creative art

Aaron shared his line art designs of flowers

Shery Weaver presented Copperplate lowercase lettering

Meeting Minutes 10 March 2026

 Meeting Minutes 10 Mar 2026

Pointed Pen-Spencerian Caps with TJ

18 were present-including 2 guests

 

Welcome & Announcements:

**We welcomed 2 new guests, Aaron Ruchala who is a budding tattoo artist interested in lettering, and Breanna Hopkins, who found us when Nancy told her about us when she was lettering bookmarks at The Mining Museum.

**We were reminded our annual dues of $30.00 were to be paid in February.

**The calendar contest is on!  Design an 8x10 vertical piece (or pieces) and turn it (them) into a Board Member.  We will decide at our annual picnic in August. 

**Nancy (Service Chair) reported her lettering bookmarks at the Mining Museum was well received!  She made up watercolor using actual minerals and gave each person the choice of color/mineral for her to letter their name. 

 

Show & Share:

**Jacque brought an envelope she lettered and a few watercolors she’d done.

**Kristi lettered a number of envelopes.

**Tom finished Proverbs 18:1-20 and had copy work for a thank you he was designing for a woman named ‘Sharon’.  

**Nell brought a Bible quote with a color pencil/watercolor background as well as a few pages in a journal she worked on.

**Kathy painted 2 small ‘Saint’ pieces for small mats she already had.

**Cecelia brought a sink art piece with drawn letters from the class she’s teaching in her home.  She recently discovered the small Copic markers she used to design a word collage.

**Nancy brought her winter homework-a poem she wrote in resist and with a watercolor background, and flourishes she learned from IAMPETH. 

**Jessica brought the very first envelope she ever lettered!

**David designed 2 name plaques for his kids- ‘Isaiah’, due next month, and ‘Lucille’.

**TJ showed the video Daniella sent her as homework from Dresden, Germany as well as her still, and a papyrus book she brought back from Egypt.  

 

Evening Presentation:

**TJ gave a brief history of the Spencerian Script designed in the early 1800’s by Platt Rogers Spencer as a quickly written cursive handwriting.  She explained the difference between Copperplate, Roundhand, and Engrosser’s Script with visual examples of each.  She explained how to properly hold the obliques holder in the crook of your hand and how to create the heavy shade at the bottom of each stem stroke.  We traced the basics with a pencil, and she encouraged us to have a good understanding of the forms before dipping our pens in ink!