Pat Blair - Designing with Flourishes - Oct 12, 19, 26; Nov 2, 2026

Pointed pen flourishes provide a lovely way to add grace and ornament to letters, as well as in stand alone illustrations for ornament in so many ways! In this class, we will study them all!

First, we will take a close look at the flourish forms themselves, how to use the pressure of a pointed pen nib and the pull of the stroked to produce a simple but beautiful form. We will then learn how to add these elements to lower case letters, and how to use them to enhance your text. This will be followed by a study of capital forms, with variations of ascender, descender, beginning and exit strokes. We will learn to combine these forms into beautiful, cohesive designs, as one word focal points, or linking together as on an invitation.
Once we have this foundation, we will learn how and when to incorporate them into text. Using multiple line text samples, we will go from pencil draft to the final piece.
Rounding out the class will be a look at some stand alone illustrations, using the same pressure release technique as in our letter flourishes, that will blend beautifully with them on the page.