Postcards in the Air : 2026

Friday, January 16, 2026

A RAINY OR SNOWY DAY CHALLENGE

"A" by M. Slavin

Today is January 16th.

Half of the month gone already.

January used to be the month to slow down after the holiday rush.

No more.

Take a deep breath.

Have you ever looked carefully at an illuminated manuscript from the Middle Ages? Using some of the techniques mastered by the monks from the Middle Ages might help to slow down the world around us.

Lindesfarne Manuscript

The monks who created these pages were early graphic designers who filled every inch of the page. They drew intricate, fascinating designs including patterns such as Celtic Knots, natural objects such as leaves, flowers, fanciful humans and animals, and often some gilding to make some areas of the design pop out. They made woven patterns such as the Celtic Knots that seem easy to draw until you try one.

This past year in calligraphy circles, the works of these monks and more modern monks such as Father Catish are trending. People are learning alphabets from the Lindesfarne Manuscript. Others work on filling the spaces inside and around a single letter with the same kind of fantastical designs on an illuminated manuscript. The monks spent hours each day bent over their work. We could learn something from this slow process.

To start, try making Celtic Knots. The knots take some concentration to master. Supplies are easy. You will need a piece of graph paper with at least ¼ inch squares, a pencil, an eraser, and patience. I learned how to do these knots from Friends of Calligraphy members, Sara Lewis Cortes and Sara Loesch-Frank. I am still working on mastering the process.

First, you need to make a square. Place four dots on a line that is two squares from the top and two squares from the left side. Place the dots on every other vertical line. Do the same on each side and on the bottom line of the square. (1)

Then add four dots in the center of the square. (2)

Then add dots on the alternating lines within the square so that every cross section has a dot. (3)

Draw diagonal, parallel lines between the dots. (4)

Continue to draw the parallel lines so that they weave over and under each other. (5)

Round off the corners at the edges of the square. (6)

Clean the drawing up and add color. (7)

Once you've mastered the square, expand your Celtic Knots so they form a border. Watch out for the inside corners.

A friend sent me an example of another design often found in the manuscripts. The design is called a Triskele Triple Spiral and can be found in times and cultures long before the monks started working on their pages. The design, again, looks simple. The best way to learn is to watch Clarissa Grandi's YouTube demonstration of the technique. (Look for the link at the end of this post.) This is what a Triskele Triple Spiral looks like. (image is from the internet. I'm waiting for a rainy day.)

Dover Publishers produce copyright-free books of designs. One amazing book is Decorative Alphabets and Initials, which has samples of alphabets dating back as early as the 8th century. The cover is full of the complicated designs. Some of the patterns around each letter remind me of Zentangles, a form of doodling.

Doodles similar to Zentangle squares

To make an alphabet or just one letter, find a capital letter on the internet, in a book, or magazine. Make a copy of the letter. Surround the letter with either a circle or square shape. Use tracing paper to create your design. Once you find one that you are happy with, you can create notecards or postcards easily to send to friends.

A simplified letter colored with watercolor pencils

Try one of these techniques and see if they help slow you down.

Have fun!

******************

Watch Clarissa Granti's YouTube demonstration on how to make a Triskele Triple spiral:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8luJDecaKw

Check out the calligraphic work of Father Catich here:

https://cdm16810.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/Catich

Friday, January 9, 2026

A CROWD TOGETHER

December 2025 View from My Window

A week of horrible news where I am having a hard time finding the joy in the moment. I send emails to my representatives each week and receive back their thoughtful messages. I read and read and read all those bloggers/op eds/columnists who write better than I do about our country and where we find ourselves today. I've signed up to march again on January 20, the anniversary of the 2016 Women's March. I've donated to people whom I feel are working to disrupt what our federal government is doing. I focus on the small things around me, but know I need to do more in this existential struggle we are in.

I look out my window and glimpse the young mother in the building next to me as she comes to the window holding her baby. I think of my time doing the same with our son. I see pink camellias blooming right below her. I hear the noise of workmen pulling up tiles in a unit somewhere above us. I see the last leaf on the Japanese maple, which is tall enough to reach halfway up to the fourth floor where we live. Ordinary things.

On a drive last weekend to friends' home, we listened to Rachel Maddow's newest podcast, Burn Order, about the WWII internment camps set to house Japanese Americans, who were no threat to our country, but an easy target, and heard once again about our cycle of history repeating itself again.

KQED, our local public radio station, asked listeners a question recently: What was a moment you remember when a group of strangers came together with kindness towards others?

I immediately though of moments that were just the opposite: the Hitler rallies, the Trump rallies, sporting events gone wrong. But that is only one side of the ability of humans to come together.

"Two Sides of a Coin" by Martha Slavin

I thought of one day when I was new to Tokyo and getting used to their bus system without being able to read the bus information signs. I boarded a bus from Shibuya to Roppongi, districts close to our home in Minami Azabu. The bus was filled with people and there wasn't much room. I stood on the yellow lines in front of the exit door. When the bus came to my stop, the door wouldn't open. I was confused and looked for a button to push. I then felt a light tap on my shoulder and turned to find the entire group of riders lifting their hands up in unison, directing me to step off the yellow stripes. I patted by forehead with my fingers and moved back. As soon as I did, the yellow stripes became stairs that moved down to the platform. I bowed my head slightly to all those gracious, helpful people and descended the bus, feeling both grateful and embarrassed.

That group of people united for a moment to help a stranger. As I read the news this week, I find hope in the ordinary citizens in the United States who are standing up to power to protect our freedom.

A poster I wrote during the Pandemic that seems even more important today.

****************

Remember Renee Nicole Macklin Good.

Friday, January 2, 2026

NEW START

"The creative adult is the child who survived.”

Quote from Ursula Le Guin

One side of a gessoed signature

Reverse side of gessoed signature
(each signature is folded in the middle and
on the fold you can see in the photo.)

Sitting next to a pile of torn paper, some with marks made with marking pens, fountain pens, and colored inks and others from watercolor failures, I realized that in the last year and a half, I hadn't done much "messy creative" work. Because of our move and all the unpacking and sorting, I had limited myself to watercolor and hand lettering exercises, both techniques that are for me not usually messy, and are more disciplined and intentional than other techniques I've used. My messy art-self felt sleepy and stiff as I looked for ways to apply torn bits of paper, scrawled lines of paint, brushed ink across gessoed paper, and splattered diluted ink across paper. My body was remembering the fun of being messy and the results that occur when I'm not trying to fit letters between two lines or merge one color of paint carefully with another. All of these processes, the careful and the messy, make me a better artist, but I had neglected the fun part for too long.

One side of second signature

Reverse side of second signature

After finishing two online mixed media classes, I combined the techniques from both classes to start an art book. The class that began this combined project was Andrea Chebeleau's Creative Practices Journal. The journal is intended to be made over a year with each signature representing a month's work. My book instead will be finished after four signatures by the end of January. (Once I get going, it is hard to stop.) The first instruction for the journal was to take 12 manila folders and cover them with gesso. When I read that instruction, I realized I would have a hard time covering the 12 pieces. I no longer have the space where I can lay out that much material and roll gesso on all those folders at once. I limited myself to four folders instead. I then used the gessoed folders to paste the mark-making papers that I had created in Crystal Marie's Rust and Alchemy class.

Two complete signatures of my Creative Practices Journal

I returned to making art while we lived in Japan and I took a botanical illustration class. As I washed over the paper with watercolors and pushed the paint to the edges of the flower petals, I realized I could still do the work. The class motivated me to get out my rusty supplies again.

Botanical illustration in watercolor

Once back in California, I hoped to combine my writing work with my artwork and took a letterpress class at the Center for the Book in San Francisco. Though I loved doing the slow, meditative process of setting up a press to print, inking the press, and rolling sheets of paper through, I wondered how I could set up my own print shop, acquire all the equipment I would need, and find a place that needed my printed results. I also didn't want to limit my art activities just to printmaking. So I changed direction.

Letterpress booklet: "Do You Know Cats?"

I took some classes in mixed media, eco-printing, calligraphy, and watercolor. I found taking classes to be an important part of my process of discovery. Working around other creatives stimulates me in new directions. I've taken online classes from teachers in Uzbekistan and the Netherlands, and from many parts of the United States. These classes have introduced me to ideas that I might not have considered without the exposure to ideas from people from around the world. In the process of taking classes, I've refined what I want to do in art: make art books, paint with watercolor and other water-based media, practice hand lettering, and produce mixed media constructions. I am not one to focus on just one technique so I will never be a master of any. But at this point in my life, I want to have fun with these creative endeavors.