Ann demonstrates the art of marbling for visitors to the Dard Hunter Museum and Mountain House in Chillecothe, OH

Residencies and Workshops:AIS

A layered work on Number (above) created in one of several residencies and workshops that Ann offers as an Artist in Schools for the Greater  Columbus Arts Council.

Here, Ann used several playful yet directed exercises for children in Kindergarten through 5th grade-- exercises that explore a variety of ways in which the visual impact of our written symbols of language can intersect with  theilr function of conveying verbal in- formation. The focus here was on the potential of numbers to be as powerful visual design elements as letters in

carrying both meaning and intense significance, depending on how and in what relationships they are used. 

Artists in Schools*

Offerings cover lettering as design, marbling, calligraphy, the medieval decorated letter, color, handwriting, and more.  

Public Lectures have covered the history of marbling from its invention in China to its re-invention in Japan and then again in the Middle East, as well as the story of the handwritten word

in two sessions, From Stone to Print

(Antiquity to Movable Type) and

From Press to Penmanship (the Renaissance to the business hands of the 19th and early 20th centuries).

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*Artists in Schools is a program in Community Arts Education of the Greater Columbus Arts Council, Columbus, OH.

AIS class offerings are at www.gcac.org

For more on Workshops for adults,

write aimiaart@gmail.com

Adult Instruction

classes are offered for beginners as well as advanced students

in calligraphy and related arts. Private tutoring in calligraphy and in handwriting repair is also available.

.

©ann alaia woods 2008

instruction

Ann

lectures

on hand  lettering

history

for the

Aldus

Society

WORKSHOPS for adults take place at AIMIA ART WORKS’ studio in Columbus, Ohio. Classes are offered in Calligraphy,

Handwriting, Turkish Watercolor Marbling, Suminagashi (Japanese Marbling), Decorative Paper Techniques (Paste, Watercolor), and Color Study for Artists--

a practical approach.

Each is limited to 8 or fewer participants. Write for details at aimiaart@gmail.com.

◦ A marvel of water chemistry, the art of Turkish marbling was devised in the early 15th century using fine pigments to create sensuous and rich color patterns.

◦ The aim of suminagashi--Japanese for “floating ink”--was very different. Rather

than being purely decorative, it draws

from a philosophy steeped in Shintoism   as a way of creating, then capturing, in visual form, fleeting moments where the human spirit and Nature itself converge.