Last week I mentioned we were moving again and a lot of emails and phone calls ensued asking where? When? Etc.  I can tell you that I quite don’t know yet, but I do know we will be leaving our country home in the South this May. I have the opportunity to attend Jen Huang’s Photo Workshop next week in Santa Barbara and decided it would be the most perfect time to start scouting potential locations for our next home.  I will start my adventure in the City of Angels, drive to Santa Barbara for the workshop and perhaps get the good fortune to meet a long admired friend I met via these interwebs. I will fly to San Francisco (my favorite American city) and get to meet another lovely new friend, more scouting and then off to Seattle to scout some more and meet even more amazing people!  Yes, being isolated in the country has made me extremely social on the internet, I have broken out of my hermit shell and am blossoming into one of those people that takes initiative and actually meets people IRL (that’s in real life), how very novel!  I now know that I want to be living in a place where there are people and I can walk to get good coffee in the morning. Not too much to ask for, right?

But back to the workshop! Once I finally share my goals with you (one of which is to work on my procrastination problem), you will see that I have actually started to accomplish much of them and we are only three months into 2013! This is a great sign. I love progress. One of those goals is to focus on becoming a better photographer and to try an alternative photo process, this workshop is a film workshop which would fall under both improvement + an alternative (to digital) process. To say I am out of my mind with excitement is a complete understatement. If you have been on the internet you have seen Jen Huang’s work, it is hard to miss as she is often featured on the very best wedding blogs in the world and her work is pinned about a zillion times an hour. She is wildly talented, smart and this is the kicker–beautiful. Really? Are you allowed to possess all three things?  Aren’t there laws in the universe against this? And she’s nice too, just an all around wonderful individual. I feel so lucky that I was able to land a coveted spot in her workshop as they usually sell out as soon as she mentions them, for good reason the word on the street is she goes above and beyond your expectations. I just feel so honored to be able to be in the same room with her. I have so many unanswered questions about working with film (which I have been experimenting with on my own for the past 8 months) and it’s going to be great being around other film enthusiasts. Li Ward a photographer + lettering artist whom I featured here previously attended Jen’s NYC workshop and had nothing but great things to say and even better results. I can’t wait to start my adventure!

P.S. Next week I will be devoting the entire week to film photography, what I have learned so far, cameras, film types, resources, inspiration and even re-creating the look in the digital darkroom!

Author / Miss Tristan B

When I was a publicist, (so very, very long ago), I used to tell my clients not to get too excited about a magazine photographing their design. There was always that off chance that the design could end up not working at the 11th hour and it would be removed from the publication. It was always disheartening for both myself and my client, maybe more so for me as I do like to believe I have some modicum of control and when things are not in my sphere of control I get very agitated, which is the same reaction I have to over-the-counter cough medicine (which I am allergic to).  This scenario actually happened to me in February.  I thought I was going to be in a magazine and  then I flipped through the mag and I wasn’t.  Of course I was sad, but it’s always onward and upward for me so I moved on. I received the same magazine for March, I was thrilled that it had arrived, simply because it’s an inspiring magazine.  I actually had it for three days reading it in order like it was a book (I wanted to savor each page) and on the fourth day I came upon a six page spread in which Besotted Brand was featured on five of the pages!  To have such a sweet + unexpected surprise like this made me feel as if I had won the lottery. The spread was styled & shot by the talented Amy Lockheart, I made her some stamps based on her re-design and also used our vintage postmark design. Her whole branding package is quite exquisite–clean, nature-inspired but also modern in its simplicity.  I hadn’t seen the big reveal of the branding so it was even more of a delight when I saw how she incorporated the stamps into her packaging.  I have always said I felt like our hand stamps are like miniature printing presses and I love how Amy was able to add some D.I.Y. to her brand without compromising the high-end, boutique feel or taking away from any of the other press printed elements.  This is how I use the stamps and how I envisioned my clients using them as well, creating high-quality materials for their brands, weddings, special events and even their personal stationery wardrobes (thank you notes are always in style). The magazine is called Click ‘for the modern photograp(her).  If you are a photography enthusiasts there is plenty of inspiration, how-to and visual story-telling going on. The pages are printed on a beautiful stock and I wouldn’t dare flip through it like a regular magazine as I don’t want to miss a thing.  I don’t usually get paper magazines because I am afraid my Postman will wrinkle them, thus rendering them tainted in my obsessive compulsive eyes, but he’s been very careful with this publication (and he also knows that I am a bit batty).

For today’s Bestowal I want to give away one of the custom vintage inspired postmark stamps, it’s a good one to have indeed.  To enter to win, please answer the following question in the comments below by Monday, March 10, 2013.  Good luck!

If you could move anywhere on earth for a year, where would you move and why?

This is a bit if a controversial recommendation of a calligraphy book for most traditional calligraphers, but since a lot of you who are interested in this medium would prefer to develop your own contemporary calligraphy or modern lettering hand, than I think it would be a valuable addition to your studies. I am sure you have heard the adage that you must first learn the rules before you can break them? This book will assist you with the basics so you can then feel free to riff on your own.  It will give you a ‘base’ + reference to begin to build your own lettering style. I have checked out many calligraphy books and watched numerous videos (I recommend Dr. Vitolo’s copperplate video’s and if you have an Ipad you can download his free book at Itunes), but Mastering Copperplate Calligraphy is the one that I keep coming back to. It is such a great reference because the author truly breaks down each letter to its very basics starting with the strokes you will need to know to create your initial letterforms. She has many examples of right and wrong ways for each letter and why a letter works or doesn’t (very helpful). I also like that she gives you many different variations/styles on a letter so you can work on the style you prefer most. There are guideline sheets in the book that you can copy and Winters even explains in depth how to create your own.

Many of you might be thinking, “peeshaw, I don’t want to learn traditional calligraphy, it’s not my thing”. I understand this sentiment (especially the peeshaw part), but I can tell you from my experience that even trying to practice a basic calligraphy alphabet will get you to your ultimate goal faster. You will learn things like spacing, baselines, heights of letters, how wide, etc. All of these tools will give you a better foundation to build your own alphabet one day.  It may not look like there is any sort of structure to my own lettering samples I show you, but I do create all my samples utilizing a guideline sheet and starting the letters at the same baseline and adjusting the heights (the ascender, ie. the loop of an ‘h’ or the descender, ie the bottom loop of a ‘g’). I do take a lot of liberties and may make a rouge ‘u’ lower than it technically should be but I try to make sure it flows and works well with the word as a total. Of course, these are all things I have learned in my very limited time lettering and I am not trained as a traditional calligrapher so take this advice with a grain of salt; I am just sharing my personal experience. It has helped me a lot to hear that you are ‘drawing’ the letters rather than writing them. It makes sense to me and helps me feel better when I feel like I am taking too long creating a letterform.  For those of you that are feeling completely overwhelmed right about now, my friend Maybelle (artist & calligrapher extraordinaire) suggests just using the nib + ink paired with your own handwriting to create a unique hand, she says that you may just be pleasantly surprised by the results; yes, even those of you like myself that have terrible cursive handwriting, she assures it can look quite charming!

If I could take one class for the sake of just taking a class that had nothing to do with my business, but for pure indulgence sake it would be a flower design class. If I were to dream big it would specifically be to take a class from The Little Flower School run by Nicolette Owen of Nicolette Camille Floral Design Studio and Sarah Ryhanen of Saipua fame. I love both of their effortless style and it seems like it would be such a privledge to learn from such masters.  Amy Merrick, one of my all time favorite interweb crushes, a talented floral designer in her own right learned under the tutledge of Rhyanen. So you know you would walk away filled to the brim with floral knowledge + inspiration.  I just found out that The Little Flower School has been taking their classes on the road, recently they were in Australia and in May they will be in California at the beautiful Garden Valley Ranch. I know a class like this would be a luxury to most, although if this is your passion I think it would be well worth the investment.

For those of us that are on a budget and would be taking a floral design class for the sheer love of flowers I found some alternate options. Recently Nicole’s Classes has started to diversify and add more to their curriculum. I was delighted to see that stylist Chelsea Fuss has been added to the roster and is teaching an on-line floral arranging class. I don’t know if you are familiar with Chelsea’s work, but if not you can take a peek at her stylist portfolio with photographer Lisa Waringer here (get ready to obsessively Pin). I found another on-line school in NYC- Flower School New York, I don’t know much about it but one of the classes is taught by revered floral designer Meredith Waga Perez of Belle Fleur New York.

Have any of you ever wanted to do something like this or have you ever taken a floral design class before?

P.S. This book looks like it would be worth adding to your library: Bringing Nature Home: Floral Arrangements Inspired by Nature.

P.P.S. For easy reference the links to the school + on-line classes can be found in The Directory: An A-Z Compendium of Creative Resources. Look under ‘F’.

Photo by Jennifer Causey

I am not sure if this is much of a bestowal for this Monday (I hope you are okay with it, fingers crossed). I have gotten many requests lately for custom lettering (so unbelievably flattering), but I am currently not confident enough in my skills yet to accept clients. As you can see from the above samples, my hand is all over the place, not much consistency to it. I thought it might be fun to offer two individuals the opportunity to have me create some lettering for them.  I can not do anything too long like an address, letter or quote but I can do up to three words.  I do love having words to practice. Your words can be anything–your initials, your name, the name of your business, a sentiment, etc. (just not more than three in row).  I will create the lettering, scan it, clean it up in Illustrator and then send you a hi-res file so you can use it how you please! To enter to win please answer the following question in the comments below and if you like you can leave your word(s) you would like me to letter along with your answer.

When was the last time you tried something new? And what was it?

This had me stumped, I asked my husband and he said, ‘I tried cow heart last week’.  I almost dropped dead. Seriously?  I think that is something I never needed to know about; his dirty little secret. Then I realized I did try out a new to me vintage camera last week (I bought it at the Salvation Army).  It’s a film camera and I don’t know if any of the images will turn out, but it was fun to research the manual, find the right kind of film and get my head wrapped around all the settings. I love to tinker so film photography allows me to do much in the way of tinkering.  I will announce the winner next Monday, March 4, 2013.  Good luck!

Find out who won last week’s Bestowal here.