Brushing Flowing Water at Shodō Calligraphy
We enjoyed a meditative class this month at our regular shodо̄ calligraphy groups at Woodside library where we brushed the two kanji characters Ryūsui 流水 (flowing water) from the Zen phrase Moving clouds, flowing water 行雲流水, inspired by nature and 禅林 Zenrin Calligraphy (Zen calligraphy). At the beginning of the class Blair talked about the phrase briefly, before looking at the visual background and ancient styles of the characters, then at more modern shodо̄ styles ✨
After guidance and demonstrations of this month’s brushwork (including structure and spacing) and how to use the traditional materials, we brushed both the 楷書 kaisho standard script and the 草書sōsho fully cursive style, working from Blair’s otehon examples of Ryūsui 流水. Everyone got on very well brushing the styles and had fun finding their flow in the sōsho 草書 fully cursive where there were some renmen 連綿 （joining strokes) and dynamic movement between the characters.
With some guidance and helpful tips from Blair (plus a reminder not to forget to add the rakkan 落款 signature to our calligraphy!) we brushed our individual rakkan signature names in Japanese on the left of Ryūsui 流水 with 小筆 kofude (small fude brush) to complete our calligraphy.
After the groups we shared Blair’s video of the two styles of brushwork for Ryūsui 流水 (flowing water). Thanks so much for joining and we look forward to brushing more characters with you next time after our short break in July. Otsukaresama deshita, well done and we hope you have an enjoyable summer holiday!