Arts and culture project – calligraphy, meditation and Shakyo

3 January 2019

Supported by the Sasakawa Foundation, we will be running some free workshops in the North, West and central areas of Glasgow for young people and adults to discuss, explore and have fun trying out Japanese Shodo calligraphy, with some meditation and mindful awareness, such as the peaceful and meditative practice of Shakyo. Look out for dates in late Winter and Spring 2019! We will announce which groups are free to join (please note Zen Heart Brush is not part of this project).

We hope to inspire people in and beyond Glasgow to connect with their environment through markmaking and look for shared cultural connections between Japan and Scotland, for instance with Celtic and Pictish symbols and pictograms.

Kindly supported by The Great Britain Sasakawa Foundation

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, Sasakawa Foundation, Shodo calligraphy

Season’s Greetings ❄⛄🎄

23 December 2018

The Drawing and Painting Studio wishes you a peaceful and relaxing festive holiday!

Thanks for all your support and creative energy in 2018.

Merry Christmas banner by North United Communities kids group!

Category: News Tags: NUC, Young people's art

Exploring the calligraphy of the great earth at Heart Brush

21 December 2018

In this last session of the year, we talked about the meanings of Daichi 大地, great earth or vast earth, and the various styles that could be used for both these characters.

We especially looked at the possible styles for Dai – 大, a kanji – Chinese character – meaning big, large or great, which appears so simply with its three strokes, but has quite a balance to it. The symmetry of this character can change a lot depending on how it is brushed, and if using the tensho, kaisho, gyosho or sosho styles. It is interesting how the original pictogram of a person changed into the meaning of large or great.

Participants experimented with smaller characters using fudepen 筆ペン brush pens, as well as takepen 竹ペン bamboo pens ( handmade and not that easy to find in Japan, very beautiful marks) and noticed the different feel and style of the marks from the larger and softer fude brushes. Towards the end some folk tried the two kanji of Daichi together.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Shodo calligraphy

Snowflakes and festive natural patterns

21 December 2018

In the last two sessions of Maryhill art group in 2018, with it getting closer to Christmas (and also the fact that the centre staff asked if we could make some decorations for the building) we had festive pattern themed groups.

Folk seemed to take to this well, combining craft and drawing. Following our guidance they folded and cut thin paper snowfalkes in a variety of designs, mounting onto coloured paper or colouring the shapes of the negative spaces.

We also had some free doodling time, with natural geometry and more chaotic textures to look at such as fractal shapes, or of ice cracking, and this helped us create more free festive patterns such as with stars and simple trees.

We hung and stuck on the walls many of the pieces in the Maryhill Hub building. Mince pies, chocolates, tea and ginger cookies helped make the nights enjoyable and relaxed 🙂

Kindly supported by Glasgow Connected Arts Network

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, Maryhill Art Group

Leafy palm trees and geometry at the Winter Gardens and People’s Palace

20 December 2018

It was a lovely time drawing together inside the peaceful environment of the Winter Gardens, such a shame it may have to close soon for renovation. We sat so that we could look at the glass and white painted metal beams of the glasshouse, plus see the plants, cacti, sugar cane and palms, and also over to the quirky interior brick structure of the People’s Palace.

After a little time just looking at things around us and getting settled, we began with some warm up drawings of the shapes in the glass, which we developed into pattern – there were some funky spacey shapes emerging in the drawings! – and then continuing with textures of the organic plants, using pencils.

The softness of the lead or sharpness of the tip of the pencil was ideal for experimenting with the spiky or soft qualities seen in parts of the palms and cacti.

There was also time to bring in some more colour with pens, taking in a some of the interior, even the benches, bins and stone pathways were an interesting complement to the exotic dark greens of the beautiful plants. The round windows on the brick wall also helped our drawings have a nice fun structure.

It was great to see the participants all enjoy being in the space and develop some pieces they liked working on.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Drawing Groups

Swimming through the kelp forest

20 December 2018

Continuing our mysterious doodly journey into the environment of sea and shore, we began with some imaginative doodles of the moon above the sea, inspired by some old poems.

Thinking about the sea creatures and kelp and coral, we also wrote a few words about it.

After developing our own individual pieces with Posca paint pens and Prockey water based markers, we cleared some space on the tables for two large rolls of paper to be spread out and worked on.

These were fun relaxing pieces, and we had a kind of musical chairs so we could shift around and everybody could work on different parts of the drawings and look for ways to collaborate with other folk’s markmaking.

Our aquatic shapes and creatures grew in the piece, moving and swaying with the sea current as we drew on. A shoal of fish passed near rocks on the sea bed, then swam through the translucent green kelp, and an octopus rested near a starfish.

It was great having the shell collection there to touch, smell and look at, and listen to as well, feeling the varied textures and listening to the strong sound of the sea. So refreshing!

Kindly supported by Glasgow Connected Arts Network

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, Maryhill Art Group

Exploring shells and corals

16 December 2018

We started a two week mini project based on a shell – sea theme, using fantastic collections of shells, sea stars, urchins, corals, pebbles and foraged ceramic pieces from the shore, all brought in by the folk in the group.

Thanks for bringing these, they were really stunning, delightful and curious objects opening up a new underwater world. Though the star fish really did smell of old socks!!

After some easy going drawing our hands shapes to get us started, we then talked and listened a little about the sea theme, and drew some patterns from the shells and corals, bringing in some words and poetic drawn letters to the pieces.

We had freedom to develop larger drawings on A3 and A2 cartridge paper with pens or pastels, looking directly at the objects or being more imaginative to explore the sea and natural environment of the shore.

Kindly supported by Glasgow Connected Arts Network

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, Maryhill Art Group

Connecting to forest floor textures into imaginative landscapes

15 December 2018

Part of the last Maryhill Art Group had been looking at leaves from nearby the HUB community centre, and this time we too that in a slightly different step by investigating things from the forest floor and ground gathered around the nearby river and pathways.

After some time to chat, doodle some free flowing continuous shapes, and some meditative settling and poetry related to the theme, we explored our ideas and inspiration in various ways.

It was really fascinating to see what we would come up with, and how different participants explored their ideas in varied ways. We looked at the small foresty objects and found ways to expand the textures and shapes into larger landscapes.

As we went on we experimented with different materials, combining inks with oil pastels and noticing the contrasting feel of these materials, the oily waxy vibrant opaque colours of the pastels which blend so well and the fluid transparent softly brushed inks..

Kindly supported by Glasgow Connected Arts Network

Category: Art Groups Tags: Community Groups, Maryhill Art Group

Mushin and Unsui calligraphy at Heart Brush

8 December 2018

The old tensho character for mu – nothing – is actually a pictogram, either of a person dancing, or holding ceremonial pieces of wood, so it is really interesting to work on.

The more complicated tensho has a strong balance and the kaisho style of mu we worked with has a lighter feel to work with the shin – heart-mind.

無心 mushin has zen meaning which we chatted about (could be translated a carefree and unfixed heart-mind), as does unsui 雲水 – clouds and water, which can also mean zen practitioners such as monks and nuns.

Sui being one of the five elements, and un (or kumo) being cloud, with it’s rain shapes like tears or dots of water falling from the sky..

It was nice to experiment with the different styles and have some freedom on the full page of the hanshi paper.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Shodo calligraphy

Light hearted sketching from the fab Kelvingrove collection

6 December 2018

Back at Kelvingrove for the second time this year, this time inside! So much to draw, look at and investigate, so many fantastic and mysterious objects in the East Court.

Within a few metres of where we sat we had an array of things such as masks from Australasia, Native American clothing and designs, very old Chinese vases, statues of Queen Victoria and other notable persons.

We used coloured pencils, as well as lead pencils and pens at this drawing group event.

Loose doodles and continuous line drawing helped us start, as well as looking at the materials, symmetry and detailing in the interior of the space, such as the ornate lights, stone arches, and decoration..

The floating heads sculpture drew our gaze too with the repeated comical expressions and changing colours on the faces.

The odd mix of objects created a fun environment for us to play with some drawings and connect to the objects in a slower, deeper way than we may normally do while passing through the collection, so we all found that really worthwhile and a pleasant thing to do.

Category: Art Groups Tags: Drawing Groups