The theme for August was 五輪 Gorin – literally Five Rings – meaning that is, the Olympics! And since we were counting, we practiced most of the useful kanji numbers from zero to many million. So helpful for reading numbers in kanji whether from a… Read More »Olympic theme of 5 rings and numbers at Kanji Club
Have you made it to the open space of the seaside or lochs this summer? Or can you imagine being on the water, looking out to big horizons or looking down and seeing colourful mysterious sea creatures swimming below? For our Creative Time fun artwork… Read More »Creative Time – Above and below the waves
At our Shakyo Sutra Copying group we had a very peaceful and relaxing time for practice. It was a really nice atmosphere. We followed the inspiring Four Vast Bodhisattva Vows – 四弘誓願文 Shiguseiganmon. This is a short (just five lines including the title) but deep and… Read More »Rhythm and spaciousness in Shakyo of the Four Vast Vows
On the long sunny night of midsummer’s day we had our monthly shodo calligraphy group! We worked on the famous characters ei wa kyuu nen 永和九年 , which literally means – eternal, harmony, nine, year – from the beginning of the old classic by famous… Read More »Midsummer Shodo brushing the Orchid Pavillion Preface
At our Destress drawing and doodling group we had a theme of being along the coast, looking down at shells and pebbles ? It was a joy just having the time discovering and doodling the varied shapes and textures of things from the shore and… Read More »Exploring shells and pebbles at Destress drawing
We had great fun at Kanji Club in June with our theme of signage, looking at lots of really interesting and quirky signs, reading and pronouncing the vocab and sentences. We wrote some common ones such as 注意 chuui be careful! And Blair showed folk… Read More »Japanese signs at Kanji Club, 注意!
At Tenkoku Japanese and Chinese Stampmaking group Blair showed participants some of the development of his three treasures zen Buddha Dharma Sangha stamp he was working on. He gave a demonstration of carving and then making adjustments to the stone, stamping, and discussed the process… Read More »Carving the Three Treasures Seal
It is beautiful here into June in Glasgow, the days are bright and humid and the colours of trees, buildings and sky are vivid, people are wearing bright summery colours too! Why not take a moment to make a drawing of a summer landscape or… Read More »Creative Time – Summer Landscape
Our May Zen Brush was very relaxed and an enjoyable time brushing together. We worked with two characters u mu 有無, which together can be translated as something like – ‘nature of being is free and untethered’. We brushed them in the kaisho style, tried… Read More »Shodo brushing the curves of 有無 Umu
Our May De-stress doodling (on the third Wednesday each month) had a theme of flowing soothing water, with currents and ripples twisting along riverbanks. It was a chilled zoom group with a happy atmosphere (with folk joining from North America as well as the United… Read More »Soothing meandering lines and relaxing ripples