Embracing the Spring breeze at shodo calligraphy 書道

At our monthly zoom shodo calligraphy group Zen Brush we embraced the spring breeze – with 春風 harukaze. There have been signs of spring here now, especially in the mild wind and sunnier days!

We brushed harukaze – spring wind – in the kaisho style, the two kanji characters combining really well with their flowing and graceful variety of strokes, some delicate and others heavier. Blair helped particiapnts with any difficulties they had with brushing the strokes and how to hold and angle their brushes.

After that we worked with the older more curvy and very mysterious tensho style, inspired by the great Chinese master 18th century master Deng Shiru 鄧石如 (Tosekijo in Japanese) who had a fascinating life immersed in tensho and shodo.

We had some spring themed and spacious poetry by Yoshida Kenko (14th C Japan).

The style of tensho was really liked and Blair will return to working with that at the group. Thanks to folks for taking part and also to those who sent their images (example below capturing the feel of the tensho), some had joined for shodo for the first time and Blair was really please to see them enjoying it, and writing their names on their pieces too!

There are some signs of spring here now, I can feel it in the mild wind too!