Purifying the Heart and Mind in Brush Calligraphy
In November at our monthly shodō groups, at the delightful Woodside Library as well as at our online class, we brushed the Japanese characters 洗心 senshin, meaning purifying the heart or mind, (and the kanji also relating to Blair’s calligraphy training in Tokyo which he discussed briefly with the groups). We also talked a little about the visual background and pictographs in the kanji, such as the fun connection to washing and bathing in 洗 (sen/ ara.u).
These well known kanji have varied strokes and entirely different structures, with 心 (kokoro/shin) especially being a very commonly brushed and written kanji, which Blair gave demos and (just a little technical) guidance to help everybody capture the layout of the strokes, and sizes of the negative spaces between each. Blair gave examples of 心 kokoro brushed as a single character as well as placed with other kanji.
We had time for kaisho stroke practice and then worked in both the 楷書 kaisho standard script and the 草書sōsho fully cursive style, working from Blair’s otehon examples of 洗心 senshin. Then we wrote our individual rakkan signature with our names in Japanese (which Blair gave to each participant as usual to copy onto their calligraphy).
Blair gave demonstrations of all the brushwork for 洗心 senshin, and after the session shared his video of the two styles of brushwork for these kanji. Here is a bright calligraphy themed haiku for inspiration that we chose for this month, by Onitsura:
Autumn Moon
Is there anyone
Who will not take up their brush
With this moon tonight!
Thanks so much for taking part, sharing your images of your calligraphy, and for your enthusiasm to practice shodō which has made our move to Woodside library worthwhile.
