At our first Sasakawa Foundation sponsored event in Ruchill, local children and staff tried out Japanese calligraphy for the first time, using traditional materials such as fude brushes and sumi ink to write some Chinese kanji characters. We explored a natural theme of light and… Read More »Shodo calligraphy at Ruchill Community Centre
In January Blair visited Japan as part of a project kindly funded by the GB Sasakawa Foundation. He had an exciting packed schedule learning about various Shodo calligraphy styles of Japanese calligraphy with Shodo masters in Tokyo, and investigating mindful meditation practices with different teachers… Read More »Winter clarity and creative exploration in Japan
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… Read More »Arts and culture project – calligraphy, meditation and Shakyo
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… Read More »Exploring the calligraphy of the great earth at Heart Brush
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… Read More »Mushin and Unsui calligraphy at Heart Brush
On a hot Monday evening we enjoyed some Shodo calligraphy in the refreshingly cool Kagyu Samye Dzong building. We wrote or painted (in Japanese the verb kaku means both to write, draw, paint) the word Kongo 金剛 which means literally metal/ gold and brave/ sturdy.… Read More »Painting brave diamonds at Zen Heart Brush
Having fun with the shodo calligraphy characters we will work with on Monday! Kin metal, gold, one of the Chinese 5 elements, kongo diamond, as well as tamashii, spirit. The meanings and variety of visuals in each of these is fascinating ?
We had fun with trying out both the curved older Tensho style as well as the more stylized Kaisho style at the last session. First we worked with with Ki 木 – tree, experimenting with the branch like strokes, and then Yume – dream/ illusion,… Read More »Shodo calligraphy – in the middle of a dream
At Zen Brush Heart we worked from some inspiring characters related to life and the elements, such as tsuchi 土 – earth /soil, mei 命 – core, destiny, life, and jinzu 神通 – spiritual/ soul power. To get a fuller understanding and feel about these… Read More »Life force and lightning Shodo calligraphy
In the Garden room at KSD a small group of us began Shakyo – copying sutras – by chatting about the history and styles and looking at some examples of the characters such as mu – dream and ku – space. Then we slowly and… Read More »Relaxing and meditative tracing of the Heart Sutra
You must be logged in to post a comment.