A Meditative Calligraphy Technique

Description

Gina invites you to discover your body’s potential to develop the potent calligraphic qualities of movement, energy, rhythm, and feeling. To start, we engage the conscious breath to become present, relax, and slow down. Then, through tool exercises, we cultivate our awareness of the ever-intriguing calligraphic act: moving a tool and contacting a surface to form letters. By sensitizing fingers and arm muscles to the forces of stroke making—pressure, pushing, and pulling—we nurture a relationship that connects us to ourselves, our letters, and our world.

Supplies

1. Calligraphy as Art and Meditation: A New Approach, Gina Jonas. (Required for optimal experience)
Page numbers below refer to this book.

2. Artist pencil (48) – See page 3.
• Please follow the instructions in “Preparing the tool.” Video available in conference hub.
3. Conté crayon (Sanguine). Please prepare this tool as the pencil. (The marking substance is softer and takes a more sensitive touch.)
4. A large, dry “edged” tool, (approx. ½” -1″) such as a piece of:
• Square-edged chalk
• Pastel color stick (not oil)
• Compressed charcoal
5. Cloth wiper, moistened on a corner (for cleaning hands)
6. 3mm Brause nib (new) and staff – See pages 136-7 to prepare
7. Free-flowing ink such as Higgins Eternal
8. An ink well, (See page 140, “Ink setup”), such as:
• A large dinky dip (see JNB link)
• A very small, transparent jar
• An empty glass bottle of ink
9. Eye dropper or pipette
10. Wiper for cleaning the nib
11. Large paper tablet or a few sheets (14×17, 12×18, 11×17, 11×14 – or larger), suggestions:
• John Neal Bookseller, Calligraphy Practice Pad (plain)
• Strathmore drawing paper
12. Padded slant board, suggestions
• Portable writing board
• Portable desk set at a slope
• Drafting table
• If your paper is in a tablet, you can use the pad itself or a few sheets from it.
• For other possibilities, see my article: “Nib Contact: the case for the touch-sensitive writing board.” (www.ginajonascalligrapher.com, in Publications – scroll past the first large image, “the letter ‘a’ at play,” to the articles. It’s the fourth one.)

Gina Jonas

Click on photo to visit biography page
www.ginajonascalligrapher.com