Brush Calligraphy Workshop with Kirsten Burke

I have long admired the beautiful, cursive script of calligraphy, and have often wondered if it would be something I might be able to learn.

Hand Lettering of one sort or another seems to be everywhere at the moment  – on greetings cards and in framed prints, advising us to ‘be kind’, or ‘fly free’ or ‘gather’ – there’s even a bathroom, (or maybe laundry), one that instructs ‘get naked’!

So when I stumbled across Kirsten Burke’s inspiring pages and saw that she ran regular and popular, calligraphy workshops I thought I’d give it a whirl.

My first decision was, which workshop? Beginners was obvious, but I needed to decide whether to do a few hours or a day, and whether to try Ink or Brush Calligraphy.

The first decision was relatively easy. As the workshop studio is situated in Chichester, West Sussex, (some distance from me), I decided I may as well go for the day course.

The second decision took a little bit of scrolling through Kirsten’s website to see what the difference was between the two types of calligraphy. I wasn’t aware at the time that a lot of lettering was done using brushes as opposed to a pen nib and ink! As I enjoy watercolour painting, I thought that Brush Calligraphy would be a bit freer, and maybe even a tiny bit easier to master, than the traditional penmanship, so I plumped for that!

And so it was that towards the end of March I found myself weaving through the pretty lanes of Birdham, on my way to try Brush Calligraphy for the first time – I was hoping I wouldn’t be absolutely awful at it!!

The studio was light and bright, and nicely laid out, all ready and waiting for a somewhat unsurprising, all female class to settle into their allotted seats – everyone had their own name-place in various ombre colours, and the table of four I found myself on was full of inks, paints, pens and brushes as well as flowers and friendly faces.

There were several bubbly members of staff on hand watching over us all when we were first called around a board to watch Kirsten demonstrate the basic techniques before heading back to our work-space to practice.

Preprinted lettering worksheets and paper were in plentiful supply throughout the day, meaning that plenty of practice could be had, and with each sheet getting progressively more interesting and tricky, this was only a good thing.

The thing I found hardest was going slow – the workshop was relaxed, the space was relaxing, but I didn’t find it very easy to transition from life’s ‘go fast, get more done’ mentality, to the gentle pace that hand lettering should be approached with. The trick apparently, (and it definitely works), is to breathe with each brush stroke.

My thinking that a smooth, continuous hand would be achieved by not stopping, (that very Dory ‘just keep going’ attitude), was entirely wrong! A beautiful, smooth script is achieved by slowly attempting each stroke, with lots of stopping at the natural breaks in letter formation. It turns out that modern calligraphy is actually very relaxing and soothing!

We were introduced to dipping techniques that enabled our texts to change colour throughout a word or sentence, and to metallic paints to give subtle sheen to our words. We were like children in a sweetie shop!

We broke off for an extremely tasty lunch that managed to suit everyone’s varied dietary requirements, (we were all asked ahead of the course), but were clearly all itching to get back to the addictive lettering!

After lunch and another of Kirsten’s demonstrations, followed  a time of planning our final piece. There was much talk of bounce and negative space, as we all jotted and scribbled plans for the little sayings we had all brought with us. There was plenty of help and advice on hand as the girls managed to get round to all of us, as we each tried to put something artful together!

With outline sketches of our plans in hand, we were then introduced to the wonders of the light-box and tracing, in readiness for the final penning, (or should I say brushing), of our individual pieces.

You could hear a pin drop such was the combined concentration!

The results were so varied, a little wobbly in places, but overall were pretty amazing for a bunch of newcomers to this particular art form!

The day was thoroughly enjoyable in every way, and while I might not be rushing to frame and hang my new masterpiece, I was very pleased with what I’d produced and all that I’d learned in such a short time.

I have definitely bought into this new way of making writing beautiful, and now have the tools to practice at home – oh and guess what? I’m going to book the Pen Course too!