Chinese Calligraphy workshop

We hosted an Applied Arts workshop this past weekend on Chinese Calligraphy with artist Mike Mei. Mike creates his own unique calligraphic pieces and has won numerous awards and competitions both here and in China. Mike started out the workshop by giving everything a brief introduction to the history of Chinese Calligraphy, and how the styles and characters have evolved over time.  In the image above you can see a comparison of the same character written in five different styles. Next when we got into the studio with our brushes we were able to practice the various strokes to create these three characters: person, sky, and bird.  Mike gave several demonstrations of how to hold the brush as well as the various ways the brush could be held and controlled to get specific kinds of strokes. We all noticed the kind of meditative concentration needed to practice calligraphy, and got some great results in just a few hours!