While attending the calligraphy workshop with Seema Singh, I thought it was very therapeutic to sit down and practice penmanship. Doing this exercise reminded me of when I was younger and I had to learn script for the first time. My favorite part of this session was the continued practice  that we had to have when copying the letters from the sheet. This allowed me to have more patience for myself when I messed up and allowed me to take my time when writing out the letters. I think it is very beneficial for people to learn cursive in school because it is a great skill to have and looks very professional. After this workshop, I kept my pen for the remainder of the semester as a token for completing the class 🙂

Practicing calligraphy was a really enjoyable experience for me. I haven’t practiced in a while, but I was happy the skill came back to me after a few practice strokes. The guide that the SA provided was very helpful because it allowed me to practice and focus on whatever specific letter I needed with help. I also enjoyed how it was a new experience for the SA, her excitement and her being open to making mistakes were encouraging. The pen that was given to me made the writing more difficult than usual, so it was a new and challenging experience for me.

I now understand why calligraphy is something that people spend a large portion of their time practicing. It is challenging! My first round of letters took more than ten minutes because I was trying to find the right way to fluctuate the pressure that I was applying to the pen. My pen was also different from the one that was used in the video tutorial. Mine had a firm tip while the one used in the video was soft like a brush. I found myself getting frustrated because I could not replicate what was being done in the video, even with letters for my to trace. After trying the same letters multiple times, I was finally able to replicate what was both on the printed paper and the video. This particular experience was very humbling because I am someone that has never had trouble with penmanship. My natural handwriting is what many people have considered “neat,” so I was surprised to have been struggling for so long trying to get my calligraphy to look neat. Overall, I am happy that I was able to learn the logistics of calligraphy because it is something that I have always been curious to learn, but never had the courage to actually start learning.

I really enjoyed my calligraphy experience. Learning the difference between upstrokes and downstrokes was a great way to relax and destress. Although I did not have an official calligraphy pen at the time of the workshop, the video mentioned how to achieve this look with a regular pencil. I added the image below to my sketchbook. I’m hoping that this summer I have more time to get a calligraphy pen and continue practicing! I hope to maybe send friends and family a letter using these skills too.

Swirling, looping, finishing with a flourish. I loved creating artistic shapes and smooth swaths of color on my paper as I participated in the calligraphy workshop. I had never tried calligraphy before and always thought it looked beautiful, so I was super excited. I really enjoyed the calming nature and wonderful end product. The video made it look so easy, and yet it took lots of focus and concentration! Similar to most things in life, it takes practice, persistence, and muscle memory to make your letters look effortless and consistent. After almost an hour of practicing individual letters, I experimented with writing whole words. I was able to write a few names of friends and family with connected letters. What a beautiful and relaxing break.

As soon as I saw the email for a calligraphy workshop, I made sure to sign up. This is the first calligraphy workshop of a series, and I was glad to be able to attend! GRF Seema made sure to deliver supplies directly into my mailbox, which was a really great way to help me get started. In the packet there were worksheets, blank pieces of paper, and a calligraphy pen in a beautiful red color primed and ready to go.

During the event, Seema made a brief introduction before getting started with an explanatory video. In the video, the author gave some brief examples of beginner’s strokes. We worked independently for a while, and by the end, we were able to write our own names in strokes. I was really proud of my work, and glad to have gotten started learning this skill! I have my name displayed outside of my dorm room now, written in calligraphy.

Last weekend, I attended the calligraphy workshop.  I went in expecting to not be too successful, since I don’t have much innate artistic talent, and my handwriting is pretty messy.  However, GRF Seema was super patient and kind, constantly checking in to make sure we were doing alright or if we had any questions.  In the end, I was able to get through the alphabet using the materials provided to us (although I had to do a little bit of tracing sometimes) and was able to write my name decoratively.

I really enjoyed the event, even though I was nervous going in.  The music in the background was relaxing and eased me into the activity, and the discussion afterwards was good for learning what I could work on next time I try calligraphy.  It was a great way of getting my hands busy while taking my mind off the stress of school, and I hope it is offered again in the future!

(Originally posted 2/27/21 on the Fall 2020 blog)

I was happy to learn some new styles of fonts at the workshop, and I’m really glad I went. Using different fonts give written messages a lot more character, and it’s neat how they can impact its tone. In the past, I’ve tried to do some calligraphy on birthday cards and letters for family members, and I think it makes it more fun and personal. At the workshop, it was fun to practice writing in new fonts and to see how I could experiment with different styles of writing. This event was a good way to take a study break and do something creative, and although some of the letters didn’t turn out exactly the way I wanted, it was fun to try out different techniques such as holding the pen at various angles.

Writing neatly and legibly has never been my forte, and my handwriting gets exponentially worse each year.  My letters are usually crooked and squashed into each other.  My words barely have spaces in between them, so reading my writing is like trying to decipher a poorly preserved ancient document in English.  But this calligraphy workshop amazed me that even I could produce a handwritten piece of art that was shockingly legible and pretty.  It was amazing to relearn the alphabet and to learn it in a very specific manner.  Calligraphy is very particular about the strokes, which I believe if I paid more attention to the order at which I scribble down the lines and dots comprising my letters, it would look better.  But even though my letters look better, it took a lot of effort to write many of the letters well.  In fact, I am still trying to write an ‘A’ that is not lopsided.  I cannot wait until the next calligraphy workshop to continue to learn and practice this beautiful form of art!

I was really excited to attend this calligraphy class as I had been inspired after seeing many aesthetic youtubers write beautiful calligraphy in their bullet journals over quarantine. Now, I have a lot more respect and applaud those who can write beautiful calligraphy, after getting my first hands on experience. During the session, I decided to work on my lettering, specifically the letters that made up my first name. I found it really difficult to try and control the amount of pressure I wanted to place on certain strokes while quickly changing the pressure as I transitioned to the next stroke. By the end, I did see an improvement compared to when I had first started. However, I do have a long way to go for my lettering to look anywhere close to the youtubers. It was also nice being able to practice the lettering while listening to some background music. Overall, this event was a needed break and distraction from all the school work I had yet to finish. I hope to join another calligraphy event if another one holds in the near future.

I am a big art person and have always enjoyed making my notes, notebooks, or anything I write really, look aesthetically pleasing, as cliche as it may sound now. I wanted to take the time to relax and do this workshop to connect with other people that also enjoy calligraphy or wanted to try it for the first time. This was the first time I worked with a thick-tipped pen instead of brush pen and I learned through practice how to hold it at different angles to create the different lines thicknesses I wanted. This creative series was very enjoyable and relaxing and I am looking forward to attending more art-related sessions in the future.

I have always had terrible handwriting ever since I was little. I never got any better at it and at times it frustrated me. I felt those frustrations come up again when I tried to do some calligraphy on Sunday. It seems like it should be so easy to just write these letters in a certain way. But despite following the steps, doing what felt like the same curves, crossing in the same spots, my letters still did not look right. Maybe that style of font wasn’t for me? Okay, so I tried another one. Same story. Movements and marks on the pages which I felt should be the exact same as the examples in mechanical terms, but somehow mine looked awful in comparison. The most frustrating was the letter ‘c’. Despite being nothing but a single curved line, in order to make it look good, the line has to be perfect. It has to curve in exactly the right spot, in exactly the right way, with exactly the right thickness. Otherwise, it just looks like nothing. And that kind of line precision is a skill which I have never developed. I haven’t ever really practiced drawing, training my muscle memory to translate the lines in my minds eye into the same physical marks on the page, and boy does it show.

But despite the frustration and the challenge, practicing this calligraphy was quite enjoyable. I liked that challenge, and there was a lot of intricacy in making even the smallest lines to letters which I hadn’t fully appreciated before. I can really see how calligraphy is a skill that needs to trained and honed. I know I am certainly going to try calligraphy again. I doubt I will ever take the time to become a master like some do, but it certainly is an enjoyable pastime.

Calligraphy has always been beautiful in my eyes, which is what drew me into this workshop in the first place. I knew handwriting and learning how to make your strokes look a certain way was hard, but I still found myself underestimating how hard it actually was. Before getting started, we watched a video of 5 tips for calligraphy beginners. One tip that really resonated with me was the fact that using smooth paper is the priority and then more expensive and fancier pens are second. This shocked me because I assumed the kind of pen you use was the key to getting thick or thin strokes. After making this point, the narrator proceeded to demonstrate with a Crayola washable marker how she can make calligraphy. Translating this into my calligraphy skills, I attempted to work on my strokes, but it was definitely a struggle! On that note, I am really looking forward to Part 2 of this workshop.

Fonts are something we are incessantly exposed. Whether it be on our phone screens or the signs we walk by everyday, the same rigid fonts are burned into our brains. (I am looking at you Times New Roman). Yet, there are a variety of fonts that speak to a level of creativity in how we communicate. The first thing that comes to mind is my handwriting. The clean, round lettering of my self-invented font is how I like to transcribe information. As I write, the lettering becomes more fluid and the words like swirls unlike the angularity of standardized fonts. 

By no means is my handwriting a work of art; much of it can turn into illegible jumbles where v’s look like u’s and r’s like n’s. But, it’s mine. At the intro to calligraphy workshop, I enjoyed exploring ways I could manipulate my lettering. Making the lines thick and thin was something I played with, especially with curvy letters like c’s and o’s. It made my writing more playful or, when executed poorly, scratchy. Nevertheless, this introduction was a welcome departure from my lettering style and to the ways I can change up my handwriting. 

I am so glad I attended the calligraphy workshop! I have been interested in different handwriting styles for a while, and calligraphy is a natural extension of that. Although my skill is admittedly lacking, I found myself relaxing as I was tracing the letters. It was nice to have a break from school to focus on something as simple as drawing lines for fun. Going back to the beginning and just learning the basic shapes of letters also brought back memories of my childhood. When I was younger, I wrote with a different style of “a” and “g,” (see photos). However, I was encouraged to switch to what people usually think of for these letters so that people would not be confused. I thought I lost the muscle memory of these letters, but I was quickly able to figure out how to draw them again. It is nice to know that I have not completely lost this skill. Handwriting has changed so much throughout the years, from alphabets to fonts to script lettering, and the ability to write in different styles is one of the things that I promised myself I would never lose. Practice makes perfect, and I will not give up on writing with different letters or styles.

I thought that learning calligraphy was going to be super relaxing, not so much….! First off I just wanted to say that I really did enjoy it, I just did not have enough patience for learning how to get the strokes right. I couldn’t seem to get thick and thin brush strokes down pat. We came to the decision that it was because of the type of pens that we had. Overall though it was something new that I tried and it was a nice break from homework!