Reed Pen Calligraphy

hand carved bamboo reed pens

three nib sizes

The other class I'm taking this semester is Letterform Anatomy with Joe Landry. Throughout the semester we learn the basics of letterform - each week we advance through the history of the letterform (that developed into the english alphabet), working the letters in the traditional way that is attached to the technique of the time. The second week, we did large scale paintings of letters using only downstrokes. The third week, we carved letters out of foam as if we were carving sandstone (SO FUN). This past monday, we spent the day carving bamboo reed pens and then practicing our script with them, again working only with downstrokes.

Without a doubt the most dangerous, and therefore fun and exciting, project I have ever been allowed to execute in a class, we spent as much time as we wanted carving pens out of bamboo reeds the teacher provided for us. This was so much fun and really made writing with the instrument that much more interesting - as I was writing I was able to alter my pen or make a new one to suit the size I was interested in working with.

I decided to take this class for three reasons:

1) I love the instructor (GREAT teacher, incredible sense of humor)

2) I love typography but am not totally interested in your run of the mill graphic design based typography course - i've taken a few of these types of classes and while it's fun playing with letters, I really love working without the computer sometimes.

3) I use handwritten text in a lot of my work, and I struggle with not having control over my form. I have a skilled hand when it comes to craftwork - cutting, folding, gluing, sewing, eyeing things, etc - but I've never felt very skilled when it comes to writing. I am often complimented on my handwriting but I myself find it to be very... unsteady. I hoped that by taking this class, and gaining a stronger understand of how and why the letterforms exist as they do, as well as learning how they were traditionally constructed, that I would be able to have a better grasp on how to form the letters when working them with my own hands. I have actually already noticed a feeling of more control when writing, since starting this class - and working with downstrokes only is something I really enjoy and have implemented often outside of class.

So here is what I worked from class on Monday - just some type sketches, using the three handcarved reed pens, and watered down sumi-e and walnut inks. Obviously I played with what the ink can do - I had a lot of fun filling letters and jumping the ink pools from form to form.

The letter that looks like a backwards P or a large lower case Q with a long J tail is my fictional '27th letter' that we had to invent for the class - we are supposed to work this fictional letter as we do the rest of the alphabet each time we learn a new technique.