RSS Feeds: Is Western Calligraphy a Dying Art Form?
How many people do you know who can write calligraphy instead of normal, basic letters? Where do you see calligraphy used the most? To be honest, the only place I see it nowadays is on certain certificates and greeting cards (like Christmas cards). It's fancy way of writing and I don't think enough people are good at doing it by hand. Computers are being used to create most of the new stuff you see and it just isn't the same without the personal touch, as well as the personal mistakes.
Calligraphy Tools
Just as it is with any hobby or profession, you have to use the right tools to get the job done. I've seen local Filipinos try to do calligraphy with regular pens or tiny paint brushes. Regular pens just don't work and tiny paint brushes, I suppose, would be good for trying to use calligraphy for billboard signs or something. Regular paper isn't good for calligraphy, unless the person doing it is very, very good about not smearing the ink all over the place.
The best tools aren't very expensive. Beginners can get started for less than $20.00 (US dollars). Practice makes perfect, or so it's said, and cheap tools are great for practicing. Quill pens, ink wells and parchment paper are really good for practice and can still be quite messy.
Calligraphy Watching
A good way to learn techniques is to watch other, experienced calligraphers practice their art. In 1984, I spent several hours watching a guy practicing his art (while I was in the military). Painstaking and tedious, the results were simply amazing. He had minor errors that he had to point out to me or I never would have noticed.
There are probably a few places to watch people writing in this style. I would venture to guess that some shopping malls have specialized shops, but I've never seen one. That one time was the first and the last time I actually saw someone doing it who knew what he was doing and with the right tools. He had a briefcase with nothing but parchment paper, ink wells, quill pens and stuff I don't even remember.
Calligraphy Gifts
If you know someone who's even mildly interested in calligraphy, a gift set containing a calligraphy pen and a calligraphy pen holder could be the start of a beautiful hobby.
If you want to make it complete, you can add parchment paper and inkwells to the set. A dying art form can only be revived if enough people continue to be interested in it. If I'm not mistaken, the collector's edition of "The Tales of Beedle the Bard" was done in a calligraphy style. After viewing pictures on Amazon, I'm almost positive.
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We learned calligraphy when I was in school but have never really found a purpose for it in my everyday life. I like how it looks, but probably have already forgot how to do it well.
I used to be able to write pretty letters, I enjoyed signing postcards. Now I do it so rarely, that every time I pick up a pen, my hand is not steady and letters come out … well, as if a teenager was writing. Some futurists predict that a keyboard will become obsolete at some point. I wonder what will replace it.