Past Event

Exploring Calligraphy

18+

Instructor: Rick Paulus

Enjoy an immersive calligraphy journey as you explore a broad range of tools, materials, and techniques, from historic to contemporary, with expert guidance throughout.

Share

Overview

Throw off your mooring lines and set sail on a calligraphic adventure with former White House chief calligrapher, Rick Paulus!

Intrigued by calligraphy? This workshop, through the introduction of a wide range of studio skills, tools, and materials, will help you to better understand the influences that inspire the modern calligrapher.

Beginning with a unique and entertaining tour through human history from the eyes of a calligrapher, we will explore the concept of lettering, its place in society, and how it has evolved over the millennia. It is with this inspiration that we break out the tools and begin our hands-on exploration! Experience for yourself how wonderful it feels to write with an actual turkey quill and ground pigment on real vellum; feel the meditative peace one slips into when focused only on the pen, paper, and ink as they merge at the tip of your pen. Using our explorations into the past as a springboard, we will then leap forward into the 21st century, using modern tools, materials, techniques, and inspiration to create expressive letters. Under Rick’s gentle guidance, these experiences will leave you a much more informed and confident calligrapher as you move forward in your artistic journey.

Additional Information

Rick Paulus has been a calligrapher and a teacher for over forty years. In 1998, he was appointed chief calligrapher of the White House, where he remained for two presidents until, in 2006, he left Washington, DC to explore new adventures in nature and in art. Today, when not enjoying calligraphic explorations in his studio on the shores of Buzzards Bay in Massachusetts, Rick enthusiastically shares the knowledge he gained through many years of studio production and artistic experimentation with students, young and old alike.

This colorful class covers a broad-range of calligraphy styles and methods, requiring many different tools and mediums, including; pointed pens, broad-edge pens, ruling pens, monoline pens, turkey quills, gouache, watercolor, color ink, black ink, fine pigments, lots and lots of paper, and vellum, all of which will be covered by the lab fee and provided by your instructor.