New Zealand Calligraphers

Workshop participants practise sheets, thank you for sharing.

Peter Gilderdale was our leader for this workshop. A quiet but intense weekend that demanded concentration and the need for us to revisit our analysis skills. We were given several (12th-15th century) excerpts  of cursive every day hands (in latin) to decipher, then we were to develop them into useful useful, readable  hands we could use today.

We just started to find some sort of familiarity when the next alphabet was handed out. Peter was very willing to demonstrate, and was constantly circulating the room to assist with deciphering, and offering helpful suggestions for each one of our problems. 

The calligraphers from Warkworth joined us for the first day of the workshop, our other two travellers were in Auckland for the weekend. Bevan had travelled from Whangarei and Peggy had flown up from Wellington, it was good to see them all again.

Peter showed us how to write one of his favourite letters - 'e'. He covered ground on the basics:- pen grasp, tools, writing positions, hand, arm, shoulder movements and I was reminded how easy it was to let lazy habits take hold.

The last assignment was wicked and playful to arrive in the very last half hour of the weekend, we stared at an extremely intricate document full of cadells, fine decorative pen work and letters made up of oblique squares with the edge of the pen. 

Peter then asked us to select the 3 hands we liked best, all went round and listened to the discussion that followed and the reasons for our choices. Evidence that some of us were still standing. An excellent workshop.

More workshop practise sheets.