Drawn to Art

I spent time with my final two classes today doing Kanji.  I think I will miss painting in the halls with the students as we move on to a new unit.

I also had a few students who finished up their former Celt border projects and wanted me to add them to the mix… which I did. Enjoy the pictures.

Tags: celt, kanji, mash-up, symbols

On Thursday, we explored the techniques of Kanji.

Kanji is more of an eastern form of calligraphy. It’s origins are from Japan.

We traded our calligraphy pens for paintbrushes today, and traded our ink for some paint. We decided to use green paint as it seemed seasonally appropriate.

The students had their choice of painting either character, or both, one is the symbol of eternity, and the other is the word for power.

Here is a link to an online Kanji dictionary:

http://www.yamasa.org/ocjs/kanjijiten/english/index.html

If you click on one of the characters, not only will it give you the meaning, but a little flash animation is there to show you how the brush strokes go, it’s pretty cool. You gotta check it out!

Tags: eternity, green, japan, japanese, kanji, language as art, paint, power

We took some time to explore the ‘versals’ font in calligraphy class, and discussed Celtic art in detail. The students were directed to work on a letter or letters of their choice and to try their hand at celtic scroll-work that is involved in so many intricate alphabet works.

Enjoy these pictures!

Tags: celtic, knot, scroll

For our second round of calligraphy, we are exploring a few more font styles. Specifically, ‘Blacketter’ and a fancy italicized one.

You know, a Christmas card that has some nice calligraphy in it would be quite well-received by your relatives… just sayin’.

Here’s some more pics of my little scribes:

Tags: blackletter, font, goth, italic, scribes

Our symbols unit transitioned into hieroglyphics quite nicely… and now our art journey is taking us firmly into the dark land of Calligraphy.

Fonts for the computer have to be created by someone, so why not you?  Your alphabet type could be the next biggest hit!

We explored the different pen types, from quill pens and bottles of ink to *super-expensive* pens with refillable cartridges, and settled on our Calligraphy markers.

Here are some students having fun with standard and italic font types.

Tags: alphabet, cursive, font, gothic, handwriting, ink, italic, nib, quill pen, roman, serif