June is “Adopt a Cat” month. ( Just my cup of tea; I love cats!) If you’ve read Learn World Calligraphy, you know that I devote a whole spread to writing a word such as CAT so it looks like a cat and the word HORSE so it looks like a horse. This lets English-speaking calligraphers writing phonetic letters share the visual experience of Chinese calligraphers writing symbolic characters.
- Tips for design:
- To make a calligraphy picture, play around with the name of the thing you want to draw, looking for lucky coincidences. The C in CAT, for instance, can have two pointed ears. The A stands on two paws. The horizontal stroke of T can lengthen into a tail.*
- Make a rough drawing of a cat, or pick out a photo of a cat. Lay tracing paper over it and start to stretch, squeeze, and move the letters.
- This step is important: go away for a few minutes. Then come back and look at your word, letting your brain see and read it at the same time. Make sure that neither way of seeing dominates.
- Write the letters in ink, using brush or pen.
*In the design for Mothers Day [May 12] the M s in MOM look like leaves and the O looks like a round flower. Keep looking for these similarities and you’ll start to see them everywhere.
Remember, “A letter can be anything; anything can be a letter.”
