North Yorkshire Calligraphers

If you're not familiar with calligraphy, this page gives a brief introduction to the "art of beautiful writing". You'll find pictures of our work throughout this site, and some links to other calligraphy sites on our links page. There's a huge amount of information on calligraphy on the web and plenty of sites showing many different approaches.

Calligraphy today takes many forms - it can be based on historical scripts and styles or use modern techniques to produce abstract forms, with a whole range of variations in between! It can be very formal and structured or very informal. Our group members have a wide range of interests and you'll find examples of some different approaches on this website.

In calligraphy we aim to interpret the text in a meaningful way. Different people are inspired by different texts - poetry, prose, written by others or themselves, or simply the individual letters of the alphabet.

Early examples of western manuscripts include the Lindisfarne Gospels. You can visit the British Library site for examples of many manuscripts, including those from other cultures such as China, Japan and the Islamic world.

Traditional calligraphy often uses metal nibs or quills with ink. Modern calligraphers use a wide range of writing tools including felt tips, brushes, sticks, pens made from drinks cans, all kinds of pencils, and coffee stirrers! Experimenting to get the effect you want to achieve is all part of the process.

Calligraphy can be used to make framed artwork, for example using a favourite poem, and it can also be used in handmade books. In our group projects we've combined calligraphy by our members to create artwork which is then printed, for example to make tea towels, aprons, table napkins and mugs - please refer to the pictures on our What's On page.