arabic | Arabic Calligraphy

Workshop in Beirut – 1st edition

The idea came from a very good friend of mine.

Last year, he asked me: “Hey Hicham, why don’t you come over here and teach?”

My answer was fast and clear: “Let’s go !!! “

Since then, we have organized already 3 events this year and the fourth is already scheduled.

It is a great honour and pleasure for me to travel over to Lebanon and teach about my passion. The way I teach differs from traditional calligraphers. I listen a lot to my students and adapt myself to their objectives.

It takes years to become a very good calligrapher but only few hours to start having fun and enjoying the pleasure of this practice.

My idea is to show that light that will give people motivation to work hard. When students see what they can do after a few days, they want to learn more…

Long story short, please enjoy the few pictures below.

Open session on fashion design with calligraphy

gvf

Latin or Arabic?

Being born in France, the first language I learned to write was French with its Latin alphabet. My passion for Arabic calligraphy started later when I was a student.

I was attracted by the harmony and the flow of the Arabic letters and got offered the possibility to be trained by a Master. I focused initially on the Diwani style for which I received an intensive training. When I felt more comfortable with Diwani, I tried the Koufi style which is more geometric. In fact, this style is usually integrating architectural elements.

example

Full of imagination, I noticed that Arabic letters written with Koufi style were showing geometrical similarities with Latin letters.

The letter “noun” can look like an “i”

The letter “ain” can look like an “e”

The letter “waw” can look like a “g”

The letter “alif” can look like a “l”

etc.

And for the letters that are not so similar, I noticed that you could split the Arabic letters into basic elements that can be combined subtly to appear like a Latin letter.

Take away:

Arabic calligraphy has a rich panel of styles and scripts

Calligraphers with imagination can be very playful

It is possible to write a text with Latin letters and make it look like Arabic

How to make very thick lines

Calligraphy is the art of writing beautiful letters. To do this, you need to use the right tools: pen, ink and paper. In this post, I will focus on the pens that allow you to draw very thick lines.

Calligraphic pens are made to fit comfortably in your hands. This ergonomic allows you to have full control of your movement and draw very precise lines. In Latin, Persian or Arabic, one key element is the alternation of thick and thin lines. A calligraphic pen has a special shape. The bottom part in contact with the paper is wide. The ink flows from the cartridge or an area that can contain a volume of liquid ink. When the ink reaches the bottom, the structure and geometry of the pen makes the ink regularly distributed all along the width of the nib.

In regular shops, calligraphic pens have a nib up to 3mm wide. If you look for wider pens, you need to go to special shops where you may find pens up to 6mm wide. Some manufacturers propose up to 2cm. The wider the pens are, the rarer they are to find.

Imagine now that you are looking for a width of 10-15cm… Where can you find a pen that distributes in a control manner the ink across the whole width? Not easy to find and if you find one, it will be quite expensive…

When I started calligraphy, I was a student and I did not have a lot of money to invest in numerous calligraphic pens. When I spoke to my teacher about this dilemma, he asked me to buy the cheapest ink pens and he showed me how to make my own pens.

So I will show you how to build yours for a very cheap price.

Steps

buy a painter spatula
buy adhesive felt
past the felt over the spatula edge in such a way that you create a small reservoir to hold your liquid ink

job done !!!

photos

Take away

If you cannot find or afford the right tools to make beautiful modern calligraphic pieces, do not worry. You can build your own tools.

Zoomorphism in Calligraphy

Zoomorphism comes from the Greek ζωον (zōon), meaning “animal”, and μορφη (morphē), meaning “shape” or “form”. In calligraphy, it is the art of writing a text and make the lines of the letters form the shape of an animal.

This art is very popular in Arabic calligraphy and there are different methods to make it possible. Each method helps adding more realism into the materialization of the animal.

Linear – Easy to read

The first one consists in filling the space without changing the way you write. Basically, you write in lines and the shape will appear because you start and stop the line at a specific position. With this method, it is only the outline that will be visible.

Linear plus – Easy to recognize

In order to increase the subtlety of the design, you can opt for modifying the way you space the words and letters. Visually, this effect will modify the density of the ink and will make it possible to materialize shapes inside the outline. The free space can optionally be filled with ink in order to give some perspective or to add a lighting effet

Organic – The animal looks realistic.

Next step would be to extend some letters in order to follow more organically the lines of the animal. This method brings more realism and allows us to clearly distinguish legs, wings, head, hairs from the body. In order to help building some realism, words are not necessarily following horizontal lines. Lines can be curved in order to naturally follow some key elements defining the animal. The text becomes more difficult to read

Realist – The animal is “alive”

Next step is to forget about the lines and the order of the words and to focus on the key lines of the drawings. In this case, each word is positioned following a geometrical logic rather than the meaning of the sentence. The word is following perfectly the main lines of the animal. You can also define zones according to lighting effect or texture contrast in order to increase the realism of the calligraphy. With this method, it is also possible to give the animal an expression or the feeling of a movement.