30th festival of calligraphy

3 t0 9 august 2025

Mary is a Fellow of CLAS and SSI, CLAS Accredited Tutor, and a past Chair of CLAS. She has written several calligraphy books, mostly in partnership with Jan Mehigan, their first collaboration being together with other artists for “The Art of Colour Calligraphy”, 1997, which sparked the original idea for the Colour & Texture course.

Jan is passionate about colour, both rich and subtle. Her aim will be to make it easy for everyone to understand colour mixing, mood and emotion in calligraphic design. Although not always successful, it is fun to experiment and explore the endless possibilities and to enhance personal creativity. She has been teaching art and calligraphy for nearly 40 years and would like to encourage individual ideas and techniques. She is a Fellow of both CLAS and SSI.

This course will focus on understanding the Colour Wheel, colour matching and key colour terminology. You’ll also study the qualities of different papers and techniques for using brushes and washes. We’ll experiment with creating painted backgrounds, layering and achieving wonderful textural effects with a variety of mixed media. Expect to work with inks, watercolours, acrylics, pencils, crayons, gold powders and paints, along with texture mediums and mark-making tools to create a wealth of exciting, unusual backgrounds.

For those attending both sessions, there’s the option to submit your work — along with homework — for the CLAS Specialist Skills Award, Colour & Texture course.

This workshop is suitable for all levels.

Runic scripts, with their distinctive look, have been around since the 1st century and offer a striking contrast when paired with other letterforms, or they can stand on their own. In this workshop, you’ll begin with an exploration of the origins, history and use of runes, and be guided through the process of adapting traditional runic letterforms to create your own “English” version of the script.

Next, you’ll experiment with a variety of layouts, learning how to arrange the runes in visually appealing ways, and receive guidance on the use of colour, form, size, scale, decoration and embellishments. By the end of the session, you’ll have developed a fully-formed runic-inspired alphabet, ready to incorporate into your own unique calligraphic designs.

This workshop is suitable for all levels.

Toni is a full-time artist and illuminator. She enjoys using traditional techniques and materials – mineral and earth pigments, plant pigments from her garden, traditional handcrafted inks, 24 carat gold leaf and gemstones such as sapphires and emeralds – to create contemporary work.

Many artists incorporate gold leaf into their work, whether as a design element or to add depth to the meaning of a text. However, few take the time to consider exactly how they want the gold to look. Should it be satin or shiny? Flat or raised? Smooth or tooled? Which colour of gold leaf is best, or perhaps a combination of colours? Should the gold lie beside the text, or should you write and paint directly on top of it?

In this workshop, we’ll explore these contrasts, creating a series of small pieces that combine various gilding techniques. You’ll also experiment with writing and painting on gold leaf, using methods to enhance a larger calligraphic design or to produce a piece which stands alone.

This workshop is suitable for all levels.

An active member of the international calligraphy movement for more than 45 years, Eleanor is the author of six calligraphy books. Her most recent book, Paris / Auschwitz: Remembering the Children, is a collection of her calligraphic paintings commemorating the children of Paris murdered by the Nazis during the Holocaust.

Eleanor was the Director of the Calligraphy Workshop in New York City and a Professor of Art at Long Island University. She teaches workshops, both in-person and online, and exhibits her work in the US, Europe and Asia.

Designed for students with a basic grasp of Copperplate, this workshop explores the essential principles, shapes and techniques of flourishing through pencil exercises and simple drawing techniques. We’ll draw inspiration from the 18th-century writing masters featured in The Universal Penman and other historical sources.

Beginning with pencil sketches, students will explore and employ fundamental layout principles, including contrast, positive and negative space, colour and size, as well as simple vs. flourished letterforms. These creative choices will culminate in a beautifully-designed artwork that captures the meaning of your chosen text.

This workshop is suitable for intermediate and advanced levels.

Carry Wouters is a lettering artist who lives and works in Brasschaat, Belgium. She teaches students of all ages. In her personal artwork, Carry strives to unite the underlying common threads that link legible and expressionist writing. Connecting history with craftmanship and heritage techniques remains her great passion.

Manuscripts from the 18th century reflect the tastes, ambitions and dreams of their owners, with the royal library of the Burgundian court serving as a superlative source of examples from this golden age of manuscript arts. In this session, we will study their Bâtarde capitals, examining both the basic and more intricate forms of this script in all their sumptuous glory, and reimagining them with a contemporary look.

Can we transform historical letters into an image that conveys meaning? We will explore this question, tapping into our imagination and creativity as we learn to weave our unique creations into a calligraphic design.

The outcomes will blend a personal signature with the distinctive “family traits” of the 15th-century court manuscript style, resulting in a captivating fusion of past and present.

This workshop is suitable for intermediate and advanced calligraphers with experience in Bâtarde, Gothic Quadrata or Gothic Textura.

booking information

bookings

To ensure you secure your first workshop choice, early booking is highly recommended. All bookings received before 15 December 2024 will be processed simultaneously, allowing us to accommodate as many preferences as possible. In the event that any workshops become oversubscribed, a draw may be conducted to fairly allocate places.

To maximise your chances of securing a spot, please indicate your second and third choices on the booking form, as we cannot guarantee a place in your first choice.

If you have any questions or require further assistance, please feel free to contact Donna Deeks, Director or Janice McClelland, Assistant Director at festival@clas.co.uk. We kindly ask that you specify the topic in the subject line of your email, ensuring it is directed to the appropriate person for a prompt response.

CLAS members will benefit from a £40 discount on fees, as outlined in the table below. Don’t miss out on this fantastic opportunity to immerse yourself in the world of calligraphy and connect with fellow enthusiasts!

three-stage payment

Payment can be made in three stages, as outlined below. Please follow these instructions carefully to ensure a smooth booking process:

1. A non-refundable deposit of £70 per person is required upon booking, to be paid directly to CLAS.

 

2. Between 1 April and 1 May 2025, please make your payment to Scarman directly through their website at: https://www.kxregistration.warwick.ac.uk/CLAS2025. This payment must be made using a debit or credit card only.

 

3. The final balance is to be paid to CLAS by 1 May 2025.

When making payments via PayPal or BACS, please use your name as it appears on the registration form as a reference. For international payments, we kindly ask that you use PayPal. If you have any questions about how to use PayPal, don’t hesitate to contact Donna Deeks at festival@clas.co.uk.