What is Charcoal Calligraphy®?

From Calligraphy to Painting!
A groundbreaking artistic technique

A concept that stands opposite all previous painting methods.

Traditional painting: Observe (concrete) objects and paint (abstract) them

Charcoal calligraphy: Take the shapes and meanings of written characters and letters (abstracted objects) and paint (concretize) them

The shapes and meanings of characters serve as both a motif and a collection of easily recognizable points, lines, and planes.

When objects are the motif (observing objects and painting them), you are overly confined by their shape, making it hard to convey and express your artistic intentions.

Create Calligraphy Freely With a Single Stick of Charcoal

Working in charcoal opens up spectacular possibilities for abundant expression, whether the form is Japanese calligraphy of Chinese characters and hiragana with inkstone and brush, Western calligraphy of the alphabet with pen and ink, Arabic calligraphy, or any other artistic mode.

The Motif is Not Objects but Characters

Charcoal calligraphy is an entirely new, groundbreaking technique for making sketches (esquisse) with written characters as the motif.

When you observe and draw objects (still lifes, scenery, models, etc.) you are restricted to the shape of the subject - to its accuracy and faithfulness - and become extremely aware of its realism, losing sight of what you were really trying to draw in the first place.

Anyone, however, can draw characters without any particular difficulty, which makes it much easier to overcome the challenges that hurdles can pose.

Your imagination steadily expands as the meanings and shapes of a set of characters remind you of more characters and more shapes, putting you in an inspiring creative mode. Quite simply, written characters make the perfect motif.

Accurately Create the Object You Want to Draw and Convey

You can start creating what you want to draw (in other words, the shapeless, conceptual/abstract idea) without any hesitation at all.

For example, when you're drawing the Japanese character "山" (mountain) and you eventually realize that what you really want to express is the nobility or the natural severity of a mountain, drawing the character "山" still works, but using "崇高" (noble) or "厳" (severe) as a motif better clarifies the purpose of your expression.

Using the meanings and shapes of written characters as a starting point, mobilize what you have seen or remember, experienced, have knowledge of, sensed, imagined; take characters and words, images of concrete objects, all of these fragments, and organize them into a collage to create a sketch.

If you can't exactly remember the things you want to include in your work or you first want to focus on the details, look at the actual object of your drawing to help ignite the creative process.

Not Writing but Drawing Characters

With charcoal calligraphy, characters and letters are not written but drawn.

Charcoal makes correcting, erasing, and revising easy and also expands traditional calligraphy's limited scope of expression in one fell swoop.

Moving from writing to drawing achieves a significant change in both quality and volume.

Although the work is "calligraphic" at the start, the completed work is less calligraphy than a sketch (esquisse) for a painting.

Because you are conscious of the shapes and lines of letters and characters, the lines you draw from scratch are different, and you can draw shapes and lines that you couldn't before (perhaps being confined to the forms of the characters frees you from your usual habits?)

Toward an Introduction to Fine Arts Education
The shortcut between sketching and expression

The charcoal calligraphy technique is very effective in art classes when having children make paintings of their lives or what they imagine.

Fine arts education in Japan is supposed to be moving from a pattern of imitation and observation using models, copying, sketching, and more toward the individual/self-expression-focused Cizek method of art education, but in reality this initiative has not made much progress.

Charcoal calligraphy is the perfect technique to accelerate this process.

I believe the technique enables students to draw characters and letters freely without getting anxious, exercises their imagination, and can be directly tied to the traditional art class activities of drawing elements of students' lives, memories, and imaginings.

Toward an Introduction to Calligraphy (and Handwriting) Education
Toward the unification of fine arts education

Compared to the past, Japanese calligraphy education is in a poor state.

If you call calligraphy art, then model-based writing, brushes, and single-chance writing where no correction is allowed must be done away with in favor of a more flexible system.

I am convinced that the charcoal calligraphy technique, which blends calligraphy and painting together and also bridges the gap between the fine arts and calligraphy, can contribute greatly to breaking the deadlock of the current situation.

By introducing charcoal calligraphy, instructors can teach calligraphy and painting by side and calligraphy can be integrated into the fine arts curriculum.

Globally Adaptable and Environmentally Friendly

The technique is valid for use around the world in making sketches (esquisse), no matter the language (regardless of whether its ideographic or phonetic).

With inkstone and brush or pen and ink (used in Arabic and western calligraphy), erasing, correcting, and revising is difficult, but charcoal calligraphy solves many of these problems; and by saving on paper, the technique is also gentle on the environment.

Charcoal is a cheap and environmentally friendly teaching material for fine arts education.

The charcoal calligraphy technique could also contribute to carbon offsetting by developing a scheme using thinned wood.

“山” (Japanese, 'mountain')

Brush and ink

Charcoal
Added leaf frottage to a part of the design

Pen and ink

Charcoal

Pen and ink

Charcoal

Enable Greater Variation in Expression with the Same Characters and Letters Used in Traditional Calligraphy

It is much easier to make corrections with charcoal than it is with ink.

Brush calligraphy strictly forbids tracing, but if you want to promote the medium as art, regardless of whether it is single-chance writing or not, tracing should be permitted as a valuable technique that expands the breadth of expression.

Light touches and shading are often difficult to express in pen, but with charcoal they are easy.

In the world of characters drawn with a pen, light touches and shading are looked down upon from the start, but in order to promote Arabic and western calligraphy as art, these touches are indispensable tools of expression.

“木炭書” (Japanese, 'charcoal calligraphy')

Charcoal
Added a wooden board frottage to a part of the design.

“CHARCOAL CALLIGRAPHY”

Charcoal
Shades of light and dark can be easily expressed in the lines.

Unlike Ink, Charcoal Can Be Erased, Corrected, and Revised Easily

This technique abandons the single-chance writing used in Japanese, Arabic, and western calligraphy, creating a distinctive form of expression.

Ink cannot be erased (although recently some inks can); because it doesn't disappear, ink became the conventional way to record letters and characters. For the purposes of art, however, this is a serious handicap.

As calligraphy is composed of letters or characters, it is naturally an expression of the core lines involved, along with some embellishments. If you call it art, though, capturing the overall expression is essential, even if some corrections need to be made.

Adjusting the color, of course, expands the breadth of expression even further.

“山” (Japanese, 'mountain')

Charcoal
Expressed an impression and memory of the word's meaning using an eraser.

“Mountain”

Charcoal
Made corrections while concentrating on the meaning and shapes of the letters.

Traditional Sketches

[Apple]	[Mother]	[Cat]

Examples Inspired by Character Shapes and Meanings

[りんご] (Japanese, 'apple')	[お母さん] (Japanese, 'mother')	[猫] (Japanese, 'cat')

Examples Inspired by Character Shapes

[Apple]	[Mother]	[Chat] (French, 'cat')

Examples Inspired by Subject Shapes

[りんご] (Japanese, 'apple')	[お母さん] (Japanese, 'mother')	[猫] (Japanese, 'cat')

Examples Inspired by Subject Shapes

[Apple]	[Mother]	[Chat] (French, 'cat')

Turn On the Full Power of Your Imagination

Take the object you want to depict (emotion, idea, event, etc.), evoked by the first characters you drew, represent it in letters (characters, words, phrases, passages, sentences), and make a sketch.

If you take the main points of a brainstorming session and try to draw every little character and shape that you associate with the first characters, the hints for even more new images and spaces will appear.

If you take a character apart stroke by stroke or part by part, mix up the parts, replace them with others, scatter them about, and, like rhythmic music, add light and dark and big and small characters over and over again, new discoveries await.

Examples Inspired by Taking the Object / Emotion / Idea / Event Evoked by the First Characters Drawn

[りんご (Japanese, 'apple') →Taboo]	[お母さん (Japanese, 'mother') →Maternal Love]	[猫 (Japanese, 'cat')→ Cuteness]

Examples Inspired by Taking the Object / Emotion / Idea / Event Evoked by the First Characters Drawn

[Apple → Taboo]	[Mother → Maternal Love]	[Chat (French, 'cat') → Cuteness]

りんご
(Japanese, 'apple')

Apple

お母さん
(Japanese, 'mother')

Mother

猫
(Japanese, 'cat')

CHAT
(French, 'cat')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

りんご (Japanese, 'apple')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

りんご (Japanese, 'apple')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

りんご (Japanese, 'apple')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

Apple

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

Apple

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

Apple

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

お母さん (Japanese, 'mother')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

お母さん (Japanese, 'mother')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

お母さん (Japanese, 'mother')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

Mother

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

Mother

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

Mother

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

猫 (Japanese, 'cat')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

猫 (Japanese, 'cat')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

猫 (Japanese, 'cat')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

CHAT (French, 'cat')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

CHAT (French, 'cat')

From Charcoal Calligraphy (Sketches) to Painting

CHAT (French, 'cat')