The Society for Calligraphy and Handwriting

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Redmond, WA
The Society for Calligraphy and Handwriting

The Society for Calligraphy & Handwriting (SCH) was formed in the Fall of 1975 to promote interest and knowledge in the art form of beautiful lettering.

Membership is open to all, amateur and professional alike. The Society’s membership is concentrated in the Bellevue, Washington area yet extends throughout the United States. The Society for Calligraphy & Handwriting (SCH) welcomes new and returning members to the group. A spirited involvement of members together at meetings, classes, lectures, exhibits, workshops and through publications has beco

me characteristic of the Society’s growth, and is seen to be a positive, mutual benefit of belonging to SCH. For questions about SCH membership, our library, our newsletter, our meetings or workshops, please feel free to contact us.

04/13/2026

Join us this week for Weaver Writing with Brigitte Hefferan. This meeting will be IN PERSON ONLY.

This pointed pen script is just plain fun! Try this fun pointed pen variation that showcases the strength & versatility of the pointed pen tool. The letterforms are informal, but have a sense of rhythm and harmony as a part of the whole.
Expand your calligraphic horizon!

SCH members, check your email for details, and non-members, please contact us if you're interested in attending!

03/12/2026

Join us next week for our March meeting! This will only be held on Zoom.

By Hand: Endangered Alphabets with Tim Brookes

For 16 years, Tim Brookes has been discovering, researching and promoting endangered alphabets around the world, and recently he discovered a fascinating and disturbing trend: while minority cultures are discovering their roots and their identity by reviving their traditional alphabets through calligraphy, the West is doing exactly the opposite: abandoning the art of writing in favor of digital tools and AI. Instead of connecting generations, we are creating a generational divide in which grandchildren can’t read their grandparents’ letters–and don’t write letters themselves. In his new book By hand, Tim Brookes asks, is this an irreversible trend? What is actually involved in writing by hand, and what is lost if we abandon it?

02/17/2026

Join us this Thursday at 7 pm on Zoom for Zine Cards for Scribes with

Zines are a super way to share your work - easy and inexpensive to make, and easily shareable!

SCH members, check your email for details, and non-members, please contact us if you're interested in attending!

01/09/2026

Join us next week for Colourful Funky Letters: Pilot Parallel Pen Class
with Violet Smythe .smythe_arts

This will be presented on Zoom, but you are welcome to join us in person to share supplies.

Bister and or Brusho... powdered inks (similar to walnut ink,) that can be used to letter, create backgrounds, used as a spray or mixed into other media. In this class we’ll learn a funky hand and get colourful with our letters!

Violet Smythe is a visual artist, lettering enthusiast and instructor that is passionate about art and calligraphy. She has had the opportunity to study under many gifted and talented teachers as well as some world-renowned instructors and she loves to share her passion for calligraphy, watercolour painting and mixed media arts with others. Her work has been included in several juried exhibitions and several of her pieces can be found in private collections.

SCH members, check your email for details, and non-members, please contact us if you're interested in attending!

11/19/2025

Join us online tomorrow night (Thursday, November 20th) for a delightful evening of whimiscal lettering with Christy Schroeder-Lloyd.

This demo will put a whimsical spin on traditional formal Roman letterforms—a fun and creative lettering option enhanced with color, on their own or as contrast with monoline or pointed pen lettering.

SCH members, check your email for details, and non-members, please contact us if you're interested in attending!

10/10/2025

We are in for a treat next week!

This Holbein, Legion Paper, & General Pencil Brand Ambassador Workshop is a hands-on workshop for artists of all levels and experience from beginner to professional. Along with the instructor, these guided workshops are a learning experience where attendees have the opportunity to experiment with and learn about many different materials. This Watermedia Workshop will focus on Holbein Watercolor, Gouache, Acrylic Gouache, and Watercolor Mediums, as well as Legion's Stonehenge Aqua and Yupo papers, and an assortment of General Pencil materials.

Experiment with brand ambassador Jenna Roby, a practicing artist well-versed in the materials. Jenna will bring plenty of paper and paints to try out, so attend in person, if you can! Contact us for more information if you're interested in joining SCH.

09/15/2025

Welcome back, everyone! It's time for our first meeting of the year. Join us this Thursday, September 18th at 7 pm for Decorated Capitals with Kathy Barker.

Building upon the Designing Decorated Letters theme from our Fall 2024 presentation, we will learn how to “make our letters dance” by adding color, decorative embellishment and details. Included will be a historical overview of Versals (decorated letters) through the centuries.

A printable sample letter will be drawn up for you; or you can choose to do a letter of your own choosing. Handouts and a sample sheet will be provided to download and print for all members
before the presentation.

SCH members, check your email for details, and non-members, please contact us if you're interested in attending!

09/03/2025

Our fall workshop is approaching and we'll be learning from the wonderful Rick Paulus.

Date: October 4th and 5th, 2025, 9:30 am to 4:30 pm in person in Redmond, WA or on Zoom. This is a hybrid workshop, and recordings of the workshop will be available afterward.
Cost: SCH members -in person and/or Zoom $100.00, non-SCH members $125.00: includes SCH membership to
June 30, 2027.
Registration information is available on our website.

The Monoline letter is ubiquitous and it has many voices. It was a favorite of the Art Nouveau and Art Deco periods, it has been a staple of advertising for generations, and it takes on new life in the twenty-first century as it plays its role in the expressive calligraphy
movement.

Discover the diverse and lively world of the magnificent monoline letter in this colorful workshop where participants explore a playful world, free of the concerns of pen angles, and thicks and
thins! From creating White House invitations (really!) to expressive
calligraphy pieces and logo design, the monoline pen is as versatile and easy to use as it is fun. Rick’s workshops often refer to history and the influence of calligraphy on type; participants will enjoy flipping the tables as they use type as inspiration for calligraphy.
In this workshop, colors will fly with watercolor, gouache, masking fluids, and colored inks! If you have never tried calligraphy at all, this workshop is a very welcoming entry to the wonderful world of letters. For the skilled calligrapher, this workshop will stretch your imagination as you add more range to your calligraphic voice.

Rick Paulus is a former White House chief calligrapher, who continues his quest for the perfectly-formed letter
in his studio on the shores of Cape Cod. Having studied and practiced calligraphy for over forty years, he
remains a passionate student of the craft that first caught his interest as a ten-year-old boy. Rick enthusiastically shares his in-depth knowledge of calligraphy in the hopes of creating a more beautiful and humane world.

08/09/2025

Reminder: the deadline for our fall issue of LetterNews is next Friday, August 15th. Please direct all submissions to Kathy and Nan.

LetterNews is our guild newsletter, and is exclusively distributed to members of SCH. We are looking forward to a great issue! There's still time to join us before its release - contact us or visit our website for information on membership.

05/09/2025

Join us next week on May 15th for Calligraphy and Watercolor Cards with Jocelyn Curry

The challenge: you have volunteered to design a holiday card for a regional organization. After you send samples of your previously designed cards, the team selects "trees" as the primary theme and they want images done in watercolor. They would love to have calligraphy, but are open to the use of fonts if fonts work better for the provided sentiment that will appear on the card front. Where would you start with this assignment? How would you pair calligraphy with the images you have painted that feature trees?

In her presentation for SCH, Jocelyn Curry will show you the creative process she followed to create four rough "tree theme" card designs to present to the team. The image shown here was not selected as one of the final two chosen for further refinement. However, the calligraphy Jocelyn created for this particular image was selected as the final calligraphy for one of the other two chosen illustrations. At the end of this presentation you will see the printed version of one of the two final card designs.

Members check your email for details, and non-members, if you are interested in attending virtually or in-person, please get in touch!

03/17/2025

MINI MASTERPIECES are little 2” x 2” works of art that are created using a 5-layer process, from basic black to “bling.” Each piece is unique—no two are alike. They can be standalone works of art, suitable for framing, or they’re perfect for cards, mobiles or book decorations.

Join us this Thursday to create your own!

Address

Redmond, WA

Website

https://calligraphysociety.org/

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