Every time I moved into a new "space" (be it Aikido, Calligraphy, or drawing), it was always sort of whimsical, or almost by accident. So I suppose I should not be surprised that a vacation to Sicily led me to take my first step in a completely new world… let's call this "body calligraphy", at least until we can find something better.
My collaboration with Anyash kicked off in the digital world, where she generously posed for me during online sketching sessions via Zoom. When we finally got the chance to meet face-to-face, I pitched her an unconventional idea for our next session together. Instead of sticking to our usual sketching routine, I suggested trying out calligraphy directly on her skin—a concept she enthusiastically agreed to.
This required, of course, a bit of preparatory work on my part. I had already secured (and tested) body paint - some small scale experiments in the past had already proven that normal calligraphy ink does not work well on skin. (You better used water acrylics, if you are desperate, but the best option is actual body paint).
My collaboration with Anyash kicked off in the digital world, where she generously posed for me during online sketching sessions via Zoom. When we finally got the chance to meet face-to-face, I pitched her an unconventional idea for our next session together. Instead of sticking to our usual sketching routine, I suggested trying out calligraphy directly on her skin—a concept she enthusiastically agreed to.
This required, of course, a bit of preparatory work on my part. I had already secured (and tested) body paint - some small scale experiments in the past had already proven that normal calligraphy ink does not work well on skin. (You better used water acrylics, if you are desperate, but the best option is actual body paint).
First of all, I wanted to come up with something to write on the front. In the little sketch I showed to Anyash I just wrote some gibberish - I had already decided I would try to write a "strip" starting from the shoulder and reaching down to the opposite ankle/foot, but I was not sure about what to write.
I was afraid I would misjudge the space to cover so I wanted something that could be shortened (or "extended") without compromising the result. For this reason, something with an explicit ending (like a haiku) was out of the question.
So I decided to try to write the first 16 characters from Qianziwen… (but I also prepared an example of the next 16, in case I found myself stranded somewhere around the model's thigh).
The other (obvious, in retrospect) idea was to write a much larger calligraphy (ideally one or maybe two kanjis) on the back. For this, though, I wanted to agree with the model about what to write. If she had no idea, or her proposal would be too difficult to fit … we could always agree on her Zodiac sign, which is sort of my "go-to" suggestion for whoever would like to have a calligraphy done but is not sure about what text to choose.
Just one day before our session Anyash had launched a personal project about "imperfection", so we quickly agreed that writing "wabi sabi" (侘寂) would fit quite nicely.
I was afraid I would misjudge the space to cover so I wanted something that could be shortened (or "extended") without compromising the result. For this reason, something with an explicit ending (like a haiku) was out of the question.
So I decided to try to write the first 16 characters from Qianziwen… (but I also prepared an example of the next 16, in case I found myself stranded somewhere around the model's thigh).
The other (obvious, in retrospect) idea was to write a much larger calligraphy (ideally one or maybe two kanjis) on the back. For this, though, I wanted to agree with the model about what to write. If she had no idea, or her proposal would be too difficult to fit … we could always agree on her Zodiac sign, which is sort of my "go-to" suggestion for whoever would like to have a calligraphy done but is not sure about what text to choose.
Just one day before our session Anyash had launched a personal project about "imperfection", so we quickly agreed that writing "wabi sabi" (侘寂) would fit quite nicely.
Here you can see the first 16 characters from the Qianziwen - I had flirted with the idea of writing all 1000 of these to force myself to practice shodo more regularly… but I never got past #96…
Once we had agreed on what to write… everything else just fell in place: the other technical details (how to ensure you do not risk leaving ink stains all over the place, for example) are things I have already handled for years now, in the most diverse situations.
The part I felt less sure about (and that I want to get better at in the future) was the photographic one, both during the writing phase itself and after that.
More specifically, after having completed the writing on Anyash's back, I realized that I hadn't thought about setting the iPhone somewhere where it could record or shoot me while I was writing…
I asked Anyash if she would kindly try to take some pics of me using her phone…
She also came up with the idea to try and record a couple of short videos (something I will definitely try to set up myself next time):
And finally we can move to the gallery session, where I show a selection of the pictures I took after finishing the Calligraphy part.
As I mentioned before, I am not really that much of a photographer, and the little skills I have are mostly for urban photos.
Luckily an old time friend of mine helped me a lot by taking care of the post processing from my raw images.
As I mentioned before, I am not really that much of a photographer, and the little skills I have are mostly for urban photos.
Luckily an old time friend of mine helped me a lot by taking care of the post processing from my raw images.
