The word “calligraphy” originated from an amalgam of two Greek words, kallos, meaning “beauty”, and graphein, meaning “to write” – literally “beautiful writing”.
Ipoh Echo had an exclusive one-on-one with self-taught modern calligrapher, Kong Pui Yee.
An avid reader of the Ipoh Echo paper, Pui Yee works as a full-time process engineer in Ipoh. It has been over a year since she was introduced to modern calligraphy and wishes to spread the hobby among Ipohites.
“I was influenced by a friend who’s a full-time calligrapher. I was impressed with her artwork so I purchased some supplies and tried it out myself. And I fell in love with it,” said Pui Yee, adding that she found it very therapeutic.
One of the forms of modern calligraphy is pointed-pen calligraphy, which involves the use of a dip pen with a nib and ink to create thick and thin lines under varying degrees of pressure.
Some of the supplies Pui Yee uses are dip-nibs, straight pen holders, oblique pen holders and an ink set.
Another branch of modern calligraphy is brush-lettering, which involves the use of brush pens and watercolor.
Pui Yee picked up most of her skills in modern calligraphy from reading blogs, and watching videos on YouTube and Instagram. Among her favourites on Instagram include @suzcunningham, @calligkatrina, @masgrimes, @yaochengdesign and @monvoirco.
“In this time and age when sending emails and WhatsApp messages is the norm, we hardly receive any hand-written notes anymore. I believe that modern calligraphy is a good way to rekindle the old way of sending handwritten letters,” Pui Yee told Ipoh Echo.
Pui Yee runs custom calligraphy services for various events such as weddings. For further information, readers can connect with her via Instagram (Instagram.com/owlandquill) or Facebook (Facebook.com/owlandquill).
Pui Yee will be holding pointed-pen calligraphy and brush-lettering workshops in Ipoh in July/August. Interested readers can contact her via Instagram or Facebook.
Leanne Tan
