On 9th June 2021, Kuen Cheng High School Western Calligraphy Club organized a workshop on Chinese Calligraphy Brush Lettering, with the opportunity of the 2021 Online Co-curricular Carnival. The main speaker was the coach of the Western Calligraphy Club, Mr. Lewind Sow Fung Sang, who is a professional graphic designer, mural artist and calligrapher. The workshop was attended by approximately 100 participants who were required to self-prepare pencils or pens beforehand.
At 2.00 pm sharp, Mr. Sow gave a short introduction about himself and explained the objectives of the workshop, besides recommending a few favourite pen brands of his. He said that brush lettering may seem difficult at the start, but if we practised diligently, it would gradually transform into a mere piece of cake. He further proved his point by demonstrating a few artistic strokes using his brush, explaining that there was a certain technique which we needed to grasp in order to obtain the perfect Chinese calligraphy stroke.
Throughout the workshop, Mr. Sow demonstrated his impeccable brush lettering skills merely by using a brush and a few pieces of paper. He wrote numerous Chinese characters such as the surnames “胡”，“蔡”，“韩”, “黎” and “黄”. Mr. Sow was very meticulous with every movement of his brush in order to ensure the exquisiteness of every stroke, because every Chinese character depicts a unique and wondrous picture of its own. Mr. Sow also emphasised that there was no such a thing as a difficult Chinese character to write.
As per participants’ requests, Mr. Sow obliged to demonstrate writing a few relatively intricate Chinese characters, such as “龍” and “瞏”. He said that ancient Chinese characters were his favourites, joking that they could greatly showcase the calligrapher’s capability at brush lettering. He soon started writing a few Chinese characters which were derived from participants’ names, such as “碧”，“瑶”，“毅” ，“秦” and “韵”. He occasionally named the strokes as he wrote the letters, saying that as long as the calligraphy looked presentable, it didn’t matter if the strokes weren’t downright accurate.
Overall, the workshop was conducted with a pleasantly warm atmosphere, thanks to the easy-going attitude which Mr. Sow adopted throughout the lesson. Before ending the workshop, Mr. Sow wrote the final calligraphy letters of the day: “坤成中学”, and urged participants to post photos of their calligraphy on social media, later sharing his Instagram account name which was lewind_calliholic. After that, he answered a few questions raised by participants and took a group photo to officially end the workshop.
