http://www.thegentlepenman.com/

The Gentle Penman, Hong Kong (2026)

26/04/2026

ENROLLMENT STILL OPEN📢

Join our workshop with Rick and learn to write Engrossers’ Text like a pro!

Engrossing hands, or engrosser’s texts, are uniquely American hands, derived from the influences of French and German roundhands. These hands are the workhorses of the certificate and diploma industry. They incorporate slants, curves, and angles which give them an ornamental feel while remaining relatively quick to write.

Students will gain a solid foundation through the exploration of several historical models
and accompanying assignments.

Details of this online workshop can be found on our website 🌎:

https://www.thegentlepenman.com/engrossers-text

This workshop is open worldwide for registration now. For any questions about the workshop, please email [email protected]

See you in class 🥰

23/04/2026

ENROLLMENT STILL OPEN 📢

The Subtle Line - Letters & Flowers
with Gabriela Soba ✍🏻🌹

Come join this 4-session immersive course with Gabriela .soba blending intuitive watercolor florals, fine-line lowercase calligraphy, and Japanese-inspired scroll art. Students craft delicate details that evolve into a personal emakimono-style roll, using Asian papers for hanging or storage.

Lesson 1: Floral Details in Watercolors & Inks

Explore expressive floral motifs with subtle lines using watercolors and inks on Asian papers like sumi or washi. Practice fine brush strokes (rigger size 1-3) for petal veins, tendrils, and stamens in palettes of blues, carmines, ochres, and greens. Build intuitive layers for organic depth.

Lesson 2: Lowercase Alphabet & Brush Expression

Master a bouncy lowercase alphabet with fine-point brushes, focusing on fluid strokes, ovals, loops, and tapering flourishes. Experiment with pressure control for thick-thin transitions; integrate floral echoes into letterforms for seamless flow.

Lesson 3: Generating Text Lines

Compose continuous text lines weaving lowercase letters with floral elements on extended paper sheets. Refine balance, spacing, and poetic phrasing; practice inline texts that curve organically, using subtle lines for harmony between script and botanicals. Introduce other kind of brushes.

Lesson 4: Paper Roll Finish

Synthesize techniques into a grand roll

Details of this online workshop can be found on our website 🌎:

https://www.thegentlepenman.com/the-subtle-line-letters-and-flowers

This workshop is open worldwide for registration now. For any questions about the workshop, please email [email protected]

See you in class 🥰

17/04/2026

ENROLLMENT STILL OPEN 📢

Patterns of Five: An Introduction to Fivefold Geometry
with Lucie Rose Galvani 🌸

This online course with Lucie is an introduction to geometric drawing through 5- and 10-fold symmetry — a fascinating system based on pentagons and five-pointed stars, used to create rich and original patterns.

This type of symmetry has a unique mathematical character: unlike square or hexagonal grids, it cannot tile space in a regular way, which makes it especially interesting for creative exploration.

Over three sessions, we will explore how to construct this symmetry using compass and ruler, how it relates to the golden ratio, and how it can be used to generate a wide variety of patterns — from structured geometric designs to more organic and expressive motifs.

Beyond learning specific constructions, this course is also an introduction to creative geometry: understanding how a single geometric grid can give rise to infinite variations, and how structure can become a powerful tool for artistic freedom.

Details of this online workshop can be found on our website 🌎:

https://www.thegentlepenman.com/patterns-of-five

This workshop is open worldwide for registration now. For any questions about the workshop, please email [email protected]

See you in class 🥰

11/04/2026

STARTING SOON 📣

Once Upon a Garden - The Storybook Style of Walter Crane
with Heather Held 🌺🌻🌸

Walter Crane was one of the most important and prolific illustrators of the Victorian era and he leaves us a beautiful Storybook Garden of motifs to study. His work was heavily influenced by William Morris and the Pre-Raphaelites while leading us into the Art Nouveau style.

From his unique florals and vines to his borders of whiplash curves and whimsical decorated initials, you can get lost in the details of his work. Crane provides a legacy of intricate black and white designs, calligraphic texts, and brilliant colour illustrations. His letter designs are based on Lombardic, Neoclassical and Art Nouveau styles and are in a league of their own.

As we tend to the garden of inspiration provided by Walter Crane illustrations, students in this workshop will be guided by Heather to explore his unique palette of colour as well as the strong elements that make his work so unique. From his woodblock designed roses to his long, linear border designs, Walter Crane is a master of decoration. We will study his florals, foliates and unique curves as we create a flowing letter and border design inspired by one of his antique illustrated books.

This class is meant to give you a deep dive into the beauty, wonder and ornamental genius of Walter Crane. This class is open to all skill levels, even if you are an absolute beginner and have never studied the beauty of decorative letter design. The hope is that Walter Crane’s creative details will awaken a storybook garden of your own.

22/03/2026

ENROLLMENT STILL OPEN 📢

Modern Copperplate Variations
with Rachel Yallop ✍🏻

Rachel developed this style as a fun way to write humorous quotes, or for light-hearted applications like birthday cards.

This playful script is generally written upright, but letters can be tilted right or left and moved up and down. There are variations to most letters too, so there isn’t only one way to write a word or phrase. When writing quotes, for example, there are many design decisions to be made with how lines interact, and they can be very close set resulting in a piece with a lot of visual texture. It is an interesting script because there isn’t a set angle or x-height to follow, but the general rules of where weight falls in letter strokes are the same as a formal copperplate.

In this workshop we will practice all the lowercase and capital letters and look at how they can be adapted: letter shapes can change, and the style made simpler or curvier. How letters join to one another is very adaptable and we will practice examples, then move on to word design and how simple flourishing can really help the design.

Finally, we will look at how words can be put together to make a longer piece of text, taking advantage of the versatility of this script to pack lines closely together to make a strong visual texture.

Details of this online workshop can be found on our website 🌎:

https://www.thegentlepenman.com/modern-copperplate-variations

This workshop is open worldwide for registration now. For any questions about the workshop, please email [email protected]

See you in class 🥰

20/03/2026

ENROLLMENT STILL OPEN 📢

Once Upon A Circle
with Suzie Beringer 🔴🟤🟢🟠🟡🟣

Circles…….no beginning - no end….looking around us we can see circular designs everywhere. As lettering artists they also provide a way for us to step away from the ‘straight base line’ and create something different - something fresh!

In this workshop with Susie , we will look at circles differently and how to incorporate circles into our lettering designs and lettering into our circle designs. We will stretch, pull and push the boundaries of what we think is possible in order to create something that is unique!

‘Free Writing’ will be addressed and encouraged - Suzie will walk you through her process and explain why she often uses this form of writing. There will be many samples of ideas for you to enjoy and be inspired by.

15/03/2026

ENROLLMENT STILL OPEN 📣

Spencerian Beyond the Basics
with Nina Tran 💜

Spencerian is a handwriting system developed by Platt R. Spencer in the mid-1800s. After his death, Spencer’s children and colleagues continued and further developed and standardized Spencerian script as an educational model for teaching handwriting in the United states. Spencerian continued to flourish during the later half of the 19th century and became the underlying blueprint for the development of other American scripts such as Ornamental Penmanship and Business Penmanship during the Golden Age of American Penmanship (1850-1925).

In this workshop with Nina , we will begin with a bootcamp-style review the Spencerian Standard through a series of drills and other exercises. Once we have learned how to attain consistency and uniformity, we will explore the parameters of Spencerian and learn how to deviate from the tried-and-true Standard Spencerian so that we may develop our own Spencerian handwriting.

What will begin as a rigorous refinement of Spencerian will conclude in a guided experiment of discovering our own preferences and variation of Spencerian.

Although this class is open to all skill levels, familiarity and experience with Spencerian is highly recommended.

Details of this online workshop can be found on our website 🌎:

https://www.thegentlepenman.com/spencerian-beyond-the-basics

This workshop is open worldwide for registration now. For any questions about the workshop, please email [email protected]

See you in class 🥰

14/03/2026

CLASS SOLD OUT 📣
THANK YOU FOR YOUR LOVE AND SUPPORT 🥰

Italian Hand Master Class 2026
with Heather Held ✍🏻

This Masterclass with our beloved Heather is a special course designed to enhance your practice and understanding of Italian Hand.

This extensive study class will share insights from historic writing masters as well as mentors who have influenced Heather’s own practice of Italian Hand. The student will be guided in developing the shaded nuances of the lowercase, capitals and flourished letters before progressing toward a fully decorated Poetic Page design.

The study of Italian Hand is a valuable key to unlocking all other script hands. Described as playful, joyful, and exuberant by its early writing masters, Italian Hand reaches back to the first decade of the1600’s with Italic roots and was prominently used in a script form until the mid 1860’s. The hand is infused with many European influences that will be studied in this course. A careful practice of this script will drastically lighten your touch with the pointed pen.

During this Masterclass we will deepen our understanding and appreciation of this whimsical hand while finding a way to make the script our own. The goal of this class is not to copy a historic hand but to help unlock its mysteries and bring it forward into this century. You will understand how to study, research, and extract the important nuances of this graceful hand as you find your rhythm of writing.

04/03/2026

CLASS STARTING SOON 📣

A Golden Laugh
with Evelyn Wong ✨💖

“Laugh as much as you breathe and Love as long as you live.” – Johnny Depp. One of Evelyn’s favorite quotes, and daily reminders that we should all laugh a little bit more, and if possible laugh until our bellies hurt.

This workshop will be suitable for all levels as Evelyn will be showing you a step-by-step approach on how to create this piece by combining different techniques, from design, to gilding and adding colour to our piece.

We will look at Lombardic letters / Versals briefly where you will be guided through the process of drawing and spacing out the letters, how to tweak the letterform to make the piece more cohesive. We will then look at patterns that you can design within the letterforms and also pattern designs to fill in the negative space around the letters, before transferring it to hot press watercolour paper.

Once the design has been transferred, we will look at some of the tools used in gilding. Different gilding mediums, the application process, and in particular, how to apply Instacoll so that you can achieve a smooth surface. We will test out both raised and flat gilding, and how to apply gold leaf onto the gilded surfaces.

After experimenting with the gilding techniques, we will move onto paintbrush techniques, brush control and how to paint leaves and buds. The final touch will be looking at filigree patterns, and how to incorporate it around our design, so that by the end of the workshops, you can walk away with something that is uniquely yours.

01/03/2026

UPCOMING WORKSHOP 📢

The Liberty of the “Liberty”
with Massimo Polello ✍🏻

This three-session workshop with Massimo , open to all levels, aims to examine the fluid, expressive, and sometimes idiosyncratic letters created by Art Nouveau artists and designers from the 1890s through the early 20th century.

Students will be introduced to the wide range of letters and forms of the Art Nouveau period, we will analyze and explore the methods and techniques used by these artists and designers, focusing on the varied possibilities of deformations to make letters elegant and functional for aesthetic composition.

By appropriating of the fantastic liberty suggested by these letters, students will eventually be guided to the creation and composition first of their own monogram, then simple words up to more complex compositions where the protagonist will be the intertwining and interlocking of these magnificent shapes.

Details of this online workshop can be found on our website 🌎:

https://www.thegentlepenman.com/the-liberty-of-the-liberty

This workshop is open worldwide for registration now. For any questions about the workshop, please email [email protected]

See you in class 🥰

28/02/2026

ENROLLMENT CLOSING SOON 📢

Weaver Writing Style
with Bill Kemp ✍🏻

This script was developed by the late Gwen Weaver (1950 – 2013). Gwen loved the pointed pen and just wanted other scripts to be associated with the pointed pen. She taught this script at several IAMPETH conferences, and used the script on hundreds of commission pieces. Honored to have worked with Gwen, Bill is proud to teach this script and pass it along to new calligraphers.

Since the script only has 26 letters, it is an easy script to learn and to use. It is a very vertical script which you will enjoy learning.

Details of this online workshop can be found on our website 🌎:

https://www.thegentlepenman.com/weaver-writing-style

This workshop is open worldwide for registration now. For any questions about the workshop, please email [email protected]

See you in class 🥰

22/02/2026

ENROLLMENT STILL OPEN 📢

Personalised Stationery - Hand-painted in Watercolor
with Jasmin Ryan 🎨🖌️

Learn how to paint in watercolor and then to digitize your artwork to create your very own stationery in this workshop with Jasmin .

The elements we will paint in class will be focusing on summer florals, fruit as well bugs and butterflies. After painting these we will learn how to properly scan and then digitize our artwork to create a botanical collage which will be the design of ours custom stationery.

We will finish the class by adding a hand-painted monogram to our design and find out how to prepare our file for print.

Details of this online workshop can be found on our website 🌎:

https://www.thegentlepenman.com/personalised-stationery

This workshop is open worldwide for registration now. For any questions about the workshop, please email [email protected]

See you in class 🥰

The Gentle Penman

26/04/2026

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