Arabic Composition In A New Style

[smk]

This is a composition I did recently. The style is based on a modern script developed by a Calligrapher in Iran. The script is called 'Kereshmeh'. I could not find proper instructions for the script but I think I got the mood of it right with this attempt.

 

The Arabic reads: Bismillah Ar-Rahman Ar-Rahim. This translates to 'In the name of Allah, the most gracious, the most merciful'.

 

Here is a picture:

 

 

It is hard to get a picture in the frame because of the reflections:

 

 

This is one of the practice sheets where I am working out the shapes and ligature. There are several more of these :-)

 

 

 

I have not been practising Arabic Calligraphy much lately so this was a good warm-up as well as a humbling reminder of how much work needs to go into it. One can't just wing it.

 

- Salman

__________________

Those who say it can't be done should get out of the way of those doing it.

[northstar]

This is amazing, thank you for sharing it with us.

There is also the "Shekaste" script which is a development of the famous "Nasta3leeq" script, shekaste means broken, so it's a broken nasta3leeq.

 

Best regards.

[inkstainedruth]

You always have such beautiful penmanship. Even if I can't read the language.

So what makes it different from other hands?

Ruth Morrisson aka inkstainedruth

[fountainpagan]

:wub:

Thank you for sharing. Your penmanship is beautiful.

[smk]

Thank you for all the kind comments.

 

northstar - Shekaste has more of a cursive quality and is still quite rounded even with the upside down curves. This is slightly more structured and I think much simpler to execute than either Shikaste or Nastaleeq.

 

Thank you Ruth. You are always very kind. I find this modern script quite attractive and wanted to try it out. It is interesting in that it keeps pretty much all the 'standard' features (e.g. ligatures, shapes, curves) but managed a totally different look with changing the slant and only a few shapes. The result is a script that is not very different in strokes and forms than the more traditional ones while managing to look very new. Another modern script 'Moalla' also plays with forms and slants but it has a very different construction and dynamic and is not very easy to execute - at least for me.

 

Having said that though, I could not really find formal instructions on Kereshmeh and am basing my thoughts on the relatively few examples I could study.

 

Thank you for the kind words fountainpagan. It was a humbling experience to try my hand at Arabic calligraphy after a long break.

 

- Salman

[northstar]

Moalla is also a super beautiful script, I have a friend who writes moalla using photoshop its much easier in photoshop.

 

BTW I was going through my collection of manuscripts and found an old one for teaching calligraphy, it's in Turkish but using Arabic alphabets (they changed the Turkish writing to English alphabet I think at mustafa atatork time?).

Thought if you interested I email it to you.

 

Best regards.

Edited June 29, 2016 by northstar

[smk]

I would love to see a copy of that northstar. I will PM you my email address.

 

- Salman

[northstar]

Got it and will email it ASAP, will send two compressed files that you need to extract and combine, they are scans of each page.

 

Best regards.

[Ghost Plane]

Beautiful!

[pepsiplease69]

Very nice.

 

I searched for Kereshmeh calligraphy under Google images and found many images that had writing which was so flourished and flamboyant that you'd have to admire it as a work of art or a painting instead of a readable manuscript. The words were so broken up and non-sequentially placed.

 

At least your sample was legible and you could make out what it said.

 

Good practice work on your end as well. I could see the progression and improvement on just one practice sheet of yours. The 'H' in Rahman and Raheem, for example, I could see where you paid extra attention to the finer detail like the initial serif.

[smk]

Thank you for studying this in such detail pepsiplease69. Do you practice Calligraphy?

 

It seems to me that this script is developed by one Calligrapher along with his students. I too saw most of the work as very loose and unstructured. I could not find any documentation or instructions on the ligature or proportions so used any pictures I could find to figure out as much as I could. This composition is based on something I saw done as vector art which in turn was based on this style of Calligraphy. I only found out about Kereshmeh after I started researching it.

 

The practice sheet was my first attempt and I explored the various parts of the text. In fact the 'raa' is not done right on this page. After this initial sheet, I filled a few more focussing on one or two elements each. Even then I messed up the long stroke of the 'Haa' in Rahman :-)

 

- Salman