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Picture Mordechai Pinchas Sofer

HEBREW CALLIGRAPHY

Not everyone can be a sofer and indeed not everyone wants to be.  However everyone can enjoy the artistic endeavour of working with the Hebrew characters to produce works of art that would adorn any Jewish home (or indeed non-Jewish).

This page gives you some ideas that you might want to try out for yourself.  Visit the letters pages to see how to draw, but remember that if you are doing Hebrew calligraphy you don’t really need taggin and you may wish to use the sefadi flat roofed letter chet.  You can also be somewhat freer with the letters forms.  Look around at different styles of Hebrew in books for inspiration.  A good book on modern Hebrew calligraphy is The Handbook of Hebrew Calligraphy by Cara Goldberg Marks (Jason Aronson Inc. 1990 - see sources).

On this page are some examples of work that I have done over time for various newsletter covers, booklets etc and some ideas for projects you can do yourself.. 

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If anyone would like to purchase any of the images above, please contact me.

link to birkat habayit

Projects you can do:
Birkat Habayit - a prayer for the house.  Click on the picture left for the hebrew and english text and a couple of examples.

Favourite prayers or quotations - either written word only or with illustrations.  The psalms (or extracts of them) are great for this.
Special cards for events - Bar or Bat Mitsvah, Wedding, Birth announcement, Brit Milah, Piyon Haben etc with appropriate texts.  Can extsnd to invitations, menu cards, place cards.
Illustrated covers for Synagogue newsletters, booklets, study pamphlets, special occasion prayer books.
Naming certificates - often your (or someone else’s childs hebrew name will appear in a biblical text which you can take and illustrate - see picture right).
 

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Mizrachim - illustrations and texts around the word Mizrach (East) usually of Jerusalem, that you can hand on your Eastern wall.
Rosh Hashanah cards
Bookplates
Scrolls of honour/memory
Certificates of achievement - e.g. passing an exam, completing some Hebrew studies.
Family Trees
Sukkah decorations
or special flags for Simchat Torah.

If anyone has any other idea, please let me know so I can put them up.  Remember that if you are working for print you may want to work 1.5 to 2 times up so it crisps up when reduced.  Also if the organisation you are working for can’t stretch to colour print you may need to work in black and white (As with photography, B&W can actually be quite effective for design reasons in a world of colour images - see above).

Mordechai Pinchas

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