Chinatown Calligraphy Class on Fridays: S$55 Brush Workshop

Visual Arts Centre holds a beginner Chinese Calligraphy Writing Workshop every Friday from 2:30pm to 4:30pm at its Chinatown studio, 20B Mosque Street, Singapore 059500, up on the third floor of a conservation shophouse. A ticket costs S$55, the current run of dates goes from 9 October to 31 December 2026, and there is no session on public holidays. Groups are capped at 20, everything you need is supplied, and the afternoon ends with you brushing a meaningful phrase or couplet of your own, which makes this the easiest calligraphy class in Chinatown to book on a whim.

Visual Arts Centre opened on 31 January 2016 and says it has trained more than 20,000 students across more than 20 professional art courses since then. It calls itself Singapore's premier arts recreational centre and notes support from the National Parks Board, which makes sense once you know that its other studio is a 5,500 square foot glass-house gallery in the greenery of Dhoby Ghaut Green, directly above the MRT. The Chinatown studio is the smaller, older-feeling sibling: a gallery and workroom tucked into a shophouse among the souvenir stalls of Mosque Street.

The workshop description lays out a clear arc. You start with an introduction to the history and cultural significance of Chinese calligraphy, then get hands-on with the Four Treasures of the Study: brush, ink, paper and ink stone. From there the tutor covers brush handling and posture before moving you on to basic strokes in Kai script, 楷书, the upright regular style that schoolchildren learn first. Part of the practice is writing your own name, so arrive knowing its Chinese characters if you have them, or ask the tutor to help.

The final stretch is the part people photograph. Each participant composes a personal artwork, either a meaningful phrase or a couplet, using the strokes they practised that afternoon. The listing describes it as a 2-hour 15-minute workshop in its overview but schedules each session from 2:30pm to 4:30pm, so plan for two hours and do not book anything tight straight afterwards. With up to 20 people in one room, the tutor will circulate rather than sit beside you, so ask questions early instead of waiting for your turn.

A sister session, the Couplet Writing Workshop, runs in the same Friday slot at the same studio for S$68, across the same October to December window. Couplets, or 对联, are the paired vertical lines hung on either side of a doorway, and they are a natural next step once you can control a brush, since the two lines have to balance each other in length and rhythm. Both workshops are listed as redeemable with the SG Culture Pass, the government arts credit for Singaporeans, so eligible residents can pay with their credits instead of cash.

For a longer commitment, Visual Arts Centre sells a 12-session Professional Chinese Calligraphy Course for S$768 nett, valid for 14 weeks, at either studio. The course covers the structure and strokes of regular script, running script and official script, along with the meanings of radicals, and moves on to four-character idioms, Tang poems, Song lyrics and couplets. A separate Chinese Idioms & Calligraphy course, also S$768 for 12 sessions, builds each lesson around a set phrase, which suits learners who want vocabulary as much as brushwork. Teaching is bilingual in English and Mandarin, which the centre explicitly pitches at non-Mandarin speakers curious about the culture.

Course classes stay small at five to eight students, and the fee includes all art materials plus free-flow hot and cold water, tea and instant coffee. A certificate of completion is offered at the end, and missed sessions can be made up in a Wednesday evening class at the Dhoby Ghaut studio. One honest caution: the course page lists slightly different weekday times in different sections, so settle your exact slot by WhatsApp before you pay for a package rather than relying on the timetable you read first.

The Chinatown gallery and studio keeps the hours Wednesday to Saturday 10am to 7pm and Sunday 10am to 6pm, according to the centre's About page. The shop listing notes that a ticket is valid only on the workshop date and schedule stated, so treat your booking as a fixed appointment rather than an open voucher.

The centre's own directions are precise. Leave Chinatown MRT by Exit A, which opens onto Pagoda Street, and turn left. Turn right into Mosque Street, then walk on until you reach 20B, where the studio is on the third floor of the shophouse. The centre puts the walk at two minutes. Mosque Street sits inside the Kreta Ayer conservation area, and you will pass souvenir stalls and shophouse eateries on the way.

Mosque Street takes its name from the Jamae Mosque, also called Masjid Chulia, on South Bridge Road at the end of the block. A few doors along stands the Sri Mariamman Temple, Singapore's oldest Hindu temple, with its tall gopuram covered in painted deities. Both sit a couple of minutes from the studio, so they make an easy coda to a Friday class. If you would rather sit down, the Chinatown Complex food centre on Smith Street is a short walk away for an early dinner.

Address: Visual Arts Centre Chinatown Art Gallery & Studio, 20B Mosque Street, Singapore 059500, third floor. Calligraphy Writing Workshop: Fridays 2:30pm to 4:30pm, 9 October to 31 December 2026, S$55, maximum 20 people. Couplet Writing Workshop: same slot, S$68. No sessions on public holidays. Course option: 12 sessions for S$768 nett, valid 14 weeks. MRT: Chinatown, Exit A, two minutes on foot. Studio hours: Wednesday to Saturday 10am to 7pm, Sunday 10am to 6pm.