Royal Agricultural Show: – Calligraphers’ Guild Of Western Australia

This year’s Royal Show’s 2026 Schedule is now available online.
Download from the RAS Competitions page.

https://raswa.org.au/perth-royal-show/competitions/creative-arts-cookery

If you have entered before you may have received a notification and a link by email.

Since last year the criteria for judging have been changed slightly. There are now percentages which will be attributed to each of these attributes:

50% Quality and skill of the chosen hand;

25% Layout and design of the overall piece;

20% Suitability of the chosen hand to the words used; and

5% Suitability of the colour, illustrations, presentation and/or framing to the chosen words.

There is now no minimum text requirement for any of the Classes but strict conformity to the given text is required for Beginners. The Experimental Class will continue but is not to be judged; it is an Exhibition Class.

The RAS has issued a “Definition” of the Theme for this year’s Show. This applies to the special Class which applies to all Crafts and asks for “any exhibit featuring the theme”.

Exhibitors are permitted two entries in this Class.

The theme is now Orchards: Fruit and Nuts and the definition goes on (note the parts in bold):

The 2026 Creative Arts and Cookery theme focuses on produce traditionally grown in orchards. Entries must relate to fruits and nuts that are cultivated on trees within an orchard environment. Interpretations may also incorporate the seasonal blossoms and flowers produced by these orchard trees.

This theme does not include produce grown on plantations or vines, such as bananas, pineapples, grapes, or other vine-based or plantation-grown products.

Do have fun interpreting this decision.

The text for the Beginners Class which is the following:

“Age is the acceptance of a term of years. But maturity is the glory of years.”

Martha Graham

Entrants must use the text as provided and include the author.

ROYAL AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY CRAFTS EXHIBITION

Prize Winners for 2025

**BEST EXHIBIT IN CALLIGRAPHY**
Martin Dickie for his piece in the Theme Class ‘Sunflowers’

Class 21 – Beginners
First Prize: Susie Waller

Class 22 – Intermediate
First Prize: Jeanette Fuller
Second Prize: Sandra Wedding

Class 25 – Open
First Prize: Martin Dickie
Second Prize: Sandra Wedding
Third Prize: Doug Hughes

Theme Class 23 – Sunflowers
First Prize: Martin Dickie
Second Prize: Sandra Wedding
Second Prize: Doug Hughes

Highly Commended: Jenny Fowles

Congratulations to all prize winners!

Susie Waller -her interpretation of the beginners text: ‘Geometry can produce legible letters, but art alone makes them beautiful’. Paul Standard.
The letters forms are made from three gelli plate prints on cartridge paper hand cut into various shapes, to reflect the geometric theme. It is mounted on a textured 400gsm paper.

**Above:** Jeanette’s piece features a brass rubbing of a monk that was photocopied onto beige paper to represent parchment. The words of Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales are written in Uncial using a C2 Speedball nib and black Ecoline ink.

Above: Sandra Wedding: This 50cm x 50cm piece by Sandra was inspired by the Magnificent Monoline workshop held by Rick Paulus that Sandra attended attended during the 2025 IAMPETH Conference in Norfolk, Virginia USA.

This piece uses Theodore Roosevelt’s address on April 23, 1910, at the Sorbonne in Paris on the topic of Citizenship in a Republic that he Titled “Man in the Arena”. Sandra used Walnut ink to get an inconsistent colour. She chose French Roundhand.

**Sandra Wedding** paired dry embossing using a bone folder to achieve the crisp edges using Engrossers script.

**Doug Hughes** – Theme class Sunflowers

Above: Martin Dickie – 3D constructed piece titled Sunflower Sundial.
Not to tell time, the arcades house a sunflower facing the sun at the given hour.

**Martin Dickie:** Martin fashioned for himself homemade cola pens to write the words of Alexander Pope using Red Sumi ink for this experimental piece.

Below: Jeanette Fuller – Jeanette used a C2 Speedball nib black Ecoline ink for the Uncial lettering. Gouache for the sunflower sprinkled with rock salt.