focus102 Posted May 25, 2003 Posted May 25, 2003 Does anybody know of any resources (books, websites, supply stores) about learning how to write Chinese (or Japanese) calligraphy? I can't seem to find anything about it on the web or in book stores. Maybe because all the resources are in Chinese which I don't read. Anyway, I do calligraphy in a couple of languages and I want to add Asian languages. I think the letters look beautiful. "Nothing is impossible to the willing mind."
Shorin Ryuu Posted May 25, 2003 Posted May 25, 2003 I'm learning Japanese and nowadays online, its pretty easy to find websites that teach you Chinese characters. It is simply a matter of going into a search engine and typing "learning Chinese characters" or "learn kanji". I'm not sure how useful online sources would be for calligraphy because you need someone qualified to critique your writing. Something that is really important is stroke order (i.e. the order in which you write each stroke of the character). While writing in other languages like English, probably only experts can identify which strokes were done first or whether it was technically written "properly", but with Chinese characters, the average person off the street who understands them (at least in Japan anyway) will identify if it was written properly or not. All that being said, are you interested in learning the language or just writing the characters? I think just writing the characters would be somewhat difficult if you did not learn the language. It is difficult enough knowing what it means and writing it...but I'm not a calligraphologer...calligraphist...scribtologist...I haven't the foggiest what you would call it... I'll ask my Japanese teacher and see what she says about it... Martial Arts Blog:http://bujutsublogger.blogspot.com/
rb Posted May 25, 2003 Posted May 25, 2003 try amazon or a local school or university. When you see the characters it is pretty obvious which way the brush stroke should go. It takes a little practice to hold the brush properly and to apply the right pressure. good luck
focus102 Posted May 26, 2003 Author Posted May 26, 2003 All that being said, are you interested in learning the language or just writing the characters? I think just writing the characters would be somewhat difficult if you did not learn the language. It is difficult enough knowing what it means and writing it...but I'm not a calligraphologer...calligraphist...scribtologist...I haven't the foggiest what you would call it... I am interested in learning to write the characters. However, I think a certain degree of knowledge about what the characters mean is usefull due to the fact that Chinese characters are more pictorial based than phonetics based. But my primary goal is not to learn the language. "Nothing is impossible to the willing mind."
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