Re: Written forms (was: Moi, le Kou)

Yoon Ha Lee wrote:

>I seem to remember there was *some* calligrapher, or someone who knew a
>calligrapher, on this list who would know more about it than I do...<G>
I used to do Chinese calligraphy competitions back in Singapore, and I've
dabbled in, er, Western calligraphy - but probably I'm not the person you were
thinking of. Mostly I do Ouyang Xun's regular style - same as you, Kooraa-san?

>I learned on felt-tipped calligraphy "pens," which aren't very satisfactory
>but are cheap and good to practice on, *especially* if you have a tendency
>to spill ink (I do).  Then there are ink-cartridge calligraphy pens, which I
>found convenient, and the ones that you dip in ink (real danger of spills,
>but the most fun--takes some practice learning to bleed off excess ink
>before you start "for real," though).  I found the hard part was keeping the
>pen at the same angle all the time, and I always cheated on the upstrokes--I
>think you're only supposed to do downstrokes and sidestrokes.  I could never
>figure out why, and then when I tried doing Western calligraphy with a
>*brush*  I discovered upstrokes were a pain, and it all made sense.
Upstrokes are also supposed to be a pain when you're working with wide-nib pens that you
dip into ink, or even the ink-cartridge type. The ink just doesn't release
smoothly when you drag the nib that way - same thing with a lot of fountain
pens, though my impression is that recent designs have overcome this problem.
Of course if you're working with the kind of pen you use for copperplate,
upstrokes just tear jagged holes in the paper. Unfortunately I can't tell you
anything about the fluid mechanics of the ink flow in Western pens, though I
could tell you more than you wanted to know about that in a maobi (brush) ...
:-)

E-Ching
trying desperately to think of sayings and poems that the beginners in our local
calligraphy club can start writing tomorrow for our exhibition in three
(panic!!!) weeks' time ...