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

-----Original Message-----
From: E-Ching Ng <e-ching.ng@...>
To: CONLANG@LISTSERV.BROWN.EDU <CONLANG@...>
Date: Saturday, January 13, 2001 1:27 PM
Subject: 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?

There was someone who answered when I mentioned feather quills, but darned
if I can remember who it was.

Calligraphy competitions?  <whistle>  Come to think of it, that sounds fun.
Calligraphy is the only time I ever care about making my "writing" look
nice.  :-)

>>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) ... :-)

Hmm, rarely had that problem, and while I've wanted to learn copperplate I
never got my hands on the right nibs.  Someday maybe.  :-p

YHL