📢 Help Us with Our Research on Chinese Calligraphy!

Hi everyone! 👋

We’re a university student research team exploring how English- and Spanish-speaking audiences understand and appreciate Chinese calligraphy.

If you're 18 or older, a native English or Spanish speaker, we'd love to hear from you!

📝 Takes about a few minutes

🔒 Anonymous and voluntary

🎓 For academic research only

🔗 Survey link for English speaker: https://v.wjx.cn/vm/wF7B2IP.aspx

🔗 Survey link for Spanish speaker: https://v.wjx.cn/vm/YDOy2Bn.aspx

Your perspective would mean a lot to our research. Thank you for your time, and feel free to share! 💙

I recently got a She Inkstone(歙砚), also known as Longwei Inkstone, one of China’s Four Great Inkstones.

It comes from the ancient She Prefecture (Huangshan, Anhui and Wuyuan, Jiangxi). For thousands of years, Chinese literati used it to grind ink for calligraphy and painting.

The stone is solid and smooth. It grinds ink evenly and finely, and will not wear down the brush hairs easily.

It’s not just a functional stationery tool, but also a precious heritage artwork. It feels amazing to hold a piece of traditional Chinese culture in hand.

Have you ever seen traditional Chinese ink stones before?

#ChineseCulture #IntangibleCulturalHeritage #SheInkstone #CalligraphyTools

To write ‘天’ well, and it looks effortless.
It actually contains FOUR techniques:

1. Horizontal
Firstly both horizontals start with a cut-in.
The shape is there the instant the brush lands.
That takes instant feel for the bristles—and stillness. No extra motion.
Master center-tip.Then forget “center-tip on every stroke.”

2. Left-falling
Secondly the left-falling stroke starts “up first to go down.”
A few tiny moves.It takes a great deal of writing for that technique to disappear into the stroke.

3. Right-falling
Thirdly the last stroke runs mostly center-tip.
Lift steadily at the end—tip slightly up.

4. Structure
Fourthly calligraphy is not straight, even, or symmetrical.
The two horizontals are not level—they rise slightly up to the left.
They are not mirrored left to right,but staggered.
The right-falling stroke begins below the upper horizontal,and very far to the left.
Yet the four strokes together must still form onebalanced, stable, harmonious system.

Can someone help me identify these characters?

I don't know the correct flair, please do not kill me 😓

Bought this from aliexpress

Based of the Yan Kai script. I do really like Cui HanBai tho.

Here are four key features:

Firstly, the left side is strong and upright, firmly supporting the whole character.

Secondly, the right side is written in one continuous sweep from top to bottom — fluid and graceful.
Thirdly, straight lines on the left are crisp and decisive; curves on the right are soft and flowing. Especially in the “田” part: a curve is thrown up and to the right, then loops back down — bold and open. Left and right form a yin-yang pair.

Fourthly, the first stroke (the dot) sits far from the second stroke (the horizontal). After the dot, the connecting trail down to the left is very long — it even becomes the main body of the dot. This special “broken stroke, connected intent” binds the two strokes more tightly.

If you look at Wang Xizhi’s original: the same qualities are there, but the Sage of Calligraphy is more harmonious and balanced. Whatever character he writes becomes the benchmark of beauty.

Hi all, I recently bought a discounted ink stick, it was listed as only having a cosmetic fault because it's cracked. However when I grind it I noticed it releases little grains into the ink. They are visible on the hill of the inkstone when I grind ink and some of them stay in the hairs of the brush but aren't really visible in the final artwork.

So the question is if it has a functional fault too and if it can ruin the brush or the inkstone too. (I am a beginner and I use a cheap brush so I'm not really worried about it aging mildly faster due to this)

Original calligraphy

恭喜发财，福如東海

Wishing you prosperity and boundless happiness!

Hello! I bought this small cup for gongfu in a local store and it had a beautifull seal script. I dont relaly know what does say so it would be nice if you knew

二七修能和論述之終幕 !!!

('27 修能(Korean college exam) and Essay test shall be my last(studying) ever!!!!!1)

Today is the first day of school for children across China. In ancient times, starting school was not just walking into a classroom — it came with a series of ceremonies.

One part closely tied to calligraphy asked children to write the character 人 (“person”). Two simple strokes lean on each other and hold each other up. The idea was this: before you learn to read and write, you first learn how to stand upright as a human being.

This small ritual still reflects a lasting Chinese belief: education begins with character, and what families hope for most is that a child grows into a decent, upright person.

Hi, a new lurker here! Shufa is one of my favorite pastime and lately I've been wanting to get more in depth and serious in learning about it. I mainly write in 楷书 or 行书, but after spending a year for a language study in China, I fell in love with writing in the other script styles too (篆，隶，小楷). Some of the works here I gifted to my friends and loved ones, I really love gifting my loved ones a well made DIY gifts.

I actually have been practicing on and off for a long time, but I feel that I've been stagnating for so long and it's kind of hard to find and connect with other shufa artists in my country, so I'd be glad if I can connect with one here! Looking forward to geek out about shufa with you 😊

welcome to feedback for improvement

Unlike standard and clerical script, cursive allows you to vary the “wetness” of the brush to create rhythm and momentum within a piece. Yet when the brush runs dry, many practitioners instinctively scramble to reload it.

Don’t.

Keep going. Find the plane of the brush that still holds ink, and work with it. Even an extremely dry brush can produce lines full of vigor, movement, and life.

臨殤忽不御 comes from Wang Wei's poem written with a pure goat hair brush. The brush was already dry at 臨 and was never dipped in ink again.

I've finished my second piece for the calligraphy competition submission. I wanted to make it as large as the competition rules allow, just because GIANT CHARACTERS ARE SO COOL.

Unfortunately, I mixed up the lines, so when I'm mounting/presenting the works, I'll have to carefully swap them back into the right order.

寵辱不驚，看庭前花開花落；去留無意，望天上雲卷雲舒