Learning characters: calligraphic technique

Let me preface with this: I don’t know what the hell I’m talking about. While I find this subject matter extremely interesting, I’m a total novice and nothing I say should be taken as truth.

The strokes

According to the literature and instruction I’ve encountered, every movement of the brush on paper in calligraphy falls into one of eight categories of strokes:

1. Dian or 點: Also known as the “dot,” this is the most fundamental stroke, and is contained, at least to some degree, within all the others.
2. Heng or 横: Horizontal stroke, present in nearly every character. Ends with dian.
3. Shu or 竪: Basic vertical stroke, forms the core of very many characters. Is very often the first stroke in simple or very complex characters. Begins with dian.
4. Gou or 鉤: The “hook.” Essentially an ornamental application of dian to finish off a shu.
5. Ti or 提: A lifting motion, almost always used in tandem with a complementary stroke (such as the wan in the example below).
6. Wan or 彎: A gently curved stroke, beginning, as usual, with dian. Often found in the bottom part of a character or radical.
7. Pie or 撇: Short, simple stroke, similar to dian and often used to complement it (for example, in 立).
8. Na or 捺: A weighty press with the brush, dragging out into a blade-like tip. The most dramatic stroke. Can take up a great distance and therefore allows for great expression (for example, as the bottommost radical in 近).

Interestingly enough, there is a single Chinese character that shows every stroke in action: 永 or yong. It means “eternal.”

Picture hijacked from the Wikipedia article on the Eight Principles of Yong and retouched for readability

In my first calligraphy class, I spent a lot of time grokking the dot (點). I drew dot upon dot upon dot, strung them all up in a row, made pyramids out of them. I had to at the least feign an attempt at mastering the dot before moving onto more complicated characters—which I did eventually manage to do.

Stroke order

The next point of concern was learning how to arrange all the strokes into a coherent whole. As should be expected, there’s an elegantly simple set of rules governing how to form characters. From the reading I’ve done on the subject recently, it appears that these rules primarily founded on practicality, meaning that they intend to facilitate ease of writing while ensuring clear expression. For example, characters are drawn from top to bottom, with halving strokes (shu or 竪) last, as in the character 車, below.

Image taken unaltered from the Wikipedia article on stroke order

What I found most fascinating is that since Chinese was traditionally written top-to-bottom, right-left (whereas English is left-right, top-to-bottom), the stroke order seems geared toward that mentality. China has incorporated small adjustments to stroke order in their revision of the writing system in order to accommodate for the contemporary practice of writing horizontally rather than vertically. As ever, Wikipedia knows tons about this.

Taking it home with me

Of course, the techniques I was taught for calligraphy with a brush necessitate some translation for writing with a pen in my notebook. A pen hardly allows for the level of expression that a brush does, making the na (捺) stroke substantially less fun, but I’ve found that I compensate for this lack by paying closer attention to the acceleration of curves in my writing. It’s like a whole new cursive.

Most stunningly, it’s made me completely reevaluate the way I approach writing things by hand in English. I’ve decided to dedicate some time to refining my penmanship in English, just because I realized how absolutely awesome it could be if I took the time to develop it.

I’m very happy I’ve started down this road.