Weekly Calligraphy: More like calligraphies (calligraphii?)

I've been a busy bee making ACEOs for The Little Black Boxes. Hoo boy is my arm hurting from all the calligraphy.

What have I learned so far? For one thing my silver ink has no desire to be photographed. Another thing I learned is making texture with my heavy body acrylic paint. In Asian art the mediums tend to be flat, the most texture coming from charcoal. With European art things like oils and acrylics ad a brand new dimension to the (tiny) canvas.

Here's a close up of one of the ACEOs. It's 結ぶ (むすぶ pronounced 'moo-sue-boo'), a verb that translates 'to tie' or 'to link.'

Weekly Calligraphy: Brush (Fude)

[[Argh I'm late for this one but the weather was just nice enough the other day to finally use my camera.]]

Brush - 筆 (ふで pronounced 'foo-deh')

The Chinese writing system, and in turn the Korean and Japanese writing systems, used the brush as both a writing tool and a means of artistic expression. In my calligraphy reference book I found a wonderful interpretation of the character. Nearly every basic stroke form that you would learn with an instructor was shown here. I couldn't pass up the chance to try it out.

筆 (ふで pronounced 'foo-deh')
Brush; Writing utensil
Available for sale at my Etsy shop

Weekly Calligraphy: Maru

I got this idea from watching World War II specials on History Channel one night. Naval ship naming conventions have their own bits of fun history. USS (United States Ship) are obviously for U.S. Navy ships. HMS (Her Majesty's Ship) are for U.K. naval vessels. 丸 (maru), or 'circle', are for Japanese ships. There are a few theories as to why 丸 is used.

Source: Wikipedia
* The most common is that ships were thought of as floating castles, and the word referred to the defensive "circles" or maru that protected the castle.
* That the suffix -maru is often applied to words representing something that is beloved, and sailors applied this suffix to their ships.
* That the term maru is used in divination and represents perfection or completeness, or the ship as a small world of its own.
* A legend of Hakudo Maru, a celestial being that came to earth and taught humans how to build ships. It is said that the name maru is attached to a ship to secure celestial protection for it as it travels.
* For the past few centuries, only non-warships bore the maru ending. It was intended to be used as a good hope naming convention that would allow the ship to leave port, travel the world, and return safely to home port: hence the complete circle arriving back to its origin unhurt.



丸 (まる pronounced 'mah-rooh')
a circle; round; spherical

Weekly Calligraphy: Osu!

I admit this came from Osu! Tatakae! Ouendan (Hey! Fight! Cheer Squad), one of my favorite video games ever. It's a rhythm game, but it's a very masculine rhythm game. The character I wrote for the week is a Japanese pun for 'Hey!' or 'Oi!' or some other one syllable call you use to get attention. The two characters on their own mean 'push'(押) and 'stealth' (忍).

押忍 (おす pronounced oh-s)
Hey; Oi; Yo; Yeah; 'ay!

Weekly Calligraphy - Sushi

I had a real craving for sushi one day. Also my camera did not like the weather lately. My pictures either came out too dark or too light (from the flash). This was the best of the batch.


鮨 (すし pronounced su-shi)
One of Japan's most popular food exports.

Weekly Calligraphy - Megumi (Blessing)

Here's the first installment of my weekly calligraphy series.

惠 (めぐみ pronounced meh-goo-me)
blessing; grace; mercy; benevolence; charity