I want to practice my brush writing, you (maybe) want a customised message

aremarf said:
Thank you :)

Here you go:


I realise the focus is off for some characters... I could use a scanner at work if we want a sharp image...

aremarf said:
Thanks for the kind words, everyone :)

@Chocovainilla Ah, I just watched The Detective Is Already Dead recently, and the main character calls herself meitantei too. I like Japanese mystery and detective stuff so I will catch Detective Conan soon hopefully.

Today I am posting from work, and here I use this Pentel brush pen. It's an extra-fine tip and I prefer it to the medium Pilot brush pen I use at home. The Pilot's hairs are stiffer and hence more suitable for "cursive script", but I'm still not good with "regular script" yet, so I guess that's why!

Chocovainilla said:
Thanks a lot, you write kanji very well (i tried but they are very intricate at least for me)

Also, i didn't know that there are different type of hairs more suitable for a type of writting, that's very cool!

aremarf said:

Kanji/hanzi are hard indeed - I've been writing for decades though, since I was a child! I'm ethnic Chinese, actually XD

So don't be discouraged if you find it hard, it's the same for everyone, even East Asian kids. Oh how I remember hating Chinese at school. I only started writing again the last couple of years, to help myself remember Japanese kanji better. And thought, I might as well work on my handwriting at the same time. Somehow it's a little embarrassing to have bad handwriting as an adult.

Actually, there are some fundamental strokes and simple characters that everything else is built on. So once you get the hang of those, everything comes together much more nicely. (But it also means that if you never quite master those basic strokes, your writing always looks a little weird!)

About the hairs, I never knew til recently too. I only looked it up because I was frustrated my second brush wasn't behaving like my first. Apparently stiffer hairs "bounce back" into shape faster so you can write fast too, as in "cursive script". Softer hairs are better for me because I can control the line thickness much more easily, and I only write slowly and carefully anyway.

Did you know about the kurutoga mechanical pencils? They have a mechanism to rotate the lead a little bit each time you raise and lower the pencil, so you always end up with a "fresh" pointy edge facing the paper... and it works better for East Asian writing. With western writing, especially cursive, the pencil just doesn't get lifted up as much.

Chocovainilla said:
So there is like basic lines and from them if you master them, all other strokes are easier to do? that sound really nice, but i can't even do the basics.

aremarf said:

Yes, strokes first, like verticals, horizontals, (plus those that have a little "jump" in them at the end of the stroke), diagonals (with a particular curve), then "corners" - horizontals which then turn downwards (either vertically or as a curve), etc.

By putting these together in various configurations, you make simple kanji. And simple kanji are often then combined with other simple kanji to make words - when they do this they are often called "radicals", from Latin "radix" meaning "root" I guess - similar to how we think of "rootwords" in English? ... so...

As I kept writing, I realised lots of "components" are just repeated across characters. So it's like, you just have to learn to write it well once in your life, and you can then use it in dozens or even hundreds of other characters.

It's like Lego, basically.

For example, this is rain: 雨

And it appears like this in weather-related words: ⻗ (with another kanji below it to suggest a sound)

You can see a whole list of characters that make use of it here: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Appendix:Chinese_radical/%E9%9B%A8

Hmm.

I guess it still looks pretty scary... but I wanted to say this so it looks less intimidating. You can have faith that as you practice and master the simple elements, they will help you tremendously with writing complicated-looking things!

(and I must emphasise again - I'm not good at calligraphy! I'm just dabbling and having fun! there are so many masters of the art and I am really, really, just messing about!)

*****

About pencils, I don't use the fancy stuff too. I love traditional wooden ones. They're lighter in my hand. And I find them very expressive. if I apply more force when using a relatively blunt pencil with soft lead, I get a darker, thicker line. If I lighten up on my touch, I get thinner, wispier lines - in fact they're quite similar to brushes. Can't do this with a pen or mechanical pencil - well, maybe with some really expensive fine fountain pens it can be done, but why do that when the humble pencil works just great? ;-) I only mentioned the kurutoga because it's nerdy fun to look at cool instruments... but in the end, old is gold!

Chocovainilla said:

I never consider that kanji are like Legos honestly, but i think it's easier to understanding like that. So if you combine kanji with other you make more complex words right? its kinda like prefixes and derivative words (I don't know if they are called like that in English, but that's how I know them in Spanish).

Also, I checked the page, and i noticed how all have the rain kanji on them, that's cool, the only thing it's maybe may computer, but some characters look like a plain rectangle.

Ans I mean, maybe it kinda look scary because i can't understand either Chinese or Japanese and it's a completely different type of writing, but learned English even with their weird pronunciation of words, so maybe in a future i could learn kanji.