Saionji Shonagon
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One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jun 19, 2012 0:34:56 GMT -5
This has been something I've been meaning to learn how to do for over a year. Except I got tapped to serve on a royal court for six months. And then there was that pesky run-up-to-Twelfth Night thang that kept me busy. So this weekend was our Kingdom's A&S tourney, which is really just a camping collegium. I brought my cheap 100-yen-store brush pen and practice paper and the stroke order cheat sheet prepared for me by a Chinese friend who does beautiful calligraphy and sat in a corner of the scribal tent practicing 西 for a page and a half. Then 園, which is such a fiddly character I seem to always leave out at least one brush stroke. When I write in English on unlined paper, my writing tends to drift slightly downward, but as you can see by the photo, my kanji tip up to the right for some reason. It's not great, but this is the first time it actually looks something like it's supposed to, even with a stroke missing from 園 and an incomplete stroke on the top bit of 花. And it impressed the heck out of Mistress Eliska, who was teaching a newcomer how to write her name in insular uncial (the Book of Kells hand) at the same table.  More practice is warranted, but I feel like I made some sort of progress. |
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Post by tengumoon on Jun 19, 2012 1:20:24 GMT -5
Looks good and looks the way it should to my eye
When I first tried that it sunk home just how much it is like swordwork
Once you put brush to paper you have made a commitment that you must finish or else you make a complete botch of it
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2012 6:36:44 GMT -5
A bold beginning! The bureaucrats always appreciate it when a noble is literate enough to write her own name.  When I tried to learn this several years ago, I found that daily practice was the only way I learned anything. When I stopped practicing the whole name every day, I lost most of it and now I can barely write "Ishiyama". If the verticality of your writing is important to you, try using a more translucent paper and putting a lined sheet underneath to show through. |
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Saionji Shonagon
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One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
Posts: 7,240
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jun 19, 2012 11:13:42 GMT -5
If the verticality of your writing is important to you, try using a more translucent paper and putting a lined sheet underneath to show through. Or just rule my practice sheets.  Speaking of which, I just paid under $5 for another package of practice paper, a package with two Chinese made brushes and an ink stone (including sales tax) at Daiso Japan yesterday. The one here in Alameda does not carry brush pens, but they did have ink in bottles and sticks as well. (Most items for sale at Daiso are $1.50.) So if anyone wants calligraphy practice supplies on the cheap, feel free to message me privately about putting together an order for you. (I can hear Solveig tsking now, but my "sifu" told me to start with a pencil and a scratch pad until I could more or less get the stroke order by heart.) |
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Post by Ishikawa Yoshimasa on Jun 19, 2012 12:37:41 GMT -5
I saw he post about it on facebook SCA... congrats. I believe you have raised the bar for the rest of us again, as this is something we all really should endevor to learn once we decide what our names should be.
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Saionji Shonagon
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One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
Posts: 7,240
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jun 19, 2012 13:58:08 GMT -5
I saw he post about it on facebook SCA... congrats. I believe you have raised the bar for the rest of us again, as this is something we all really should endevor to learn once we decide what our names should be. I believe the bar needs to be at a height one can crash into, myself included. We are somewhat more handicapped than many of our SCA friends who at least can learn a hand in an alphabet they're likely to be able to remember more easily. |
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jun 19, 2012 17:00:52 GMT -5
I can hear Solveig tsking now, but my "sifu" told me to start with a pencil and a scratch pad until I could more or less get the stroke order by heart. You have already violated the proper order of things by not spending a year cleaning brushes, sweeping the studio, and feeding the fire for making charcoal. Japanese calligraphy for Westerners comprises a set of skills that we can either try to learn all at once, or tackle one at a time. All at once is a bit much. Just please, for the love of Log Almighty please, don't do the thing where you pour bottled ink into an inkstone. For some reason that really bothers me. Use bottled ink, but just pour it into a dish. |
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Saionji Shonagon
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One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
Posts: 7,240
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jun 19, 2012 17:17:10 GMT -5
That Laurel Thang does not qualify me to sweep floors for any Living National Treasure of Japan. Keeps me humble, it does.  I've just made the leap from pencil to what's basically a glorified felt-tip pen. It may be a while before I start using a brush and ink. And I wouldn't dream of pouring bottled ink in even a 100 yen inkstone. That's not what an inkstone is for. |
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Post by Sō Haruko on Jun 20, 2012 9:16:54 GMT -5
People pour bottled ink onto inkstones? *boggle* Riiiiiiight.
Y'know, my bottled ink is one of the few things that isn't packed, but my brushes and paper are. Perhaps I should make a trek to Marukai Value myself. (It isn't Daiso down in San Diego any more for some reason, and the prices are up to $1.98 for everything, but it's still a fine and useful store.)
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Post by solveig on Jun 20, 2012 11:17:51 GMT -5
Noble Cousin! Greetings from Solveig! (I can hear Solveig tsking now, but my "sifu" told me to start with a pencil and a scratch pad until I could more or less get the stroke order by heart.) TISK! Does that make you feel better? Actually, I have practiced a lot of kanji with pencil to learn the letter and the stroke order. Producing kanji with brush and ink is yet another hurdle. As for signatures. A lot of things were signed with special sigils called a 花押 "kao" which look rather different from the letters in the name. I don't know of a good book for developing a kao of your own, so I am of rather less help than I would like to be. I did find this Japanese web page which shows a bit of kao chronology: www.nanndemo.info/kao.htm Here is a company which makes inkan (stamps) of people's kao which the company designs based on typically one letter from the given name of the customer. kaoh.jp/sample.htm Yay! I just found a book which claims to be about how to create a kao. ISBN: 9784-88414-126-4 Unfortunately, amazon.co.jp doesn't know about it, but it does know about ISBN: 978-4336054524 unfortunately, the closest copy appears to be in Seattle. |
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Saionji Shonagon
New Member
One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
Posts: 7,240
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jun 20, 2012 13:46:38 GMT -5
Does that make you feel better? There! That's out of the way. ;D I did recently have an inkan made. I'd thought about doing it myself (and probably doing it badly with the wrong tools, however, the Asian Art Museum has a Chinese seal carver sitting outside their gift shop on weekends. I went in there with my name done in seal script, courtesy of this nifty link here - www.chinese-tools.com/tools/seal.html, picked out a blank soapstone seal with a monkey carved on top (what else?) and he did a beautiful job. |
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Post by solveig on Jun 20, 2012 14:30:51 GMT -5
Noble Cousin! Greetings from Solveig! Congratulations on your new inkan. A good inkan carver should know how to translate between standard printed script and inkan script, but that is another matter. For those of you interested in carving your own inkan here is another site which definitely displays one of the traditional inkan scripts. They incidentally take my name in vain for some reason: sca.scripts.mit.edu/inshou/ Regardless they are fairly nifty in that they show you a flipped version for carving purposes as well as the printed version. The one real problem that they have is that the lines do not continue to the border, but that would have been a truly major undertaking. |
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erink
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Post by erink on Jul 2, 2012 9:45:50 GMT -5
This is a great idea. Everyone should at least be able to write her own name.
I've definitely ruled out name elements because I didn't think I could learn to write the characters reliably - even though I studied Japanese in college and off and on since then. (It's taught me how difficult it is to keep up the knowledge without practice.) Not that I've ruled any IN yet...
For learning any kanji, my rule is practice practice practice. And check yourself against modern Japanese handwriting to make sure you're not straying far from the standard.
It's very important to learn stroke order. For example, when you have an element like the top side and right side of a square, those are nearly always one stroke. If you write it with two strokes it will look funny, even if you don't have an obvious "tail" sticking out at the corner.
Also it's helpful to practice other kanji that contain the same elements as those in your name. For example, in Saionji-sensei's name the two middle kanji both have the element that looks like a plus sign stuck to a bottom line. Writing them in two different arrangements helps you get consistency and also understand what's important and what can be fudged when it's stuck to other things.
Finally, you absolutely will forget them if you don't write them regularly. Don't be surprised. You'll probably still be able to read them.
Solveig-sensei, if I am not mistaken, you have some knowledge of premodern Japanese? Is it worth worrying about learning antique characters versus modern ones? I know that some kanji have been streamlined in the 20th century. (When I worked at IBM our documentation was translated differently for regular Chinese versus Taiwanese Chinese because Taiwan did not use simplified characters. I was the only one in our doc team who could tell the difference!)
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Saionji Shonagon
New Member
One dreamed of becoming somebody. Another remained awake and became. (Found in a fortune cookie.)
Posts: 7,240
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Post by Saionji Shonagon on Jul 2, 2012 10:45:50 GMT -5
Actually had a short sit-down with my sifu* this weekend so he could look at what I did and show me how to fix it. Working off a cheat sheet just isn't the same as seeing someone write. I'm taking my kit with me to West An Tir in the hopes of getting some practice in while I'm there. *He's Chinese. tousando.proboards.com/index.cgi?action=display&board=research&thread=3131&page=1 shows some calligraphy he did for me awhile back. (The version of my name appearing at the right was before final heraldic approval and includes an extra character.) |
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Post by solveig on Jul 2, 2012 12:07:34 GMT -5
Noble Cousins! Greetings from Solveig! Solveig-sensei, if I am not mistaken, you have some knowledge of premodern Japanese? Is it worth worrying about learning antique characters versus modern ones? I know that some kanji have been streamlined in the 20th century. (When I worked at IBM our documentation was translated differently for regular Chinese versus Taiwanese Chinese because Taiwan did not use simplified characters. I was the only one in our doc team who could tell the difference!) There is a huge and obvious difference between simplified Chinese and traditional Chinese. If you decide to study Japanese calligraphy, then you should for example at some point learn the evolution of kusa kanmuri and apply it to your characters. These changes appear to be distinct from the major simplification which immediately followed the Pacific War. Of course I could be wrong about that. My impression is that the kanji reform in Japan was not nearly as great as the kanji reform in China. While Japanese books are printed using modern kanji, there are occasions where pre-reform versions of kanji make their appearance. Since we are in a medievalist society, I want to encourage people to learn both modern forms and premodern forms. For example: 滝 is the modern version of waterfall while 瀧 is the traditional version for waterfall. The difference is in the simplified verses the traditional form for dragon 竜 vs. 龍 another modernization that immediately springs to mine is kuni 国 vs. 國 . This is the sort of thing that everyone learning Japanese should be picking up. Beyond these things is the evolution of calligraphic forms. This evolution can become important if you are seriously dedicated to calligraphy or decide to take up inkan carving. There are specialized calligraphy dictionaries and inkan carving dictionaries available for these things. Regardless, I urge everyone to learn Japanese and at least enough calligraphy to write your own name. Right now I am debating what books to buy. I am planning on buying a book about kao. These sigils were used as signatures since the Heian period. |
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When I tried to learn this several years ago, I found that daily practice was the only way I learned anything. When I stopped practicing the whole name every day, I lost most of it and now I can barely write "Ishiyama".
