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Links to web pages or articles about Chinese typesetting, signwriting, etc.


A Smug Dill

22,680 views

Seeing there has recently been more discussions (not all initiated by me, w00t!) on FPN about:

  • writing Chinese hanzi and/or Japanese kanji ; and
  • writing with ‘long knife’ and ‘fude’ nibs fashioned after Naginata Togi and Fude de Mannen nibs respectively, ‘art‘ nibs, Waverly nibs, and other crooked-by-design nibs,

I thought I'd look more into how those nibs could be used to produce different styles or characteristics.

 

Here are a collection of (English language) web pages or articles on the subject that I found informative or interesting, so I think I'd share them.

 

Thanks to @essayfaire for letting me know about this documentary:

 

12 Comments


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A Smug Dill

Posted

Apparently it takes some sort of broad-edged nib to draw the strokes and finials (or serifs) for Songti and Mingti; but the orientation of the edge seems to rotated 45° or thereabouts clockwise, which would be opposite to how one would orient an Italic nib when drawing the strokes in Italic script when writing in English. I'm not quite sure how to produce those perfectly sharp triangular shapes, though, or whether ‘pushing’ the nib from left to right when drawing the long horizontal strokes will work using an Italic nib.

 

Maybe an Architect's grind, or ‘long knife’ nib with a narrow enough edge, would do the trick?

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On 4/30/2022 at 9:27 PM, A Smug Dill said:

Maybe an Architect's grind, or ‘long knife’ nib with a narrow enough edge, would do the trick?

Yes, many people will buy a 'long knife' or find someone to sharpen the nib in order to pursue this effect. Many people like to use the sharpening that has been called "刀锋尖". The distinguishing feature is that where the nib touches the paper, the sides will be grind,It's on some Parker 51s, Parker 75s and some Montblancs and some other pens

Also I think a kind of nib called "美工尖" in China might work too, but they have some problems like where the nib itself is in contact with the paper

I think the effect you're after is known as "出锋" on the Chinese internet to describe how easy it is for a pen to write this variation

The first picture is "刀锋尖", the second picture is "美工尖"

1.jpg

2.jpg

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A Smug Dill

Posted

1 hour ago, jw20147 said:

I think the effect you're after is known as "出锋"

 

Hmm, actually, no. :)

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23 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

Hmm, actually, no.

I think maybe I got it wrong;)

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I highly recommand taking a look at this guy's channel. He is a lacquer pen maker and calligraphy practicioner.

In most videos he uses Chinese xuanzhi, which is the paper for traditional calligraphy, to hold the greater ink flow of calligraphy-oriented pens.

https://space.bilibili.com/403110385

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A Smug Dill

Posted

@hssqq Welcome for FPN, and thank you for your suggestion.

 

I had a look just now, and it seems the BiliBili content producer's calligraphy is mainly in semi-cursive script (行書 ‘running script’). Beautifully done; although I do find it a shame that these days, especially on content sharing platforms and in hobbyist discussion forums, it seems common to unduly focus on particular cursive scripts (e.g. Spencerian for English, ‘running script’ for Chinese) as being representative of calligraphy, instead of treating them as a narrow (or minority) area of interest and practice. I'd love to see more calligraphers champion 隸書 ‘clerical script’ and 篆書 ’seal script’ as major schools of Chinese calligraphy, of at least equal importance as ‘running script’, to try to produce and master with modern pens with hard-tipped nibs; and, analogously, Gothic and Renaissance scripts as what calligraphy-minded users of fountain pens should pursue.

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26 minutes ago, A Smug Dill said:

 

Do you mean the bronze Hero 395?

Sorry!  I meant the Chinese pen maker's lacquer pen with the butterflies and inlays from the previous link.

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On 6/6/2022 at 11:17 PM, hssqq said:

I highly recommand taking a look at this guy's channel. He is a lacquer pen maker and calligraphy practicioner.

In most videos he uses Chinese xuanzhi, which is the paper for traditional calligraphy, to hold the greater ink flow of calligraphy-oriented pens.

https://space.bilibili.com/403110385

 

Does he sell his lacquer art pens?

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Shanghai Knife Dude

Posted

I have the Sailor Naginata and some fancy blade nibs coming after 2022 by a number of new workshop from China. 

With all my respect, IMHO, they are all (bleep) in doing chinese characters. 

Go use a bush, or at least a bush pen. 

IMG_20240125_150946.thumb.jpg.243978acd231c375180379c54ede2b02.jpg

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