Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (53) Stride into 2021 - 走进2021

 

In the top line, from left to right

Big (big seal script): a person open his arms and legs to make bigger.

Step (bronze script): two footprints - walking forward

Walk (big seal script): the top is a person who swings arms and walks forward, the bottom is a foot.

Forward (big seal script): the top left is Road or Street, the right one

is a bird. The bottom one is Foot. Ancient Chinese found that bird only walks forward, never walks backward. 

So we have "Big Step Walk Forward into 2021".

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (52) Once upon a time, there was a temple on a mountain ...... - 从前有座山，山上有座庙，。。。。。。

 "Once upon a time, there was a temple on a mountain where a old monk and young monk lived in. The young monk asked the old monk to tell stories, the old monk said 

'Once upon a time, there was a temple on a mountain where a old monk and young monk lived in. The young monk asked the old monk to tell stories, the old monk said

'Once upon a time, there was a temple on a mountain where a old monk and young monk lived in. The young monk asked the old monk to tell stories, the old monk said

'Once upon a time, there was ......'"

The young monk felled asleep.

This is a famous story every Chinese heard many times in his/her childhood by his/her Dad/Mom, or GrandPa/GrandMa

Let's see how to use calligraphy to show the story.

I just want to go the first part "Once upon a time, there was a temple on a mountain ......". You could imagine what happens in the temple.

Here is my artwork.

There are 3 characters: Mountain, Temple, and Cloud.

Character Mountain of shell bone script:

I eliminated the horizontal line on the bottom to make it more like a mountain.

Character Cloud of shell bone script:

The top 二 is the calm clouds, the hook alike on the bottom is swirling clouds. 

Character Temple of bronze script is

The cover 广 is big open space in front of a cliff. The right part is a river, we can see the water flow and water drops. The left part: middle (a circle with a dot inside) is sun, over and under it are grass. More than 3000 years ago, Kings occasionally chose a good day, went a big open space near a river when the sun just rises up a little bit higher than grass, held a ceremony to worship ancestors. The big open place where the ceremony was held is called Temple.

As time passed, the religious appeared, people built buildings in mountain area for regular religious activities, people called the buildings Temple.