Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (10) Net ball = Tennis －网球

The post has been collected in the book "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" published on Amazon as Paper book (Hardcover, and Paperback), and eBook. You could click the following link to get the information on Amazon,

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy

Or you could search "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" on Amazon to find the book.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (9) Tea pot, Liquor pot, and Water pot － 茶壶，酒壶，水壶

The post has been collected in the book "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" published on Amazon as Paper book (Hardcover, and Paperback), and eBook. You could click the following link to get the information on Amazon,

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy

Or you could search "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" on Amazon to find the book.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (8) The frog in the well － 井底之蛙

"The frog in the well" is a famous Chinese proverb, which describes a person who is very limited outlook on the outside of world,  but doesn't know the fact that he is the kind person.

The Shell Bone script for Well is

The Small Seal script for Well is

The Small Seal script for Frog is

Here is my new calligraphy work: The frog in the well

The two dots in frog eyes were added by me to make it alive.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (7) Where the water flows, a canal is formed － 水到渠成

Water in Shell Bone script is

four water drops on the sides of a curve, like an image of river. Ancient Chinese got water from the river.

The Chinese proverb says "Water drops form the river".

We see the image above, which is what ancient Chinese thought about water and river.

There is another Chinese proverb: When water flows, a river is formed.

Here is my art work:"Water and River"

All characters are Water of shell bone script, from small on the top to gradually bigger ones downward, which is similar to a river flowing from distance.

For learning the basic Chinese Calligraphy, please go to my YouTube videos starting the following,
https://youtu.be/Iz1EEwYnm7E

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (6) Rain Umbrella － 雨伞

Chinese character for Rain is 雨 (Song script or printing script)

The Big Seal script (more than 3000 years old script)

It has 4 drops, like raining. The ancient Chinese used the pictography for "Rain".

The character for Umbrella is 伞 （Song script or printing script) or 傘 (traditional Chinese).

No old script characters found. The character is very like an umbrella. 

So 雨伞 means "rain umbrella". It is very pictography. 

I modified it as following,

Put the Rain over the Umbrella, add extra drops, make it more picture alike and dynamic. It is a beautiful poetic picture now.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (5) America - A beautiful, rich, and strong country － 美国：一个美丽，富饶，强大的国家

The post has been collected in the book "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" published on Amazon as Paper book (Hardcover, and Paperback), and eBook. You could click the following link to get the information on Amazon,

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy

Or you could search "Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy" on Amazon to find the book.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (4) Dragon Boat － 龙舟

Dragon is a zodiac animal but the only unreal animal. No one knows how Dragon was created, I think that it should be from Dinosaur, big, ugly, powerful and king of the universal. So Emperors liked to sit on house with many dragon sculptures, and wore the clothes with dragon robes.

Dragon is important in the daily life of ordinary people, dragon boat race is famous not only in China, but in the world. I am not going to say the history of dragon boat race, you can find on website easily. I want to tell you the related calligraphy with dragon boat.

Character of dragon in old Small Seal script

On the left, it is the head and body of dragon, on the right is the hair of the body and the tail of dragon.

Dragon character in Clerical script:

It is similar as the character in Small Seal script. But more stright lines, less curved lines, are more standardized, which meet the requirement of language, but reduced the artistic characteristics. But it is still like dragon.

Let's see the character "Boat" in old Small Seal script:

It is like a boat. How about the character in clerical script：

It is changed a lot, but still some alike the one in small seal script.

OK, now we know the original "Dragon" 龍，and "Boat" 舟. What did I do? I modified 龍，and put the two characters together

I intentionally extended the right bottom stroke of 龍 to form a boat-like stroke, and changed the middle horizontal stroke to diagonal to form oar-like stroke in character 舟. With three 舟's，the whole work looks like dragon boat racing picture.

The work was changed again to become the following after one year of the creation of the one above.

The major change is the middle stroke of 舟，extended and crossed the horizontal stroke of 龍，puting the oars into the water. So whole work is more like a dragon boat race.