Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (57) Lower Mountain could be more famous if there is immortal - 山不在高，有仙则名

 

A famous Chinese poet says "山不在高，有仙则名“，meaning "Lower Mountain could be more famous if there is immortal".

The Chinese characters in the above artwork:

1, Mountain - shell bone script

2, Cloud - shell bone script 

3, Immortal - small seal script.

    

    Immortal in song typeface: 仙. 

    The left is Person radical, the right is Mountain, meaning that the immortal is the person who lives in the mountain.

    The original small seal script is very complicated. Based on the song typeface and the typical small seal script strokes, I created the new small seal script as the one in the top right in the artwork. The left is the person who is facing left, and the right is the mountain.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (56) Water Cube - 水立方

The character (s) in this artwork is 水 - water (small seal script).

Water Cube is the facility constructed to host the aquatics competitions at the 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. 

Another famous facility for 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics is Nest-type Beijing Olympic Stadium. I created "Bird's Nest - 鸟巢” work in the previous post, which is the Chinese name of Nest-type Beijing Olympic Stadium. 

Water Cuber in Chinese is 水立方：水 - water，立方 - cube。

I use only one character Water (small seal script)

to form the artwork.

The big Water - 水 on the top, and many small Water characters form the edges of the cube: Water Cube.

The small seal script of water is like a swimmer who is swimming, especially when it is in horizontal position, which is exactly the facility used for. 

 

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (55) Bird's Nest - 鸟巢

 The big seal script of character Bird is

The big seal script of character Nest is

The facility for 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics is called Nest-type Beijing Olympic Stadium. "Bird's Nest - 鸟巢” is the Chinese name of Nest-type Beijing Olympic Stadium, which is one of the two major facilities for 2008 Beijing Summer Olympics. The another one is called Water Cube (水立方), I ceated an artwork "Water Cube", you can see it in the next post.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (54) We are easy to see each other but difficult to talk - 咱们见过面吗容易，拉话话难

 

There are 2 characters in the artwork:

1, the shell bone script of character Mountain

 2, the big seal script of character Meet

There is famous Chinese folk love song, singing a couple of loving young boy and girl in a mountain area, one song lyric sings: " is "We are easy to see each other, but difficult to talk" because they are separated by  the mountain.

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. 

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (51) Race-walking - 竞走

 The shell bone script of Character Compete is

Two people standing side by side, just like the sprinters standing at the starting line. 

The bronze script of character Walk is

The top is a man moving his arms and walking in big steps, the bottom is foot. 

Here is my artwork "Race-walking"