Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (17) Paddy － 稻田

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 (16) Family － 父母子

The shell bone script for Father

A hand on the right (the fork alike) holds an ax (the top left vertical line), which means the labor working outside, normally is a father's role.

The current standard Chinese character for Father is

The bottom is the hand, the top is the ax which is changed to two separated dots, not like ax anymore.

The shell bone script for Mother is

A lady kneeling down with two arms across in front of her chest.

The shell bone script for Child is

a big head with two arms up.
  Based on the above, I created my art "Family"

in which, Father, Mother, and Child stand together, a family picture.

I also modified the character Father from standard script, the two falling down strokes are inward now, more like a man who stands up firmly.

I intentionally drew the Child in smaller size to show the real ratio in comparison with his parents.

The shell bone script of Mother is a lady who kneels down because the low social status of woman in ancient time. I let her stand up which is the lady shape nowadays.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (15) Line up － 队

Chinese simplified character for "Line up" is

The left part means "Ear", the right part （人） means "People". The character means a team of people, but there is only one person.

I modified it a little bit to better express its meaning.

A big ear on the left, there are many people lined up on the right, which is the real meaning of the character.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (14) The moon in the river －弯弯的月亮

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 (13) Mountain of flowers and fruits － 花果山

In the famous Chinese novel 《Pilgrimage to the West》, the Monkey King lived with many other monkeys in "Mountain of flowers and fruits". Chinese describe it as a paradise.

The Chinese for Mountain of flowers and fruit is 花果山。

花 is flower, its Big Seal script is

just like a flower.

果 is fluit, its Shell Bone script is

just like a fruit tree.

山 is mountain, its Shell Bone script is

just like a mountain.

In normal writing, people write the three characters up down, left to right, or right to left in same size. It is good. However, how about to change a little bit as following

 Now the root of flower and fruit are in the mountain, they form a mountain of flower and fruit.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (12) Beauty － 美女

Chinese translate Beauty as “美女”, beautiful lady.

美 means beautiful. The character of its Shell Bone script is

Which is combination of "sheep" on the top,

and a "big" on the bottom

Big Sheep is beautiful, ancient Chinese thought. Why? Possible big sheep means that you have more meat, or big sheep looks beautiful, or both.

Peking Opera has a type of headwear with long horn alike elastic whip on top.

Chinese believe that is beautiful.

The Shell Bone sccript of lady, or woman is

 which is a lady kneels down with two arms across in front of the chest because the low social status of women in the ancient time, even before a few decades ago.  

Here is my art work

on the left is 美 （beautiful) with long hair similar as Peking Opera headwear, and long legs; on the right is 女 （lady) who stands up with confidence and graceful posture because she is not in low social status anymore. 

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (11) Dancing stage － 舞台

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.