Friday, October 28, 2016

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (19) Trick or Treat!

Trick or Treat is the most important activity of Halloween. Children wear scary costumes to go neighborhood to ask for candy door by door in the evening. The most popular image used in costume is Ghost.

My Chinese calligraphy artwork "Trick or Treat!"



The characters involved in the artwork as follows.

The shell bone script for Moon is



The shell bone script of for Door is

The shell bone script for Ghost is


A big head man kneeled down.

The small seal script for ghost is


big head, soft legs and  hook- tail, a different ghost.

The art "Trick or Treat!"



Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (18) Live in bamboo forest - 竹林深处

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,


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

Friday, September 23, 2016

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,


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

Sunday, September 18, 2016

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.


Saturday, August 6, 2016

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.



Thursday, July 14, 2016

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,


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

Friday, July 8, 2016

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.

Home - 家

家 (jiā, "home/family") = Roof + Pig The component   宝盖   (the "roof" radical) represents a pigsty or shelter, while   豕 ...