Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (30) Ho, Ho, Ho!

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 (29) Fish Jump over the Dragon Gate - 鲤鱼跳龙门

There is a famous Chinese proverb: Carps Jump over the Dragon Gate, which means if the carps jumped over the dragon gate, they would become a dragon, implying success. So many Chinese people stick the painting of Carps jumping over the dragon gate on windows or doors in the new year eve to hope that they would succeed next year.

Could we create a calligraphy artwork similar to the one above with all characters? Yes.

Let's see what characters are involved in the artwork.

Door of shell bone script

.
Water of shell bone script

Fish of shell bone script

Fish of small seal script

Fish of clerical script (~ 2000 years ago - current)

Fish of standard script  (~ 1700 years ago - current), but the following is simplified character, ~ 70 years ago.

Here is my artwork: Fish jump over the Gate

When the fish jump up from the lower left over the gate to fall down on the lower right, the script changes from the oldest shell bone script on the lower left to the small seal script on the upper left to the clerical script on the upper right, and finally to standard script (simplified) on the lower right. It is a more than 3000 years across,  the Chinese culture has been connected and continuous.

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (28) Bamboo Mountain - 竹山

Chinese shell bone script for Bamboo is

a picture of the bamboo leaves.

Its small seal script is

there are culms and leaves.

Its clerical script is

we see culms and leaves.

We have learnt the shell bone script for Mountain is

Here is my art "Bamboo Mountain"

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (27) Mountaineer - 登山

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 (26) Breakthrough - 闖

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 (25) Love in Love - 愛 in Love

Love is the most important word in the world. What ancient Chinese did think about Love? How did they show their thinking in character Love?

The earliest character for Love is big seal script

in the middle of lower part,

is Heart 

Something is around the Heart, what is it?

The 《象形字典》（Pictography Dictionary) explains the character: the surrounding heart is  character 欠，which original means that open mouth, breath out, or speak softly. So the meaning of the character is "To care from one's heart, to show love with a soft voice", which is Love.

Let's see its small seal script

Then we see the small seal script for Love

It is all similar to big seal script except there is an extra 夕 alike part on the bottom, which is an up-down 止 (foot). So the small seal script has all the meaning of big seal script, plus "To follow the heart anywhere with ones foot".

The song typeface of the character of Love is

Traditional song typeface

Simplified song typeface (the heart is missing)
Now, you understand what Chinese character Love means.

Here is my work" Love in Love" (愛 in Love).

Pictographic Chinese Calligraphy (24) Creative Calligraphy Calendar of Year of Rooster - 鸡年挂历

We have many calligraphy works, let's put them together to create a calendar of 2017, which will be Year of Rooster, starting the New Year day in Jan 28th, 2017.

Happy Chinese New Year Day!