Customer Reviews

Chinese Calligraphy Made Easy: A Structured Course in Creating Beautiful Brush Lettering

5 star:		(5)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a fabulous introductory how-to book on Chinese calligraphy. The text and examples are large, the overall presentation of the material is clear and artful. Using this book is really easy.

The publisher's description says:

- Unique, systematic teaching method builds
from basic to advanced brushstrokes,
enabling you to create new words with each
brushstroke you learn

- Two fold-out cover flaps carry key
information to remind you of the anatomy
of each character as you progress

- Organized into a series of lessons and
projects which, as they are worked
through, build the reader's knowledge

- Includes beginner-level projects for
greeting cards, decorative ceramics, and
calligraphic artwork

Some 100 characters are covered. There are chapters on preparing the brushes, holding and loading the brush, wrist and elbow movements, pressing and lifting the brush, various brushstrokes, making a traditional writing book, a greeting card, the five golden rules of Chinese calligraphy, mounting a xuan paper artwork, and more. An appendix shows where Chinese calligraphy supplies can be obtained in the U.S and U.K., each listing has a website.

I happily give this book a full five stars.

If you'd like to learn to write the "ABCs" of written Chinese, this is the book for you! (That's a joke, by the way, since Chinese has no ABCs.) The book gives very complete and detailed instructions for making the strokes of the Chinese characters, and building them into beautiful characters. I particularly liked the way little arrows show the movement of the tip of the brush, while up and down symbols told you when to lift the brush to its tip, or press it down.

The book is interspersed with attractive little projects you can do with Chinese characters, but the heart of the book is definitely how to write the characters themselves.

This is a good book to start working with Chinese Calligraphy. The instructions are clear and helpful, and many examples of characters are given to practice, in such a way that you can see and work with the different variations of the basic brushstrokes. While this book won't lead to mastery, it has certainly helped me in achieving more consistency in writing the characters.

The art projects were fun to do, and I have ended up doing some of them several times as friends and family wanted one of their own.

This book was a gift for a friend studying Chinese. It can be used both by the relatively novice Chinese writer, and by someone interested in the finer points of Chinese calligraphy. It is structured so that you can use it either to work primarily on building your language skills, or by creating calligraphy projects.

There are many illustrations that show how to construct individual strokes, and how to put them together into some of the building blocks that make up the Chinese written language. The illustrations also show finished projects, with the all the details to create them.

The descriptions of how to control the brushes to achieve different effects are very clear.

The best way to enjoy this book is with brush and paper, trying out the techniques.

Good both for the the linguist and the artist.

Tell you the basic strokes of Chinese writing, HOWEVER judge the quality of author's hand writing by yourself, don't want to comment here, it is ONLY GOOD for the real beginner. I say that of course I am Chinese and consider know Chinese well.

This book provides the basics for understanding the complex workmanship and discipline required to produce quality Chinese Calligraphy.
This is an excellent book, if you are truely serious about learning this Ancient Art.

I enjoyed Rebecca's approach a lot - would have loved to see more examples of all styles, but this whet my interest and appreciation for all styles of calligraphy.
An inspiration to ponder.

Very well ilustrated, and covers a wide range of information: starting how to choose brushes up to mastering the art.

It is a superb book to self learn how to write chinese characters. It gives all the hints to make nice chinese writing. I strongly recommend.

This is an excellent book on Sumi, the art of brush lettering. The only thing missing is an explanation of how to "make" ink from the soot. I had never done this type of work and the "beginning" book seemed to take up once the ink was made. I didn't know what was in my new Sumi kit and further what to do with what was there. A chapter on the contents of a kit and how to use each item would have helped me to get off to a faster start. Instead, I found a U-tube video of the how-tos.