My First Book of Chinese Calligraphy is a fun and engaging introduction to one of China's most popular arts and crafts for kids. Calligraphy—the art of producing decorative handwriting or lettering with a pen or brush—has been around for thousands of years. In this fun calligraphy for kids book, readers will follow along with Mimi, an eight year old, who takes her first steps towards learning this magical art. Dive in, and explore: The Evolution of Chinese Writing—how Chinese characters first began, thousands of years ago, and how they have evolved The Order of the Strokes—learn how to write the strokes in the correct order The Radicals—what are they, and how to unlock their secrets The Four Treasures of Calligraphy— the four essential tools to get started Movements and Position—how to master your mind's focus, your breathing and even how to move The Five Styles of Calligraphy—Zhuan Shu (seal), Li Shu (clerical), Kai Shu (regular), Cao Shu (cursive), and Xing Shu (running) The Eight Strokes— how to draw the 8 strokes; with them, you can write anything Writing a Character in Calligraphy—create an entire character in calligraphy

Rebecca Yue’s unique approach to calligraphy comes from years of teaching this ancient art. Most teachers prefer to demonstrate all of the basic brushstrokes before teaching you how to form words. However in Rebecca’s experience, students soon become bored with this method and fail to progress. Whilst teaching new brushstrokes, 'Chinese Calligraphy Made Easy' allows the reader to practise them, and brushstrokes learnt previously, by writing Chinese words. From this, the reader feels a sense of achievement and satisfaction at the end of every lesson – which, in turn, stimulates them to look forward to the next exercise. As the lessons progress, the words introduced become more complicated. When there are enough words to form phrases, projects are introduced. These include painting Chinese characters onto a bonsai pot, a t-shirt, a vase and making personalised greeting cards.

This is the classic introduction to Chinese calligraphy. In nine richly illustrated chapters Chang explores the aesthetics and the technique of this art in which rhythm, line, and structure are perfectly embodied.

Written Chinese can call upon about 40,000 characters, many of which originated some 6,000 years ago as little pictures of everyday objects used by the ancients to communicate with one another. To convey more abstract ideas or concepts, the Chinese stylized and combined their pictographs. For instance, the character for “man”—a straight back above two strong legs—becomes, with the addition of a head and shoulders and arms held sternly akimbo, the character for “official.” This book, modeled after a classic compilation of the Chinese language done in the 18th century, introduces readers to the 214 root pictographs or symbols upon which this writing system, whose rich complexities hold a wealth of cultural meaning, is based. These key characters, called radicals, are all delightfully presented in this volume, with their graphic development traced stage-by-stage to the present representation, where even now (in many of them) one can easily make out what was originally pictured—with the author’s guidance. Centuries ago, when the Japanese took up writing, they also adopted these symbols, though they gave them different names in their own spoken language.

Learn World Calligraphy has something for everyone. Whether you want scholarly insight, artistic inspiration, classroom projects, or a theme for your next party, this comprehensive, unparalleled full-color book will guide you on a virtual trip around the globe. Covering nearly all of the world’s writing systems—from African to Arabic, Chinese to Greek, Hebrew to Russian, and beyond—Learn World Calligraphy offers a unique glimpse of scripts worldwide and the calligraphers who write them. Lushly illustrated with gorgeous examples of both historical and modern calligraphic designs, this book is filled with practical instruction for how key aspects of each exotic script can be applied to the English alphabet, generating calligraphic hybrids with a distinctly foreign flair. Like a new cuisine that you can’t wait to cook at home, the scripts you meet in this book are sure to infuse your own calligraphy with the flavor of abroad. Bon voyage!

'Chinese Landscapes Made Easy' shows you how to paint stunning landscapes in the classic Chinese style with a core material list of just six essential Chinese brushes. Starting with how to hold and control a Chinese brush, the author builds your confidence by demonstrating simple techniques on paper, before tackling more complex marks in conjunction with a series of painting ‘lessons’, each dedicated to a different key element of Chinese landscape painting. The projects section takes you through all the step-by-step techniques in order to complete your very own works of art. Each project has a colour palette and information on brushes to use, so you can be fully prepared. Master just two simple brushstrokes – ‘dots’ and ‘long dots’ – and you will be able to paint a simple waterfall. With more practice you can progress to more advanced strokes that enable you to depict subtle light reflections on land. With clear illustrations on key hand movements and easy-to-follow techniques, "Chinese Landscapes Made Easy" guides you all the way to mastering this beautiful form of landscape painting.

Fold-out front and back covers include examples of lettering.

Features a unique and systematic teaching method with easy-to-follow projects giving step-by-step instructions and contains a stunning gallery of the author's work--Cover.

This highly-visual book introduces an effective new method for learning Chinese characters using visual stimuli and pictographs. Learning the necessary characters used to write even simple Chinese sentences can be a long and arduous process. Chinese Characters Made Easy makes the learning process fun and easy by presenting the 1,000 most common characters using a new mnemonic approach that associates each character with a memorable visual and verbal clue--making memorization easy. The character for person, for example, is superimposed over a sketch of a man representing "a person standing on two legs"—drawing the reader's attention to the distinctive shape of the character and associating the sketch with the character's meaning. The Chinese characters are presented in groups or clusters all sharing common elements and meanings, for context and ease of identification. These groups of characters all share common root symbols known as radicals or relate to a particular theme or topic such as colors, numbers, animals, or body parts. Pronunciations, meanings and vocabulary compounds are provided for each character in the group. Key features of Chinese Characters Made Easy include: An introduction to the history and structure of the Chinese writing system 1,000 characters and over 3,000 words for beginning learners of Chinese This Chinese character book's visual approach is a powerful learning tool. It can be used by serious students and is entertaining and useful to general readers who are curious about how the Chinese writing system works and how it developed.

Perfect for beginners, this calligraphy book teaches over 100 Chinese paintings and calligraphies along with historical and cultural information. As one of the most fascinating artistic form in the world, Chinese calligraphy has long been an area of interest to both novices and researchers. This easy-to-use guide introduces all the basic elements of the standard Chinese calligraphy script, Kaishu, with step-by-step instructions and diagrams for each of the 8 basic strokes. The purpose of this book is two-fold. On one had, it contains a short history of Chinese calligaphy and an introduction to Kaishu style, which embodies the very essense of the "Eastern arts" for those who find themselves interested in the arts of the Asian countries. On the other hand, for those who know about Chinese calligraphy and want to try their hand at it, the book, with Kaishu as a starting point, introduces the basic skills of the ancient and exquisite art of Chinese calligraphy. The rules and methods contained in the book will make the learning process easier with clear diagrams and images.