The term calligraphy is a combination of the Greek words kallos and graphos. It means beautiful writing. Calligraphy painting, also called ink painting, Chinese bamboo brush painting or Japanese sumi-e ink painting, evolved from the ancient Chinese art form of ornamental brush writing. Brush strokes used to paint Chinese characters are the same as those used in calligraphy landscape or nature painting. The characters used in calligraphy often spell out a poem.
Assemble the supplies you will need to paint calligraphy pictures. Use student grade or archival rice paper called xuan or shuan paper. Get Chinese or Japanese bamboo-handled round brushes made of wolf, goat or rabbit hair. Choose soft, flexible brushes that hold a point. Acquire a grinding stone and ink stick or buy bottled ink. Buy a traditional ink stone with hand-carved decorations if you're serious about calligraphy painting.
Familiarize yourself with some of the 50,000 or so Chinese characters. Look at pictures of calligraphic writing and their antecedent ancient signs and pictographs Choose some you want to paint for their aesthetic qualities or compose a poem using Google's translate feature or other Internet translators. Carefully study Chinese writing to get a feel for its pictorial possibilities.
Grind up your ink until it's sufficiently black. Use it full strength for painting Chinese characters. Vary its concentration to make different values and tones for calligraphic painting. Pour ink from its bottle into a shallow container and dilute it with small amounts of water to vary its value scale. Start off by practicing the basic eight brush strokes used to paint complex Chinese characters. Dip your brush into the ink, letting it absorb half-way up the bristles. Hold your brush in a vertical position while you paint.
Practice the basic strokes until you can confidently paint them with a sure hand. Paint various forms of dots and dashes with touches of the brush tip. Drag the brush across the paper to make the left, right and perpendicular downstroke. Draw the wave-like stroke, hooked stroke and the twisted stroke until you get them just right. Roll the brush and move it from side to side for the proper effects. Control the bend of the brush's bristles as you combine the fundamental strokes into characters.
Try some calligraphic painting after you've mastered drawing poetry characters. Paint the same way you write, with the brush perpendicular to the paper. Grip the brush firmly. Keep your fingers immobile and paint with gestural arm movements. Paint stalks of bamboo, building up the plant's stems, leaves and branches with the same basic strokes of calligraphic writing. Paint quickly, using tapered strokes for the leaves. Add some insects or birds for extra visual interest.
