How to write the Chinese symbol for love

In this article you will learn how you can reproduce the Chinese symbol (more rightly called a character) for love so that it is flowing, balanced, and suitable for any decorative purpose. Chinese characters are drawn using strokes. By following proper stroke order, and line directionality (upward, downward, left-to-right, right-to-left) you ensure your character is technically accurate and more importantly has the right authentic "look".

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• calligraphy brush pen (Any writing instrument will do, but a calligraphy felt pen will greatly enhance the look of your final product and is cheaper and much easier to wield than the traditional brush
• the image of the symbol from the top of this article
• graph paper

1. Decide how large you want your character to be and mark out a square that size on your graph paper. About 1"x1" is a good size to start with. Your final character should be centered in this square with no lines extending past its borders.

2. The first part of the character is a 'set' of four strokes. Stroke #1 is the top most line of the character. Holding your pen just as you would a pencil, and beginning at the low end of the slope, make a line at an angle of about thirty degrees.

3. Stroke #2-Make a very short downward stroke just slightly down and to the left of the beginning point of the first stroke at about a 45 degree angle from Stroke #1.

4. Stroke #3-Make another very short downward stroke parallel to Stroke #2. Begin the stroke about 1/4 of the way in from the starting point of Stroke #1.

5. Stroke #4-Next make an upward stroke that begins just slightly under and to the right of the beginning point of the Stroke #3, and is roughly parallel to Stroke #1 (but is slightly shorter than Stroke #1). You've now completed the top component of the character.

6. The second part of the character is the two-part hooked stroke underneath the strokes you just created. Stroke #5-To begin, make a very short downward stroke that lines up slightly to the left of Stroke #2.

7. Stroke #6-From the mid-point of Stroke #5 draw a line that ends just past the end point of stroke #4. Without lifting the pen, make a very short downward right-to-left 'hook'. If you've lined up everything correctly, the 'set' of strokes 1-4 should be centered over the second 'set' of strokes (4&5) that you just completed.

8. Stroke #7- Starting down and just slightly to the right of the starting point of Stroke #6 make a line that is roughly parallel to the straight part of Stroke #6 and ends just to the left of the end-point of Stroke #6.

9. Stroke #8- Lining up approximately with the mid-point of Stroke #6, with a very short section crossing over Stroke #7, make a downward, right-to-left curved stroke about twice as long as Stroke #7.

10. Stroke #9- From the mid-point of Stroke #8 make a short horizontal line. Without lifting your pen, hook the horizontal line right-to-left and downward at the point where it lines up with the end point of Stroke #7.

11. Stroke #10- Cross the downward section of Stroke #9 with a left-to-right curved line approximately the same length as the downward section of Stroke #9.

Tips & Warnings

• Don't get to thrown by trying to follow The Steps (with a Capital 'S'). Copy from the image you have. It will take practice to get the spacing, angles, and line lengths to look just how you want. It's IMPERATIVE however that you follow the stroke order and make the lines in the proper direction (upward/downward etc) if you want your character to look like 'real' Chinese.
• The character used here is simplified Chinese which was created by the Communist government to reduce the difficulty of written Chinese and allow for more of the population to become literate.

Resources

• kuretake brush pen

[soanyway]

on 12/21/2008 I need a picture! I want to do this! I have recom'd you

[Alisiane]

on 9/29/2008 This is cool, but can you also post a graphic of what the finished product is supposed to look like? :-)