Avoiding Monotony in Chinese Calligraphy, Pt 1

Video Transcript

"Another element that we pay attention to in the design of Chinese characters is avoid monotonous, and achieve some kind of variety in your strokes, by vary or or change. That is repeating the strokes directions or angles. So, for instance this word; full. Okay, when you write it, pay attention to where you put the top center stroke, and then go far enough with your horizontal stroke. And then we have a stroke that will look good if you go pretty steep, and then started to kind of slant out to the left, or lower left corner. So, this is because it starts almost to, a lot to the left side of the block already, so it has to be steep steep like that. And then, the next one is also a stroke, a left slanting stroke, so we will if we do it the same way; like this, then it wouldn't look good, and also it create a problem for the next vertical stroke to come in, and everything look like, almost like one vertical stroke. And to achieve a dynamic balance we need to change the angle of the next left slanting stroke, like that. And then we'll create a natural starting point for the vertical, here. So, here you find a empty space here to start your horizontal stroke. And then up here the vertical a little bit down, to achieve the balance and the hook."