Calligraphy Class: China vs Japan
Yesterday was my first day of Japanese calligraphy class (which of course I enjoyed). While taking this class, I'm paying attention to the differences between this class and the class I took a year and a half ago while studying in China on Chinese calligraphy.
China:
We had a bilingual female teacher who taught a very small class of us, and spent time chatting with us, learning with us, and laughing a lot at some of the class humor we had going on (it was a fun group). We didn't have to pay any additional money for the class. We were greeted with a bucket with some supplies in it: paper, a mat for under the paper, a razor blade to cut the paper with, one brush, one bottle of ink, and one basin for the ink. We started our first lesson by being told to practice writing "一" over and over again until we got it right, then we moved on to practicing other kinds of strokes, paying careful attention to how we did each stroke. Later we moved on to actual characters, and copied examples off the overhead, or done by our teacher. Nothing was graded or handed in to our teacher.
Japan:
We have a male teacher who only speaks Japanese (no problem for me), and a rather large class for an art class, which is conducted more formally. We pay an extra 5,000 yen to take the class. We were greeted with a special new shoulder bag, with all our necessary supplies tucked inside their appropriate pockets inside. The contents included: paper, a mat for under the paper, one regular sized brush, one small brush (for signatures), a pretty and decorative bamboo mat specifically to wrap the brushes in for storage, one bottle of ink, one ink stone, one basin for the ink, one little squeeze bottle to keep water in, and one metal weight to smooth the paper out and hold it down. We started out the first lesson by receiving two handouts showing the examples we were supposed to spend the class copying. One paper had "三五" on it, and the other had "日本". We were supposed to make multiple copies of each, then sign our name on the best copy of each, and hand those in at the end of the period. We will receive a grade and class credit for the course.
I'm sure I'll enjoy this class, and it's nice to be doing calligraphy again. I haven't done it in a long time, but it came back quickly. I might make a follow up post on the style differences I notice after I've seen more examples. Yay for artistic outlets!
China:
We had a bilingual female teacher who taught a very small class of us, and spent time chatting with us, learning with us, and laughing a lot at some of the class humor we had going on (it was a fun group). We didn't have to pay any additional money for the class. We were greeted with a bucket with some supplies in it: paper, a mat for under the paper, a razor blade to cut the paper with, one brush, one bottle of ink, and one basin for the ink. We started our first lesson by being told to practice writing "一" over and over again until we got it right, then we moved on to practicing other kinds of strokes, paying careful attention to how we did each stroke. Later we moved on to actual characters, and copied examples off the overhead, or done by our teacher. Nothing was graded or handed in to our teacher.
Japan:
We have a male teacher who only speaks Japanese (no problem for me), and a rather large class for an art class, which is conducted more formally. We pay an extra 5,000 yen to take the class. We were greeted with a special new shoulder bag, with all our necessary supplies tucked inside their appropriate pockets inside. The contents included: paper, a mat for under the paper, one regular sized brush, one small brush (for signatures), a pretty and decorative bamboo mat specifically to wrap the brushes in for storage, one bottle of ink, one ink stone, one basin for the ink, one little squeeze bottle to keep water in, and one metal weight to smooth the paper out and hold it down. We started out the first lesson by receiving two handouts showing the examples we were supposed to spend the class copying. One paper had "三五" on it, and the other had "日本". We were supposed to make multiple copies of each, then sign our name on the best copy of each, and hand those in at the end of the period. We will receive a grade and class credit for the course.
I'm sure I'll enjoy this class, and it's nice to be doing calligraphy again. I haven't done it in a long time, but it came back quickly. I might make a follow up post on the style differences I notice after I've seen more examples. Yay for artistic outlets!