Demonstration Art

From a kachō-ga byKatsushika Hokusai (1760 – 1849). See discussion.

Calligraphy

The two words below, written in hiragana, one of the Japanese phonetic syllabaries, are for those who want to practice their calligraphy. The first word is mokuren (magnolia).

Note that the character for re looks like it should have more than 2 strokes, but that is misleading. The first stroke is a simple vertical line. All the rest is done with a single stroke, though the amount of pressure of the brush on the paper varies; sometimes enough to lift off the paper entirely. It isn't required to be that way. That is a choice of the calligrapher. The n character is all done in a single stroke, even though like re, it changes direction mid-stroke.

The next word, tori (bird), is here because there is an uguisu bird  (Japanese Nightingale) in my demonstration painting.

The ri character is technically two strokes, though it looks like it has just one. Again, that is a choice of the calligrapher. After the first, vertical, stroke is finished, the calligrapher may choose to lift the brush just a little instead of completely off the paper, leaving a thin line between the end of the first stroke and the beginning of the second stroke. That approach is frequently seen in printed font versions of the ri character.