Q: Chinese brushes..
Charles Eicher
Hey, here's an oddball question..
I've lately been doing quite a bit of painting on paper with chinese
brushes and sumi ink.. I'm mostly using the standard round bamboo brushes &
flat 2 or 3 inch wide 'hake' brushes, but I saw something the other day
that surprised me.. I was flipping through the TV channels, and I saw a
funny 'how-to' show about sumi-e painting on the local PBS channel, it must
have been done in the early 1960s.. At one point, the artist starts using a
brush described as a 'chisel point brush'.. This looked just like the
standard round bamboo brushes, except the brush tip definitely comes to a
straight edge about 3/4 inch wide, rather than a point. I've never seen
such a brush, even in the dozens of stores I went to in Japan that
specialized in calligraphy supplies..
So.. anyone have any leads on where I could get a brush like this? Is there
a real name for this style of brush? It must be a rare item, or I'd have
seen this before..
| Charles Eicher |
| -=- |
| cei...@inav.net |
David Harleyson
In article <ceicher-ya0230800...@news.inav.net>, cei...@inav.net says...
> I've never seen
>such a brush, even in the dozens of stores I went to in Japan that
>specialized in calligraphy supplies..
Maybe you needed to look in stores specializing in watercolor supplies.
I suspect that what you are looking for may be a watercolor brush that
has been adapted to calligraphy use. I have some wooden handled
watercolor brushes that I picked up somewhere, labeled Made in Japan,
and they are all shapes, including chisel (beveled). But the handles are
generally flat, rather than round. I haven't a clue what the bristles are.
They look generally like hog bristles, but much finer and softer -- ideal
for watermedia. The bristles are held in by a stitching (threads). D.H.
Charles Eicher
In article <54qnti$n...@geraldo.cc.utexas.edu>, no...@email.com (David
Harleyson) wrote:
> In article <ceicher-ya0230800...@news.inav.net>,
cei...@inav.net says...
>
> > I've never seen
> >such a brush, even in the dozens of stores I went to in Japan that
> >specialized in calligraphy supplies..
>
> Maybe you needed to look in stores specializing in watercolor supplies.
> I suspect that what you are looking for may be a watercolor brush that
> has been adapted to calligraphy use. I have some wooden handled
> watercolor brushes that I picked up somewhere, labeled Made in Japan,
> and they are all shapes, including chisel (beveled). But the handles are
> generally flat, rather than round.
No, that was what really intrigued me, the handle was round, made of bamboo
apparently. The bristles looked just like the plain old bamboo brushes, a
round bundle of hair, except it came to a flat tip. I don't see how that
happens. Maybe the hairs are carefully arranged when manufacturing the
brush..
The flat brushes you're talking about sound like the 'hake' I'm using. Of
course, I could always use flat watercolor brushes, like the regular ones
sold in the US, with a rectangular bundle of hair held in a flat ferrule.
But this 'chisel point' brush seemed (from watching the video at least) to
have some unique properties, it had rather long bristles, like about 1.5
inches long coming from the round handle, it came to a flat tip, and the
bundle seemed to be more flexible, making it a bit more expressive.
I'm still puzzled..
| Charles Eicher |
| -=- |
| cei...@inav.net |
David Harleyson
>No, that was what really intrigued me, the handle was round, made of bamboo
>apparently. The bristles looked just like the plain old bamboo brushes, a
>round bundle of hair, except it came to a flat tip.
I don't think you mean that the bristles are all the same length, round in
form, trimmed to a flat tip -- ie: what do you mean "a round bundle of hair,
except it came to a flat tip." ?
By flat tip, I am assuming you mean flat in the same way that traditional
Western-made brushes with round handles are flattened using a metal
ferrule that is also flattened on the end and inserted on a round handle.
If the bamboo brushes do not have a ferrule, then perhaps there is something
in the end of the barrel that achieves the same effect as the metal ferrule.
I have seen brushes made that way -- with a wedge of something that both
binds and shapes the bristles to form what we refer to as a "flat" as
opposed to a "round" bristled brush. But I have no idea how a bundle of
round bristles could be made to flatten on the end as you seem to be
describing. AH -- an excuse for posting a graphic here !
Cheers, D.H.