The secret of making traditional ink sticks
ฝัง
- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 20 ส.ค. 2021
- Ink is one of ancient China's "four treasures in the study," along with the writing brush, paper, and ink stone. In this second episode of four, we join English teacher Mark Dinning from the UK as he makes traditional ink sticks
I want one !! I want to try now !
Lockdown
@@charlietube7165 yes I ordered some right after, and some Xuan paper as well 😅
I lived in China and I practice Chinese calligraphy. I went to the Huangshan area (Anhui province), where you can get among the best ink sticks you can buy. Even Japanese calligraphers would go there to get some. I got a few. Some I will never use. The decorations are just incredible.
Wow! This is an art I'm itself. Hopefully, it will be passed down for many more generations. I hope the people who use it to draw will appreciate it.
"How many times do I need to do this"?
Chinese : Yes
I regret wanting to invent a cheap ink. I was being foolish. Ink is not writing.
Ink made from oil is vastly inferior to ink made from pine resin, otherwise known around much of the world as "fatwood". Soot collected that way is also inferior to the way the highest level soot is collected. It takes five years to make an ink stick that is of the highest quality, and no literati ever drooled over ink made from oil soot. This is a recent thing, done because making resin ink has gotten very expensive, so most places have resorted to other, inferior, ways of gathering soot.
I hate it when someone says you grind the ink stick. You don't, It's a very gentle process. If you get in a hurry and start actually grinding the stick, you'll get poor ink, and probably ruin the stick. You'll certainly use much more of it than you should.
You can tell the difference between oil and resin ink the moment you start rubbing the ink stick on an ink stone. The resin ink, the highest level resin ink made from soot at the right level, is as smooth and butter. The oil stick is not. You can feel a slight grittiness to it. And usually contaminants. It will write, of course, but it simply is on a lower level than a quality resin stick. It also costs more than it's worth, but I will admit it's the best ink stick most can afford, or are willing to pay.
But any literati who drools over oil made soot ink is simply ignorant of how the best ink sticks are made. .
I prefer pine resin ink sticks but I wouldn't say that oil ink sticks are vastly inferior. Their performance is comparable when you buy two sticks at the same price point. The only main difference I've seen is that pine ink is blue-black and that oil ink is glossy brown-black.