There are many kinds of brushes. Generally speaking, writing pens can be divided into three categories: soft pens, hard pens and gel pens. Soft pens, such as wool and chicken feathers. Hard pens include purple hair (rabbit hair), wolf hair, mouse hair and so on. Neutral (neither soft nor hard) pens are called "double brush", and there are two kinds: sheep purple and sheep wolf.
1. Brush type:
● Hard pen: vigorous and powerful pen. Such as: wolf hair, mountain horse, cow ear hair, moustache, mountain rabbit, deer brush.
● Soft brush: Soft brush. Such as: Yang Hao pen.
● Double-tube brush: both soft and hard, both rigid and soft. The brushwork is between rigid and soft.
Such as: long flow, wishful thinking, suitable for beginners.
2. Selection of brush: A good brush should have the four virtues of "sharp, neat, round and healthy".
● When the nib is polymerized, the nib should be able to close the nib.
● Qi ~ Squeeze the nib with water to make the hair on the nib neat and tidy.
● Round ~ Around the belly of the pen, the pen holder is full and round, conical, not flat or thin.
● Jane ~ bristles are elastic, easy to fold after being scattered, and the pen strength should be healthy.
Before choosing a brush, we should first understand the type and properties of the brush.
There are many kinds of writing brushes, and the nib is made of animal hair. Therefore, people often classify pens according to their different elasticity. Generally divided into hard brush, soft brush and double-sided brush.
(1) bristle brush
The bristles of hard bristle pens are elastic, such as rabbit hair, wolf hair, deer hair, rat beard, stone badger hair, mountain horse hair and mane.
1. Rabbit brush Rabbit brush has a long history. The Warring States pen unearthed in Changsha was made of rabbit brush. It is made by splitting one end of the pen into several sections, inserting the nib, and then tying it tightly with silk thread. Rabbit hair is divided into purple hair and gray hair. Purple hair is made from the hair on the rabbit's back (also called arrow hair) and the hair on its tail. It is soft and healthy. Gray is better than purple.
The wolf here is not a wolf in the zoo, but a weasel. The pen made of the hair on the weasel's body and tail is slightly softer than the rabbit's brush and harder than the wool pen, but it is brittle and not resistant to friction.
3. moustache pen moustache pen is made of mouse beard, so its performance is very strong. According to legend, Wang Xizhi of the Eastern Jin Dynasty wrote Preface to Lanting with a moustache.
Other hard pens, such as mountain horse brush, stone badger brush, bristle brush, etc. , are particularly hard, it is not easy for beginners to choose.
(2) Soft brush
Soft hair brushes are less elastic and softer. Generally made of wool, chicken feathers, fetal hair and other soft hairs.
1. Wool pen is made of goat hair, which is softer than purple brush. Because sheep's hair is thinner and longer, it is suitable for writing big letters and characters.
2. Chicken feather brush The chicken feather brush is made of the hair on the cock's chest, and its performance is softer than wool.
3. Fetal hair brush is the hair of newborn baby, and its performance is extremely soft. Xiao Ziyun in the Southern Dynasties (487-549) used fetal hair brushes, which shows that it has a long history.
(3) Double-sided brush
"Double brush", as the name implies, means to have both. That is, hard hair is the core, soft hair is the periphery, and the pen is between.
Between hard hair and soft hair Generally, the production ratio of purple wool and sheep wool is different. The scores are "three purple and seven sheep", "seven purple and three sheep" and "five purple and five sheep". There are also brushes made of wool and wolf Mao Shuang, which are divided into "little white cloud", "Zhong Baiyun" and "Da Baiyun" according to their sizes. There are also bristles added to the big wool barrel pen to enhance its elasticity.
The above three kinds of pens with different properties, namely, hard pen, soft pen and double-headed brush, have different uses. Before the Song Dynasty, most calligraphers used hard pen to write. In the Ming and Qing dynasties, calligraphers wrote more and more words, and some pens were changed from hard pen to sheep hair. Because wool is long, it is suitable for making big characters. Generally speaking, writing running script and cursive script with hard pen is refreshing and easy to write, easy to rise and fall: writing regular script, official script and seal script with soft pen is easy to moisten and enrich. Of course, this is not absolute. You can write regular script, seal script and official script with hard pen, or you can write cursive script with sheep hair. Mr. Lin Sanzhi, a contemporary grass sage, writes cursive script with a long and soft brush, which is not only vigorous and upright, but also smart and meaningful. Because the pen tip is long and contains a lot of ink, a few words can be written when dipped in ink, which is easy to show the continuous momentum between words and the change of ink color. Because Changfeng Yang Hao's pen is soft and long, Cai Yong in the Eastern Han Dynasty called it "strange soft pen", so it is easy to produce endless changes and unexpected artistic effects. However, the sheeppaw pen is soft, especially the long-side sheeppaw pen. When the pen is pressed, it will lie flat and spread out, which is difficult to grasp. At this time, it is entirely up to the writer to adjust the nib with the skill of lifting the pen, and the bristle brush is better. Because of its high elastic strength, when the pen is pressed and lifted again, the pen tip can be restored to the original condensed state, so it can be lifted freely and is quite handy. However, due to the hardness and flexibility of the brush, the strokes will appear too sharp and angular, which is the disadvantage of the bristle brush. In short, it is not easy to write vigorous and straight words with a sheep's brush and peaceful and flexible words with a hard pen.
For beginners, if you use a hard brush from the beginning, it will be easier to pick up the pen without much skill, because the pen will help you a lot, but over time, you can only use the hard brush. Once you pick up the sheep's hair, you will feel unable to move. On the contrary, if you practice calligraphy with sheep's hair when you are a beginner, although it is difficult at first, you must change the front by lifting and pressing to write qualified strokes, but you also learn the method of using soft pen. With the increase of contact time, you will gradually become handy and use it freely. At this time, if you pick up a hard brush to write, you will feel relaxed.
The ancients also had a lot of experience in the use of pens. I don't think it is easy to buy a good and expensive pen when I am a beginner, but I advocate using a bad pen, because if you can write good words with a bad pen, you will be more comfortable and write better with a good pen. On the contrary, if you start with a good pen, you will only use a good pen all your life. Once you encounter a poor pen, you will not be able to write well. Of course, you can't practice calligraphy with a rotten pen, which will make it more difficult for beginners. Ou Yangxun, a great calligrapher in the early Tang Dynasty, recorded that "if you don't choose paper or pen, you will achieve your goal", which was praised by Yu Shinan of the same age.
In addition, from the economic point of view, the authentic wolf brush is very expensive, the good "big orchid bamboo" costs one or two hundred yuan, the ordinary sheep brush only costs two or three yuan, and a little better five or six yuan is enough. And because the pen is hard and easy to wear, it is not smooth when used, while the pen is soft and durable. It is economical for beginners to buy a wool pen.
Before buying a pen, you should also know the model of the brush. Brushes are divided into small letters, medium letters and large characters due to different styles, and the biggest ones are screen pens, couplet pens, bucket pens and planting pens. Because the name and brand of each pen factory are different, its size is also different. Beginners can buy a pen with a long front end, about four or five centimeters in length and about one centimeter in diameter. Such a brush can write in block letters 7 cm square. More suitable for people who have just learned calligraphy.
There are many kinds of writing brushes. When learning for the first time, I hope you can choose "double double brush" lake brush. Because it is difficult to master the brush strokes of double-stranded brush, it is very important for your future study. Let me talk about why Yang Hao and Wolf Hair are not used, because the former is soft and difficult to master, while the latter is hard and suitable for freehand brushwork.
When choosing the right stroke, you should choose the right length, because the stroke length is too long to master, but the stroke length can contain a lot of ink, which is suitable for writing "cursive" in one go, and the stroke length can ensure enough ink. On the contrary, the length of strokes is suitable for writing regular script and easy to master. 1, when using a new pen, you can gently twist your hair with your hands first, and then soak it in water. It should be said that you can't soak it in a teacup or a bottle. If there is only a teacup or bottle, it is best to find a clip to hold the pen container beside the cup, and don't let the pen stand at the bottom of the cup. Whether immersed in water or not, bristles should not be bent (except when writing). If the hair of a new pen bends when it is soaked for the first time, it will be useless and even the best pen will be finished.
2. It is best to soak in warm water in winter, but don't burn it. Hot water is easy to burn the pen. Generally, it can be soaked in water 10 minutes to 20 minutes.
3. Wipe the bristles with water after soaking, which can be wiped with soft cloth, toilet paper or raw rice paper. Be sure to brush along your hair. Don't rub it hard, and don't press the brush on the table to wipe it clean. It doesn't matter if there is a little water left in the new pen.
4. After the brush water is generally wiped clean, it begins to dip in ink. Be sure to dip all the brushes into the ink, not just half or more. Although we only use most of the bristles when writing, but not all of them, we must dip all the ink in the first time, so that the bristles can be connected as a whole, and we should exert force at the end of the pen when writing.
Every time you use the brush, be sure to rinse the bristles clean. Although it can't be completely cleaned, at least there can't be too much residual ink. The cleaner the better, because shrinking ink hurts the pen.
6. After the brush is used up and the residual ink is washed dry, the bristles must be neat and smooth. The nib must be straight, not skewed, not curly, and not detached from the masses.
Be sure to tidy up the bristles, and then hang the pen on the pen rack. If you don't have a pen holder, you can put it flat or upside down in the pen holder, but it is best to hang it on the pen holder.
7. When writing, if you don't write for a short time, you can temporarily put on a pen cap for fear that the bristles will be blown dry by the wind. But when you don't write for a long time, rinse the pen and air dry naturally, and don't wear a pen cap. The hair of the pen can't always be wet, especially the residual wet ink will definitely hurt the pen.
8. Because of the alternation of dry and wet, the pen is easy to crack and the nib sometimes falls off. Just stick it on with the existing universal glue, which is a piece of cake compared with the workmanship and quality of bristles.
9. The pen has been used for a long time and I don't feel very good. In addition to normal natural wear, sometimes the residual ink will stick to the bristles, which is extremely difficult to rinse off with water. At this time, you can clean the bristles with conditioner. In most cases, brushes washed with conditioner work well. What we need to know is that brush hair is also animal hair.
10, "If a worker wants to do a good job, he must sharpen his tools first." We should treat the writing brush well and cherish it, especially a good pen is not easy, so we must protect it. Sometimes, it's not that the pen doesn't work well, but that we don't use it well and treat it well. The pen is like this, so is the paper and ink stone.