1. In fact, there is no fixed ratio of how much water should be mixed with ink. It is determined according to different fonts, different papers, and different writing effects for each writing, and the ink can be adjusted flexibly.
2. First of all, it depends on the calligraphy paper, whether it is raw Xuan, cooked Xuan or half-cooked. Shengxuan absorbs water well, and the ink will bleed out once it gets on it, so add less water. The water absorption capacity of cooked rice paper is weak, so you can add more water appropriately. The water absorption capacity of half-cooked rice paper is somewhere between the first two.
3. Secondly, it depends on what characters are written, usually regular script, official script, or seal script. The watering also needs to be appropriately reduced, if it is running script or cursive script. Just add a little more appropriately.
4. Determine according to the writing effect, thick, light, burnt, dry, wet, the proportion of water added is different. If you want to express the clumsiness and heaviness of seal script, the writing should be difficult and not slippery, so add less water; if you want to express the brisk and smooth cursive writing, you can add more water; if you want more dry and white strokes, you can add less water.
5. Finally, during the ink adjustment process, you can use a piece of waste paper to test write while adjusting the ink. It is enough to achieve no sluggish writing, smooth writing, and shiny ink color. If you add too much water, the writing will generally be smooth, but the ink will be dull and the handwriting will not look good.
5. Of course, in the process of calligraphy creation, we cannot look at each method of using ink in isolation. On the contrary, an excellent work of calligraphy art should use several different methods of using ink at the same time. In addition, in order to produce rich ink color changes, the method of dipping in ink is also key. Practice tells us that generally when dipping ink, do not use full dipping and deep dipping. Deep dipping will not only make the pen weak, but also make writing on paper (especially rice paper) very easy. Bloated and fat.
6. Therefore, Zhou Xinglian said in "Linchi Guanjian": "There is also a method for soaking and dyeing. When writing, you must open your pen and point it into the inkstone pond, just like water on a pole, so that the ink can enter from the tip of the pen. Then the pen will be full of ink, and the ink will flow down, so that the ink will come out from the tip of the pen and the ink will be condensed. "In addition, water and ink selection are also key to the use of ink. In calligraphy copying and creation, only by practicing more, observing more, thinking more, and understanding more can we master the rules of using ink proficiently and form our own unique awareness of ink.