MonoMonday - China

It has been snowing like crazy since yesterday. Not the gentle snow that I went out in to blip last Monday but little hard flakes being whipped around by gusts of wind. I did go out through the forest where it was a bit more protected but I couldn´t link anything to China unless China is having the same weather, of course. The snow was being blown along in sheets off the roofs and the trees and the snow blew back soon after I shovelled it away from the footpaths. I also had to drive in it at 3.30am this morning to drive Hubby to work to pick up his lift to Vienna for the week. It was a horrible drive back on a road that had not been cleared.
Sooo, for a blip I spotted my Chinese calligraphy sets and settled on the ink sticks and ink stone. I bought these in Hong Kong many years ago. Some I have used but the more beautiful ones I have kept. A lovely satiny ink is made by grinding the sticks (made from carbon and glue) end-on on the ink stone (made from slate). One of my projects for this year is to try and master the art of Copperplate. My calligraphy skills have deteriorated through lack of practice due numbness and pain in my hands. I found that Copperplate is not so demanding on the joints of the fingers so I had a bit of a practice today with the word China. Only other calligraphers can relate to writing the same word 100 times before perfecting it. This is far from perfect but I did obtain some consistency so I am encouraged to keep trying. The China stick ink is also lovely to write copperplate with and relatively inexpensive to use.