Frost from SVG to finished JPG a Technozi

I've mentioned my Technozi art work a few times and here's some examples of the progress

First I look up the Unihan number and then use that in Inkscape to create a black character I can edit.

You use Control U and enter the unihan to generate the character.

Shuang Frost

Now you can change the color or size or add filters in Inkscape or export it as png into Gimp and use other filters. I've elongated this to suggest seal script styles and applied a filter that I think will enhance the final edit in Gimp.

Finally I use Gimp plug ins and filters to create this effect 

I'm very partial to using the Textured filter but there are many others you can experiment with.

Will's Quills is closing!

Famous Sydney Shop Will's Quills is Closing!

Even if you don't live in Sydney tell anyone you know who does cos

THERE'S 50 % OFF EVERYTHING IN THE STORE!

European and Asian calligraphy brushes pen paper books!

Paint Ink Paper for crafts. Blank bound Books and albums and fans!

Marker Pens! and More!

The sale continues until May 26 2012

If you're reading this post after the closing date please feel free to add comments about happy memories of finding marvellous things at Will's quills or suggest alternate shopping venues to replace their unique range!

Will's Quills is in Chatswood  166 Victoria Avenue. It's about three blocks beyond  the main shopping area and you can catch a bus there and back if you don't have a car the 273 or 257 !


This store will be missed but sadly the owner is retiring and no one's interested or able to take over the shop!

MUNJADO KOREAN STYLE CHARACTER LOYALTY

This is the character for Loyalty. I'm surprised that there seems to be anything similar to MUNJADO  in the art of any of the East Asian cultures apart from Korea? I know "Proper" artistic calligraphy is ideally black and white and on paper but I like Munjado too! The only thing I can think of that's sorta similar is rainbow letters!

Hot Words Four

My apologies if I posted this before !

I've been checking the prior posts to make sure nothing accidently stayed at the draft stage due to a technical glitch earlier in the year when I changed browsers.

Happy Asian Lunar New Year

a Water Dragon by Ukiyo-e Artist  Kuniyoshi 

Look at those Calligraphic strokes. I wonder if Kuniyoshi was also good at "grass script"?

YUE beyond the south

YUE - BEYOND THE SOUTH

History and language are linked and the word and name Yue proves this.

Yue as a word and character is a verb.

As a name it describes an ancient nation in what is now southern China.

The original Yue people seem to have been non Sinitic probably speaking an Austroasiatic language related to Vietnamese though the name is now used to describe a grouping of dialects that includes Cantonese.

The Yue realm was once in eastern Zhejiang south of WU then came to cover the areas that are now Guangdong and Guangxi before becoming assimilated fully into the Chinese or Sinitic culture.

Beyond is perhaps not the best translation of Yue but conisder the name of of modern Vietnam. YueNan.

I suspect Beyond the South reflects the  ancient view of Yue  and Vietnam. 

The lands that were beyond the borders of southern China.

There was a time when the Huai and then the Yangtze river was the southern border.

Yes that was thousands of years ago and its China or in the case of Vietnam Sinicized now.

Borders change though. Who knows what the few thousand years will bring to the lands beyond the south?

IKI'S NOT ICKY

I particularly like this word!

apart form the irony of which word it sounds like in English the character itself has elegance and its an excellent example of how a word can change meaning by semantic extension and shift.

Some one fluent in "Sino Japanese long ago referred some person of style as having PURE elegance and that I suspected is how the word came to change when used by educated Japanese and perhaps also people whose grasp of kanji and the differences between Japanese and Chinese wasnt quite as good as they thought?