This is how pen washers and inkstones are used, I was shocked!

When I found out 20 years later that this is how the pen washer was used, I was shocked!

In the past 20 years, I have finally found out the reason why I don’t like writing calligraphy. For a person like me who is late-minded, it is also a happy thing. Who made me so Slow.

Because I don’t like laying down paper, grinding ink, washing pens and other trivial matters, as well as the Zhou Wu Zheng Wang, Zhou Wu and Zheng Wang, who are serious about writing, especially the part of washing and rinsing pens. For so many years, I have to think about writing a word. There is so much preliminary preparation and tedious work, and the words have to be washed and dried after writing. The good mood that was just piled up is also lost.

So I fell in love with hard-pen calligraphy. I only need a pen and a notebook, sit by my desk, and find a small regular script copybook, and I can use my spare time. The beauty or ugliness of the words does not matter, the main thing is that the mood is good, leisurely and comfortable.

Last summer, my son went to the Laizhou Chinese Studies Summer Camp. I had nothing to do at home. I listened to the summer camp teacher’s advice and spent all my time thinking about my child on “reading,” “reciting,” and “writing.” "After one month, the results have been remarkable. I have carefully read Dr. Liu Hongyi's "Lectures on the Three-Character Classic", "Lectures on the Thousand-Character Classic", Lin Yutang's "The Biography of Su Dongpo", etc., and basically learned the reading methods of traditional chanting tunes such as Hua Diao. I copied Jiang Kui's "Postscript" in Song Dynasty with hard pen. "Wang Xianzhi's Nanny's Notes", Ouyang Xun's "Heart Sutra", etc., I feel that I have benefited a lot.

By chance, I noticed pen washing.

After the bookstore opened, we often took our children to the bookstore. At that time, the back room had not been cleaned up yet. The family sat around the round table outside, the children did their homework, and we read books, and occasionally watered the flowers and tidied up. After a while, it was only then that I noticed Teacher Zang’s brush strokes.

Usually I occasionally have problems such as being distracted and paranoid. For example, when eating food, there are several dishes on the table, but I only eat the dish closest to me and ignore the rest. Only then did I realize that there were other dishes that hadn't been touched at all. The same is true for the study of calligraphy. After studying calligraphy for so many years, I have watched countless teachers write on the spot, visited teachers’ residences, former residences of famous people, etc., but turning a blind eye to such an important object such as a pen washer for many years is a typical "monkey and pig" joke. The IQ of the "pig" in it must be estimated.

“A ship full of animals was in distress at sea, and some animals needed to be thrown aboard to reduce the weight.

The monkey suggested: draw lots, whoever catches the one will be thrown away. Everyone agreed. . But the monkey thought that he might catch it. Fortunately, he was a master of telling jokes, so he suggested that if he caught it, he would have another chance, which is to tell a joke to everyone. If he made everyone laugh, he would be exempted. Everyone agreed.

Unexpectedly, the monkey was really unlucky, so he told everyone his best joke, which made everyone laugh. The pig stood aside coldly, not smiling at all. The monkey was thrown into the water without mercy.

The second one caught was the rabbit, and she also told a very funny joke. , everyone laughed miserably, but strangely, only the pig was not amused at all.

The third one caught was the sheep. I cleared my throat and was about to start talking when I suddenly heard the pig laughing wildly from the side.

I heard the pig laughing so breathlessly that the monkey’s joke just now was really funny. . . . ”

After using the pen, rinse it in the pen wash. If you are going to write again soon, put it aside before using it. If you don’t write for a long time, rinse it with water. Rinse and hang to dry. Although there is an additional process when washing pens, it is no longer that the thick black ink sweat is washed directly on the faucet, causing the white pool to turn horribly black, but there is an additional "buffer", and then it is taken to the pool When washing, the color is visually soothing and makes washing pens much more enjoyable, no longer a bothersome task.

This may be the embodiment of the "golden mean" that the Chinese value in such a trivial matter as washing pens.

Although it took me so many years to figure out the joints, it is a blessing to let go of my worries about pen washing. So I bought a hand-painted ceramic brush washer from Jingdezhen online that I liked. It was not expensive, but I was very happy to use it.

Since I learned about the wonderful function of the brush washer, I accidentally learned about another wonderful function of the inkstone, which, like the brush washer, forms a "complementary complement" for my calligraphy and writing desks.

On the way to Jiangnan during the Spring Festival holiday, we passed by Linyi. My husband took us to a Xu Gongyan shop he often visited.

It was just after the Chinese New Year, and the shop owner was so happy to see us that he opened his shop, and since we were old acquaintances, we even bought and gave away some inkstones. One of the inkstones with a box is a solid piece of stone split horizontally in the middle. The thicker piece below is used as the inkstone, and the box cover is made on the top. It is almost seamless, and there is no inkstone hidden in the middle.

It is a natural layered stone. I liked it so much that I bought it.

I also learned that before the inkstone can be used, the layer of oil must be removed with sandpaper before ink can be inserted. This is another question that I ignored before but found it baffling. No wonder I used the inkstone in the past to grind ink. My hands were almost exhausted, but the ink still didn’t come out.

Placed on the desk, the inkstone looks small and exquisite, heavy yet delicate. After writing, the pen was washed and hung up, and the stone cover was covered. When I opened it the next day, I saw that there was still so much ink and almost no evaporation, which made me happy. Unlike in the past, if you don’t know how to close the lid, the remaining ink must be used up at once, otherwise it will dry out in a while, which is very wasteful and not good for the preservation of the inkstone.

When I am not writing, I sit quietly in a corner of my desk, reading or writing. Wherever I look, I often see an inkstone that looks like a mountain of rocks, and my mood can’t help but rise.

As for my love for things, I seem to be more obsessed with these two things this year.