In today’s modern world, the exercise of writing by hand has given way to texting and typing. Nevertheless, an exercise still exists that celebrates the art of handwriting for its ability to communicate the spiritual planet with the artist. Meaning gorgeous composing, the exercise of calligraphy can be a skill type that conveys the emotions, integrity, aesthetic feelings and culture of the artist to its readers

Considered among the Four Treasures of China, the bamboo brush (pen) is sturdy but light, adequate to let the artist accomplish the quick, forceful strokes needed to hit the paper properly. Writing brushes themselves are extremely valued and are generally seen as a symbol of the spirit unique to the Chinese folks. The tip in the writing brush is usually made of hair of diverse animals. The calligrapher dips the tip in ink, and wielding the shaft with several hand movements, produces characters on the paper. The composing technique revolves around the means to hold and use the brush to write characters. The Chinese term gi bi signifies to begin your stroke along with the term shou bi signifies to end your stroke. In writing, both strokes include these, the crucial steps that determine the form of your stroke. You can’t make indecisive strokes and must know how you are going to write the strokes and where they are leading to. Forceful strokes ought to be distinguishable from light strokes. Your characters will be like withered trees, formless and styleless if you are unfocused.

The practice of calligraphy is definitely an intense discipline being studied and is surely a significant part of Chinese culture. It entails the evolution of composing styles as well as the development of rules and techniques. Even prior to gi bi, the calligrapher have to adhere to the traditional way of practicing handwriting by following the three basic actions of mo, Lin and xie. Mo entails tracing while practicing holding the brush. Whilst practicing, the main areas of focus will need to be stroke, structure and style of calligraphy. The next step, Lin, involves having a model to copy and beginning to take a conscious approach to realize the characters themselves. Following a couple of months of detailed study comes lin xie, through which the very first copy of stroke is made on paper after studying the specimen and memorizing the strokes.

No matter its origins, calligraphy remains an enduring fine art variety in this modern age. Mainly because of its reliance on its medium to create the characters inside the strong but flowing manner needed, some say that calligraphy is a fine art of the brush. The bamboo brush is the medium that may keep this wonderful art flowing.

The term ‘airbrushing’ really means ‘digital enhancement’. This is done using much available software such as Adobe Photoshop, Photoshop Elements, Paintshop Pro & many many others. This software is truly amazing & mind blowing at what they can do.

You see, almost any camera, digital that is, cannot produce images like those seen in the media ‘straight out of the can’, so to speak. It is a common fact that the sensor in a digital camera has a much reduced ‘dynamic range’ to that of the human eye. The images captured by the camera will lack contrast, brightness, colour saturation, sharpness etc…the list goes on. It is the correction of these issues that forms part of the ‘airbrushing’ process. Only using the very expensive, top of the range cameras will you get anywhere close & even then the captured images will more than likely still need enhancing. Whilst the images straight from the camera are perfectly acceptable without being ‘tampered’ with, when you’ve seen what this software can actually do for you, you won’t want to stop. In fact it is almost guaranteed that once you start you will go & pick all your existing favourite pics/ photos & ‘DO THE MAGIC’ on those….it really gets quite addictive!!

You can use this software as much or as little as you need. The majority of people use it to just improve their photos mainly but find it superb for pretty much any sort of graphics based projects should the need arise. It must be said as well that you will eventually find your own ‘comfort zone’ with the software & it is important that you are not frightened off by the huge array of tools. To be fair, it can be bewildering to begin with but you soon realize that you’ll only be using a dozen or so tools that will fulfill most of your needs. You can do an awful lot of reading on how to learn Photoshop but one of most useful tutorials & advice is contained in online ‘training videos’. It is so gratifying looking at an ‘enhanced’ photo that you’ve rescued from the ‘delete’ button. Sometimes it beggars belief that an otherwise dull looking photo can look so fantastic with a dozen or so clicks of the mouse.

With good software you can produce truly wonderful & amazing pictures….just like the ones you’ve seen in the media. All you have to do is learn.