Expert Interview!

Hello everyone!
My grandafther is my expert interview. Ever since I was little, he's been trying to teach me Chinese. A few years ago he brought his calligraphy set to our house over Thanksgiving. He showed me how to use the brushes and ink (which you will learn about in the video!) and that's part of the reason my interest in calligraphy was started. In addition to sparking my interest in calligraphy, calligraphy and neat handwriting saved my grandfather's life! That's why I chose to interview my grandfather.

Before you watch I just want to warn you that my grandfather has a strong accent so he is a little hard to understand at some points. Also, I'm sorry for shouting into the camera, he is a little hard of hearing! Also I apologize for the length of the interview, it was about 35 minutes long, so I tried to condense it as much as I could.

Quick breakdown (and what to make sure to see):
beginning-about 8:40: telling his story (main part starts at 4:14)
9:20-10:20: examples of his calligraphy (watch this part, his writing is cool!!!)
10:20-end: talking about brushes and ink (you can skip through this part to any part you want, he just has three different sized brushes that he shows me. I would take a look at around 15:30 because there's an example of the medium brush in there and look at the large brush because its really cool!)


Expert Interview from Dana Kuo on Vimeo.

Just a few clarifications:
-my grandfather was drafted
-LVT: landing vehicle tracker

Main takeaways: calligraphy and handwriting is important, it can save your life!!!!!
Also, focusing on the project, I learned more about the different types of calligraphy. I have only used a calligraphy pen and marker. I experimented a little bit with a brush pen, but I haven't used an actual brush for this project. I thought it was very interesting that he uses a brush to write and also mixes his own ink using charcoal. I hope to try this method, but I probably won't be able to in the timeline of this project.

Bye for now!

P.S. Here's another example of my grandfather's calligraphy. Basically it says to be a good doctor and have good ethics (I can't remember the exact wording).