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Click Here to Learn More About Cong Ke
The following inkstones are made by Ke, Cong for our calligraphy and brush painting lovers. They are superb Shi inkstones made of Da Gu Yun old mine stones. Though not Dragon's Tail stones, Da Gu Yun inkstones is known by Shi carvers and inkstone collectors as the Dragon's Head inkstones. Because Da Gu Yun mountain is on the same mountain ridge as Jianxi, Wuyuan Dragon's Tail mountain. The two inkstone qualities are almost the same as far as for grinding ink for use. As for collecting value, because the Old Dragon's Tail quarries are all exhausited of any inkstones since the eighties, also because Dragon's Tail stones are most prone to flaws like stone veins and hair thin cracks, Old Mine Dragon's Tail stones are more valueble as collector's inkstones. Similar sizes of Dragon's Tail stones without any obvious flaws will be easily in the three to four hundreds. This made them impossible for most of our ink brush artists to afford! Since our mission is to preserve this old Chinese culture and encorage people to grind their own ink, we feel the least we can do is to find some Shi inkstones at prices that everyone can afford, but not with any compromise in quality of making ink! All these inkstones are all hand carved and not mass produced by any factory and all the stones are carefully picked out with the finest quality!
Here is the new development in Da Guyun inkstone mining, this made these pure dark and beautiful large inkstones very valuable, but we are not raise prices of existing stocks and we are not buying any more new collections either to support the local government!
The inkstone market changes so fast in China. Summer of 2002 we traveled almost
the whole region of south west of Shanghai. We traveled as far as Guangdong, Zhaoqing
where the Duan inkstone is explorded and made. All these years we tried our best to offer
hand made inkstones and with best stone quality coming from Jiangxi Wuyuan and She Da Gu
Yun old mine. Currently we still have some of these very affordable inkstones available,
but we are running them out very soon. Because the nature of She inkstone, the very very
low produce rate of rare slate that was able to make into inkstone, also because the
economy in China is very hot right now, labor cost is sky high. Hand made Da Gu Yun
inkstone is just becoming too costly for everyone to afford.
Also a special development in She Da Gu Yun mountain area, because the exploring of
inkstone there is by each individual group who ownes the mountain area, there is no
uniform plan to prevent land slide and also no government prevention or support for well
developed exploring plan, the local government decided to dis-allow exploring inkstone in
the region. This send raw inkstone slate price sky high. Anyhow because the low produce
rate of She inkstone, even with organized government support for inkstone exploring in the
region, raw material price will be getting higher and higher.
We of course are for protection of the beautiful mountain
region, until there are good managment and protective procedure in place, we will not be
the one to explore the inkstones there. Under these circumstances, besides keep offering
our already in stock She hand made inkstones at prices that we have always been offering,
we are also offering machine cut student inkstones to art teachers now. All the commercial
inkstones from China are almost exactly the same and from the same place. Because only
Jade Mountain stones are soft enough to be operated by the machine and be able to make in
large quantities! Of course the quality of making ink is far from Old Mine Da Gu Yun She
inkstone. Anyhow these commecial inkstones are so inexpensive, anyone who want to try the
difference between the two can order one and compare. To buy the machine cut student
inkstone, please visit here!
Grinding Ink --- As one pours a bit of water to the grinding surface of the inkstone and sit down upright to grind that ink with a smooth and gripping Shi inkstone and Hui inkstick slowly and steadyly in a circular motion cross the inkstone, you will get the meaning by the most famous Song dynasty artist Su Shih's (1034 - 1101) poem, the sound from the grinding is like string music to his ear. As most practioners find out this meditative and prepapatory procedure makes the calligrapher concentrates his attention to the rhythmic and circular motion. The inkstick becomes an extension of ones hand. By the time the ink has reached its consistancy, all the distracting thoughts has drifted away. It is exactly this undistracted mental state, the peaceful and focused quality which are thought to have resulted in the high quality of the calligraphic and brush stroke works.
The conversion from CM (centimeter) to inches is divided by 2.54. Most of the inkstones here are more than 7.5 inches in height and 1.0 inches thick. Check out each one's size carefully.
All Stones Are Da Gu Yun Old Mine Stone
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