The main steps of seal carving

The main steps in making seal carving are as follows:

Introduction of Seal Carving:

Seal carving is a traditional art form, named after the fact that in ancient times, seals were mostly made with seal scripts into seals. It is the art of making seals by combining calligraphy and engraving (including chiseling and casting). As far as the production process is concerned, it refers to the engraving of patterns or characters designed on a flat surface on metal, stone, teeth, horns and other materials.

Brief History of Seal Engraving:

Seals originated in the class society and began to be used as a kind of credential token, and later seals became the evidence of rights and interests. During the Spring and Autumn and Warring States Periods, the use of seals gradually became widespread, with seals for the memorization of names on artifacts, seals for gold coins, and seals for standard instruments and measuring instruments. Qin and Han Dynasty is the flourishing period of the seal, the Han Dynasty official seal has formed a set of system, the seal form is more diverse.

The seal script was mostly in mu seal script. Wei Jin and North and South Dynasties basically follow the tradition of Qin and Han seals. In the Tang Dynasty, the size of official seals increased, and the seal text used the small seal script, engraved mostly in Zhuwen. Song and Yuan private seals began to expand the scope of the collection of seals, the hall of seals, words and phrases of the rise of seals. Seal whether in the shape, materials, seal engraving, chapter layout have significant changes.

Seal carving three methods of introduction:

1, seal law

Seal law that is the understanding of the seal script, actually for the seal text calligraphy. Ancient seals, the ancient seal with the big seal, Han seal with mu seal, but also with birds and insects. After the Song and Yuan Dynasties, most of them used the small seal script, and there is also a kind of seal script strokes folded evenly to fill the seal surface, known as the nine stacks of seal script. In recent times, the official script, cursive script and regular script have also been used in seals. When engraving seals, it is necessary to recognize the font, especially the seal script, and to understand the origin of the font.

2, chapter

Chapters, that is, for different shapes and sizes of seals, combined with different texts, the organization of the overall layout. The arrangement and layout of the seal text, the so-called sub Zhu Bu Bai. Seal in a very small range, not many words, showing its artistic charm, so the text is required to be rich in change, the layout should be colorful and artistic. The layout of the seal is roughly divided into false and dense, interjection and other laws of balance.

3, knife

Knife method, that is, engraving seals with a knife technique, the former knife thirteen said, the actual operation of the cutter and the punch knife two main methods. Cutting knife engraved works line effect condensed, punching knife engraved line effect fluent, Ming and Qing dynasty famous seal engravers do not pay attention to the knife.