The Ink
The carbon-based ink (墨) is made up of soot that is either obtained from smoked wood or oil (1)(2). Traditionally, soot is first mixed with oil and other additives and then made into a dough. This dough is then dried and cut into inksticks. Liquid ink is obtained by rubbing an inkstick with water on an inkstone as illustrated below:
"East Asian calligraphy scheme 01-en" by Yug - Own work. Licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0 via Commons - https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:East_Asian_calligraphy_scheme_01-en.svg#/media/File:East_Asian_calligraphy_scheme_01-en.svg
Today, it is quite common to use prepared liquid ink (墨汁) straight from a bottle:
A bottle of prepared calligraphic (shodo) ink manufactured by the Japanese ink maker Kaimei (3)
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