Traditional seal carving in Eastern countries like China & Japan, etc, is an accepted art form. The carved seals create a finishing mark just like a signature, to any painting or calligraphy work and are even used to seal/sign official documents.
For a seals design there are different shapes and sizes of the seal stones. The conventional shape for seals is square, which is the shape of stone most carving is done on. Other seal shapes are rectangular, oval & round, if you would like such a seal then you arrange the details with the seal-stone carver, in the size you require the finished seal to be. This size of seal stone should be chosen to suit the size of the work it is to be used on.
As seen in these two following examples: On the red on white seal, this includes the difficult four-sides raised edge work.
LION CARVED TOPS ON THE (approximately) 2cm SQUARE BLANK TIPPED SEAL STONES
ChineseSeals-Carving.php#LionBlnkSeal
Lion topped, BLANK(uncarved) seal stone
$10.00 each
Parcel code 1
You are most welcome to email us to query your seal design details, send images, understand the details of your artwork or translated name. An artist who is trained to carve stone seals will carve your finished seal. The design and carving work follow certain traditional conventions. The more you understand of these traditions, the more you will enjoy your seal.
Seal carving services have always been for Chinese character carving, if you have a Western name it can be translated phonetically into Chinese Seal Script suitable for seal carving.
But you can also carve Western lettering monograms, in 1 or 2 characters, as shown in the pictures. We have 2 or 3 different monogram couplets for every combination of the alphabet, please email us with the first letter of your first name and last name - and we will return sample images of the monogram for you to choose one for an order.
Both the Chinese and monogram seals can be used as a wax seal. Nowadays, wax sticks come in many colours, and this can change the appearance of the seal and the card etc that you use it on.
The same can be said for the vermilion red seal pad, which is the traditional way stamping was done on paper and paintings. Nowadays the small cube sized rubber stamps come in multiple shades of colour, and work really well with seal stones.
SEAL STONE CARE
The Chinese seals are made from various kinds of stone, which have been chosen as being most suitable for seal making. These stones are relatively hard but brittle, so care must be taken when handling them. Because of this we suggest a few very simple rules:
1. Care for the seal, as knocking it can cause chipping. So be conservative when moving the seal about.
2. Provide a box to store the seal, to protect against dropping or any mishap.
3. Clean the seal tip of ink after every application, by twist/scrubbing the tip into a squashed up hand tissue in your palm.
HOW TO BE SURE YOUR SEAL IMAGE IS UPRIGHT
You need to know that your seals impression will be correctly oriented, not upside down or running sideways. If your seal stone has an ornamental top, such as a lion, dragon or other creature, study the direction that the animal is facing relative to the orientation of the seal image. You will also notice that most finished seals have the seal carver's signature on one of the sides of the stone. This should always be the left hand side of the seal. So, if you are right handed, you would hold the seal with the signature side facing left, your thumb against the side facing you and your first and second fingers on the side opposite holding the seal comfortably upright. You are now able to see clearly that the seal is correctly placed on your work. This is the correct method of holding the seal stone.
# OrnasoNova wishes to acknowledge Mr Mike Harty (a local seal carver) as the source of most of the traditional information about Chinese seals used in the above paragraphs.
CHINESE STONE SEAL CARVING
On the red on white seal, this includes the difficult four-sides raised edge work.
