Help ID chinese art trinkets

Awk

Hello,

Years ago a family friend visited China and got my mom a gift. Question is, what is it?


The five items on the bottom have a stone-like touch to them. There is a sixth one in the package. The five stone-things came in different package/gift.

Red goopey stuff?

Pretty! What is it!?

random cat is random.

So the only thing I can identify is that there are two brushes and a porcelain brush-holder. All yours, PA.

Scosglen

I don't know anything about calligraphy, but that is definitely a calligraphy set.

A second of googling reveals this to be a pretty typical collection of accessories. You seem to have a set of different colors of ink (ink sticks actually. You have to make the ink from them yourself. Look up instructions), a couple brushes, a brush holder, an ink well, a seal, and red seal paste.

The "pretty! what is it?" thing is the seal. It works like a stamp in conjunction with the red seal ink to produce this sort of thing as a signature. I can't tell if that seal is carved or blank, obviously it needs to be carved to actually work.

mightyjongyo

Scosglen seems to have identified it all. Just adding that the stick in the original set is for making regular old black ink. Black ink is usually used for calligraphy, the colors are for chinese paintings. You should look this up to confirm, but I think the colored inks may be prepared differently from the black ink. At least, I've seen it crushed into pieces and mixed with water, although that was in a class so that may have been so that the students didn't waste much.

defreak

To prepare the ink, you pour a small amount of water onto the ink well, and grind the ink stick where the water gathers. The more you grind, the thicker/darker the ink you'll make. The ink stick is literally ink in solid form. Both black and colored inks are prepared this way. Obviously as you make more ink, the ink stick will eventually be no more, so if you would like to preserve the sticks, you can just buy premade ink.

Hypatia

Pretty much what people have said, the thing that you labeled "Pretty" is called a chop. Usually you would have your name carved into it so that you could press it into the stuff you called red goop and then stamp your writing/painting. It's like a cross between a wax seal and a signature.