Calligraphy – Sea mammals

In preparation for a new challenge I thought I would post up the Chinese Calligraphy for a few different sea mammals that we were considering painting…

We started our thinking with consideration of painting a seal. However, this has taken a little finding as ‘seal’ in Chinese has quite a different meaning i.e. a chop for ‘sealing’, or completing a painting.

I think I have now found it but if you know a short-hand version or something more specific please do let us know by replying to this post.

A lot of sea mammals start their name with a very literal ‘sea’:

From what I have discovered, a generic seal is regarded quite literally as a sea leopard (or panther):

The next variant surely must be the sea lion, which again is literally what it says:

Above is the simplified Calligraphy. If you would prefer the traditional Calligraphy this is shown below. You will notice that sea (or ocean) is the same whether traditional or simplified:

Finally, some people were interested in painting a walrus. This fits in beautifully with this sequence as it is literally a sea elephant in Chinese:

I trust you have fun painting your sea mammals. Please do post any inspirations as we would love to see them.

Happy painting and keep safe.

Best wishes,

Paul