In this class, no one knew anything about seal engraving. Staff had prepared for us the knife, stones, brush, ink, and other materials needed. I sat with other Stony Brook students, Wendy and Sammie. Actually, there are other students from other places in the world wanting to learn.

We first were instructed to use a knife to carve the stone, but before that, we were asked to think about a character in Chinese or just an animal that's a Chinese character. We spent some time making sure that every single person had their favorite character that was going to be carved on the stone. Then we started.

We used the knife to lightly carve the stone and kept track which cuts the knife had made. It was hard to make an even small engraving on the stone because the stone is very tough. After carefully engraving, I had a pencil clue of the character I would like to do on the stone, which is my last name in Chinese. Then, we came to the front desk to listen to the instructor explain the next step.

This was complicated. We needed to use the brush to redo the character engraving, and the character should clearly show up this time. After that, we needed to pick up a white rice paper which is not a normal paper but thinner and used the paper to cover the character. The next step was you had to use the brush with some water to brush the paper on another side but hold the stone tightly attached on the white rice paper.

At this stage, the character should be fully engraved on the paper, and the character on the stone will be faded. The final step is easier, you just put the stone on the red seal mud and then the seal is successfully made.

During the process, I was not successful at making it at the beginning because the carving was not perfect. The character I made was weird and messy. However, thanks to Wendy, she helped me to add more engraving on the stone in order to cover the edges which failed to be made well. During the paper coverage process, I had some difficulty in either making the character unable to transfer the ink to the paper or transferred all the ink in one time that made the stone hard to be recognized. Actually, here is another tip: you need to choose the smooth face of the stone from two square sides, which is easier to carve.

As for other events I joined in, they will be introduced in the following articles.