Sheyan Inkstone (She Inkstone)

In dramatic scenes depicting people's lives in ancient China, a common scene is one where a black stick is grinded against a stone to make ink. The stick is the ink stick and the stone is inkstone ( inkslab ), they are important stationary items in Chinese traditional culture.
Sheyan Inkstone

Most ink stones ( ink slabs), modern or ancient, were made of stone. The earliest ink slab was made of stone and acquired the greatest popularity. As one of the four best-known Ink stones or ink slabs, Sheyan inkstone ( She inkslab ) is named after Shezhou Prefecture, another old name of today's Huangshan City, Many counties under the jurisdiction of this prefecture produce She ink slabs, but the best stone material come from Mount Longwei, Wuyuan County. Sometimes She ink slabs are referred to as Longwei ink slabs.
Since Tang Dynasty (618-907), Sheyan ink stones was selected to be the royal tribute and loved deeply by many literary masters such as Ouyang Xiu, Su Dongpo and Huang Tingjian and so on. Many famous writers and scholars used to write many essays and poems with she ink stones.

To use ink in the traditional stick form, an ink stone is required. As the name suggests, most ink stones are made of stone or bricks. The stone used must be of relatively fine whetstone materials to facilitate the grinding of the ink.
She ink stone is made of gray, light green, or black rare slate with markings, and the stone appears in layers and is hard. She ink stone has three features: quick forming of ink, no harm done to the brush, and preserving wetness of ink.

She ink stone has a special artistic style with different markings resulting from geological changes with passage of time. Typical markings are Gold Star, Gold Star Patch, Gold Line, Silver Star, Silver Line, Cherry Blossom Gold Star, and Small Water Wave. More rare ones are Eyebrows, Jade Belt, Jade Belt with Gold Star, Big Water Wave, Fish Egg, Dates Kernel Eyebrows, Jade Patch, and so on.
Today, Chinese artists still prefer to use ink sticks and ink stones to make their painting or calligraphy works, even thought many students use an ink-bottle to replace the ink-stick and ink stone.