For this particular project, the client asked me to create 21 illustrations for the 21 Chinese characters she had given me. The 21 characters are: 口 (mouth), 手 (hand), 水 (water), 人 (man), 木 (wood), 草 (grass), 言 (to speech), 月 (moon), 纟 (silk), 阜 (abundant), 邑 (city), 土 (earth), 辶 (to walk), 女 (woman), 心 (heart), 日 (sun), 宀  (roof), 金 (gold), 貝 (shell), 刀 (knife) and目(eye).

 

These illustrations would help potential Chinese learners remember the 21 characters. These 21 characters are often referred as the ‘radicals’ of the written Chinese. These characters are also often used and even re-used in written Chinese; for example, the character人 stands for ‘man’ while the character囚 means ‘prisoner’.