習
Symbols Mind
practice
ㄒㄧˊ xí
Two versions of the same picture, and both are free with no account and no watermark. The first has no background at all, which is the one to send your artist — but a phone or computer photo viewer set to dark will show black strokes on dark grey and it can look like nothing downloaded. If that happens, use the second one: identical characters on a plain white background. Either way you get the characters on their own — the square and the faint guide lines you see above are not in the file. Each character is 1000px, so a two-character download is 2000×1000, and the script and layout are the ones you picked.
Script
Characters
Same in both
Layout
Rubbing mode: white on black, as a stone rubbing. The download is unaffected.
Doing a thing over and over until it is yours. Chinese pairs a character for repetition with one for deliberate drill.
Before you commit
Choose with care習 is also a highly recognisable surname today, and many readers will see the name before the meaning. Consider 練 or 修 if that matters to you.
JapaneseRead shuu or narau in Japanese, to learn by practice. Legible there and unremarkable.
At small sizesEleven strokes, feathers above white. The paired feather strokes on top merge when small - allow room.
Meaning
To practise repeatedly; the habit that repetition builds.
The Analects open on the pleasure of practising what you have learned.
Other characters for “practice”
What to do next
Pick the script and layout you want above, download the PNG, and send that file to your artist. Ask them to work from the file rather than redrawing the character freehand — that is where strokes go missing.
Related concepts