Four Treasures and a misc. section

the four treasures are simply; brush, ink, paper or silk, and inkstone.
the brushes are generally made from hair, although today you can find synthetic fiber brushes, personally i prefer traditional brushes. there are three main kinds; soft, ridged, and in between. the soft brushes are used to hold water so that you can make long uninterrupted strokes, or to create landscapes. the ridged brushes are used to make small lines and leaves and such, and the inbetweens give you a little room to move around in your brush styles.
ink traditionally comes in sticks of charcoal ash and glue that you have to grind in an inkstone with a small amount of water. today you can get pre-made ink in a bottle, however it is believed to be of lesser quality than that you grind yourself. in ink sticks the less glue that is in the ink stick the higher the quality. i have been told to test this you first look at the color, if it is a smooth and shinny black not a dull dry black than it is high quality, and also when you grind the ink, good ink will have a pleasant earthy aroma to it and when held up to a light still in its ink stone it will have an oily look to it. however poor ink will smell more like tar or glue and will not have an oily gloss when held up to light.
i already talked in detail about the paper in the introduction post, but silk was also used, though it is not very popular to use silk today.
the inkstone was made of soap stone or other similar types of stone. "real" inkstones usually are plane with little to no decorations, the elaborate ones usually are fakes or just sold as a tourist item. and like i said in the ink section, it was used to grind ink in and to hold the ink during painting.

-misc.-
so this was deemed too small to have its own post so i thought here would be a good place for it.
-the subtle differences of sumi-e and shui-mo hua.
there are two main differences in japanese and chinese ink painting and personally i think the only relevant ones.
the first is simply because of the way the inks are made, chinese ink is red and japanese ink is blue, but both are extremely dark, this is because there is no true black die, anything died black is ether red, blue, brown, and some times green and purple, all in there darkest shades.
the second difference is that when chinese add color to there pieces it is very dull and thin, and only in splotches to suggest the color. but generally japanese artists are known for using full lush and bright colors in there paintings.