竹
Symbols Nature
bamboo
ㄓㄨˊ zhú
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.
Bamboo: it bends without breaking and is hollow inside, which makes it the Chinese emblem of an upright and modest person.
Before you commit
Choose with careThe virtues attached to bamboo are integrity and humility — being hollow inside means being free of arrogance. Resilience is only a secondary reading.
Pairs well with梅蘭竹菊 — plum, orchid, bamboo, chrysanthemum: the four gentlemen of Chinese painting.
At small sizesOnly six strokes and open in the middle. One of the safest characters for small or curved placements.
Meaning
Bamboo.
Six strokes and two leaf shapes; one of the most graphic characters in the language.
Other characters for “bamboo”
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