The primitive for brush (as in 書 write) is sufficiently complicated that I feel I need a good pictorial image to hang onto. But I just can't twist the character in my mind to see the image Heisig suggests, with the bristles at the top.

I'm having better luck picturing a three fingered hand holding the brush at the top of the character, with 5 bristles down below. Would I be making a pedagogic blunder that will mess me up later if remember it this way?

I thought it was complicated when I first saw it a few days ago. I wrote it a few more times as I finished that particular lesson and have not had any recall problems. For some kanji, as a last result, I just use the tried and true visual memory to remember them...some are sufficiently unique/weird that I cannot find a good story/image for and usually, because of their uniqueness, burn themselves into my mind.

also, i have no pictorial for this

I'm sure you'll be fine. 聿 is a character in its own right with the meaning of brush.

dwhitman Wrote:Would I be making a pedagogic blunder that will mess me up later if remember it this way?

Not at all. The only thing that matters is remembering the kanji from the keyword. Use whatever imagery that helps you to that end.

I saw it with the hand at the top as well but instead the lower horizontal strokes were comic-like lines indicating the brush moving back and forward on the paper.

Thank you to everyone for good advice and encouragement.

I am holding a picture of this as 3-fingered hand holding the brush from above, but as nwatkins recommended, just drawing it over and over a few times did wonders for fixing it in my mind.

Interesting observation. I'm also just learning the kanji "say" 言. I see a lot of mnemonic stories posted for this primitive emphasizing FOUR words or FOUR letter words, etc to help remember how many horizontal lines.

I noticed last night that I just didn't need help remembering how many lines in this one, because after a few repetitions, my hand had settled into a natural rhythm in how I draw it:

short, long, shortshort, box.

Always the same rhythm, never wondering if I had the right number of lines.

And after 300+ kanji, look at how my hand has chunked the "opening" primitive into "box". I'm not thinking about it it all - if I want a box my hand automatically goes down, top/right side, bottom.

I think I'm really underestimating the value of "muscle memory".