Sumi-e is a term meaning ink painting and is an Asian painting technique practiced for over a thousand years.
It is an art form that strives to unravel the essence of an object or scene in as few carefully placed elements as possible. A few thin lines, a dot and a bird are clearly shaped to be on paper.
The Sumi-e has a lot in common with calligraphy, as the tools used are the same, but it is not the same. Calligraphy is the elegant and artistic representation of characters in writing, with ink and brush, while sumi-e is the painting of a scene or an object.