Chinese Brush Painting

Last weekend, I attended a Chinese brush painting workshop offered at one of the nearby colleges.  Chinese brush painting is an ancient art form that goes back thousands of years.  The instructor has a master's degree in art and has studied this form of painting in Asia.  She told us she has taught this class in both Wisconsin and Illinois.  We learned techniques and brush strokes to create floral and botanical painting.  It's not as easy as it looks!

My Workstation -- Beginning of Class

Chinese brush paintings are done using rice paper, black Chinese ink, felt, and watercolor paint. You can read about the tradition of Chinese ink sticks and meditative exercise of grinding to make ink as part of the painting process HERE.  The felt is the surface you put the rice paper on while creating the painting. I found it interesting that rice paper is called so not because it's made of rice, but because rice paste is used to make it.  Rice paper is very thin and translucent. I used India ink I had on hand.  The instructor approved it before class, but during class said a previous student used it and didn't like it.  I don't know any different so I guess it was fine, LoL. 

Practice Lines

Then some mountains

and some flowers

First, we practiced some ink only painting.  Chinese painting is a really loose type of art work, which I'm not used to.  I felt like I was painting like a little kid.

My first attempt

You have to have the right balance of paint and water.  Translucent enough, but not too wet otherwise the water seeps and spreads into the paper, which (to me) doesn't look very good.  My rose painting had too much paint and the petals are too compact for my taste.

Other Student Work

The instructor was very pleased with how everyone's paintings looked so different.

Instructor's Art Work

She had us pin our paintings to a bulletin board. Then we had to talk about them and receive critique.  It was interesting to hear comments from other students.  They all were very encouraging.

My Orchids in a Basket

The nice thing about Chinese brush painting is that the art has a lot of symbolism than perfection. I should've brought my watercolor palette instead of just the five tubes of color the instructor told me in an email.  I would've chosen different colors than what I had on hand.  Oh well....

More Student Work

One of the things I liked about this class was that we had practice time before we did our actual paintings.  Although this looks like a painting, it was actually my practice sheet.

Bumble Bees

The last painting we learned was sunflowers. The sample we worked from was very impressionistic. I cropped my project down when I got home because I really didn't care for how the bottom part turned out.  I think this would make a nice postcard.

At the end of class, the instructor asked each of us which of the paintings we created was our favorite.  The next three were my favorites.

Morning Glories

Irises

Camillia

Which one is you favorite?  Incidentally, the red square calligraphy on my paintings were made by a stamp set the instructor brought with her.  There were 12 different calligraphy sayings we could use.  She was tickled that most of us used them on our paintings.  I wish I knew where she got them.  I'd love to have a set.

My Workstation - End of Class

I had quite the mess going on by the end of class.  With each painting, the instructor gave students handouts to work from. So, I had those along with my paintings and art supplies strewn across my space.

 

I did learn something important (at least to me).  It's not a good idea to put the ink in a plastic palette if you still want it to use for watercolor painting.  It takes some effort to get off.... i.e. multiple scrubbings with bleach and a toothbrush.

One of the students brought this book to class.  Coincidentally, I have this same book checked out of the library.  It's a good reference to show the painting strokes and lots of different subject matter to practice.

 

I had a lot of fun taking this class.  In June, the same instructor will be teaching an Etegami class which I'm signed up for.  One of the other students is also signed up, so it'll be nice to "know" someone in class.

Until next time...