Daffodils

A daffodil picture help celebrate Chinese New Year!  Welcome, DRAGON!

Stage 2 of the Monastery in the Clouds

Here is stage 2 of the painting.  Use darker ink to add more details to the trees (near -- pine needles; mid-distance -- dots for leaves; twigs and branches).  The buildings are modified, and clarified.  The edges between different layers of scenery are also clarifed, by darkening and adding dots.  Hints of the clouds are introduced by a dry brush rubbing with light ink tinged with a little blue.  This treatment suggests the boundary of the white cloud enveloping the mid-elevation of the mountains. Distant mountains are added with  lively brush strokes.

Cloud-mountain Exercise

Here is a first stage of a composition of a monastery in the mountain above the clouds.  The effect to focus on is the relation between mountain and the cloud.  Use a "dry" brush, and make sure the ink is not too dark in mid-distance elements.  We will darken it in later stages.  Just frame out the overal composition.  

Plum Blossoms bringing in the New Year of the Dragon

To welcome in the year of the Dragon, here are two vases of plum blossom.  This is also part of an exercise for painting plums for my students.  Happy New Year!

Bamboo 101

A first lesson in painting bamboo -- bamboo leaves:
The leaves are painted with a single brush stroke.  The brush should contact the paper in a perpendicular (rather than slanted) fashion.  The bamboo painting is highly structured, and every stroke is designed to show clearly.  The brush is used in a "regular" fashion, i.e., the same way as in Chinese calligraphy writing.

Preliminaries:
1. The size of the leaf determines the size of brush used.  Thus, use a large brush to do a large leaf.  While it is possible to paint a small leaf with a large brush, one cannot use a small brush to do a large leaf.
2. The leaf size also determines the range of movement.  You must allow a free range for your hand commensurate with the leaf size.   Refering to the attached picture,  upper left section, the leaves are large, and I had a free range of my entire forearem to do them.  The upper right section, the smaller leaves just involved my wrist and fingers (my elbow resting on the table).
3.  "Think far" or "Follow through" in your stroke.  This is the key to a strong stroke.  The intention of the movement must extend beyond the confine of the leaf.  The movement should be smooth, and deliberate without hesitation. It need not be fast.  You should feel friction in the brush as it moves to create the leaf.

Form:
4. Leaves have different profiles:  (refer to in the upper left section of the attached figure) When viewed face-on, the leaf has the broadest profile, 2nd leaf from the right.  It is thinner when on its side, as the first and last leaves of that group.  Leaves may have a twist, like the middle two of the group.  Keep in mind the variations -- broad, narrow, long, short, curved, straight, twisted, bent...
Clusters:
5. Refer to the upper right section of the figure.  Think of the leaves in clusters of 2, 3 and 4.  Each cluster should have a main leaf, one that is facing you.  It is usually the middle one.
6. The clusters have a posture, an open structure (leaves are not stuck together), and a imaginary center from which the leaves emanate.   Contrast the top three clusters, with the lower three, which lack energy and should be avoided. 
Overlap of Clusters -- "Super-clusters":
7. A bamboo composition is formed by irregular and "artistic" overlap of leaf clusters.
Refer to the lower left section, which shows three sets of overlap.  The middle set is just an overlap of three virtually identical 4-clusters.  It produces a natural feel even though the repeat unit is the same.  The lower set consits of a 4-cluster, then 2 units of 3-clusters, then another 4-cluster separated.  The upper left set is a overlap of "3", "2" and "3".   The three superclusters can then be connected by adding some twigs.
8. Single clusters, not part of a supercluster, are the most visible and must be beautiful and vivid.  Often they have postures and gestures, like a flying bird.  See the lower right section.