New skill acquired: Chinese brush painting

Brush painting as an art form is over 2,000 years old (from the Han Dynasty which spanned BC to AD) and it predates paper in that culture. The first painters in China used rolls of silk or bamboo. About the year 105 by the Western calendar, paper came into widespread use and the art form really evolved.

Chinese brush painting involves using watercolor pigments, the simplest and yet most difficult of mediums. Though many young kids try it in grade school art class due to its minimal mess cleanup, It's deceptively difficult because it dries in seconds and mistakes can't be painted over or erased. 

Brush painting is a forced lesson in patience, calmness and fine brush control. They say do not rest your hand on the paper, but hold the brush almost vertically, gripped gently, and use a feathery stroke, barely touching the paper. The emphasis is not on detail, but on rapid, fluid strokes to suggest the shape and form. The traditional Chinese script writing evolved the same way, if you think about it each character is a tiny simplified gesture painting. 

I bought my art partner a Chinese brush painting set last christmas, and after we both played with it, I liked hers so much I went back out and bought the same one for myself. These can be found at Barnes & Noble sometimes, or I'm sure they can be ordered online. Here's what the set looks like.

The set has colored watercolor tubes, a mixing bowl, a tiny water dish and spoon for adding water a few drops at a time, a black ink stick and square grinding stone,  two brush handles and 8 interchangeable tips made of different animal hairs. The crown shaped thing on the bottom is to lean the brush handle on, keeping the brush head in its pointed shape. 

 A small 40 page accompanying lesson book is included. The only thing it doesn't come with is very much paper.  There's only about 10 small sheets, which I wouldn't waste practicing. They recommend rice paper, but that isn't easy to find. So I'm just using a watercolor pad with thick tear-off pages for now.

If you buy this set, I would recommend this book also to supplement it.

The book is 145 pages, with many more lessons to try and there is also a calligraphy section in the back. 

Before you get serious about painting, do a five to ten minute warm-up session of practice strokes on scrap paper. This lets you find the correct mixture of water and pigment, and develop the kind of strokes you want to use while painting.  Here are some of my practice sheets as examples. I have to do it a lot until I get the right feel to it.

The first thing the book teaches is how to paint bamboo leaves, because the stems branching out into the long, tapering leaves uses all the basic strokes. Here was one of my early attempts at bamboo. Again, it's not as easy as it looks. It uses very thin and very thick strokes, and the leaf starts out thick and tapers to a point. It needs heavier pressure and then less and less until your brush is lifted off the paper. As you can see, my strokes are not consistent.

It's also a challenge to use enough water to let the color flow smoothly, but not enough to dilute it.

My attempt at cherry tree branches was not great either. I couldn't make them very thin; I used too much water and the loaded brush flattened out, widening the lines.

6 months later, I revisited this art form and decided to try my hand at panda bears instead, following an example in the book. This picture below is today's result, the first painting I feel is finished and I'm happy with. 

This art form is extremely hard for me, because I have a hand tremor that wreaks havoc with my fine motor skills. But I put on some relaxing meditation music, moved very slowly and did this in about 30-45 minutes. It seems my brush control is improving.

Each one I do is getting better!  This takes practice and lots of patience but I think I should keep doing it. 

Whenever it's a rainy day I like to paint. The sound of the raindrops helps me relax and focus. So maybe I should practice whenever it rains.