Today I am going to share something embarrassing…. Firstly, I have to say that Chinese Painting class was great fun, but awfully difficult, and didn’t go as well as I’ve been getting used to. It’s always good to be reminded you’re not past failing, that there are still days when you paint like a five year old!
To be honest I had a secret plan to come home and practice all afternoon, thus turning out something more presentable to publish, but because of the builders my plan came to nothing – the table is covered in dust cloths and then in dust. So, lets see just how cathartic this is :-).
The subject for class was Lotus flowers, still in ink (I was wrong about playing colour today, it will be next week) and using the dreaded large brush. This brush is made of goats hair, it’s very absorbent and holds a lot of water. It’s also very soft and doesn’t spring back after a brush stroke, so it’s doubly hard to control. We don’t use this brush often enough to get used to it… (so many excuses!)
I have posted my painting as well as the teacher’s that I’m working from so you can compare and see what it’s supposed to look like. Now, despite all my ranting I know mine isn’t really disastrous – the leaf is too big and rather uncontrolled, and the water beat me in the flower and soaked in much too fast – but it’s actually a great start and will improve quickly, just you wait and see!
Hi darling, Well on first sight I must say that I thought the first one was yours, it was rather splodgey to my untrained eyes! It was only after reading the Blog that I read the captions, and found I’d got it wrong, ooops!. Examining it more carefully, I could see the differences, although they weren’t THAT noticeable. So…. good effort.
I know what you mean, when I saw what we would be painting I thought it looked a bit rough…it’s funny though, the longer we studied it the better it looked – each element is carefully placed and has the correct size & proportions, unlike mine.
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