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Well Planned Spontaneous Chinese Painting

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Preliminary Outline (Chinese Spontaneous Style)
Preliminary Outline (Chinese Spontaneous Style)

It seems an age since we broke up from our Chinese Painting class in December, and today was a bit like starting back to school after the summer break… Going through your school bag checking everything, trying to remember what you might need and how to use the things in the bag – did we have any homework? Too late now if we did 🙂 .

The first class of the term is always a slow starter, everyone catching up with each other and newcomers to be inducted, but we finally settled down and our advanced group received a demonstration in setting up and painting a Yellow Checked Tit in a flowering tree. This is a bird from the Paridae family, found in tropical and sub tropical forests across Asia, with brown and black wings, a bright yellow/orange breast and dark flecks around the head and neck.

As with last term we were then sent away to sketch it ourselves, followed by painting in ink over the outline so that we can use it under our paper as a template to work from. Before we go back next week we need to transfer this to the finished piece, painting in colour this time, before we add the branches and blossom in class. These will have none of this pre planning of course… they’ll just be totally spontaneous brushstrokes… and when we’ve all practised enough we’ll be able to paint the bird freehand too!