A few weeks ago I wrote a post about a chinese brush painting kit I purchased a few years ago. I am pleased to announce that I have carved out approximately a half hour each day to work on it. I take a shower while the baby is playing in the playpen and use the half hour he sleeps from 8:30 – 9:00 am for the brush painting. It’s been a week and so far so good. I am seeing improvement by practicing every day and am thrilled to have blocked out a time that I can do it and be focused. I am really enjoying myself and when I get frustrated, I keep at it to prove to myself I can do it.
Let me start with the set I bought.
It is a complete set with black ink stick, watercolors, brushes, water cup and step by step instruction kit. I like it because the first 2 pages are all about supplies and technique. The next two pages are simple letter shapes and bamboo in black ink. After that, author Lucy Wang moves into orchids and other flowers. The instruction includes technique from putting color on the brush to how to hold the brush and how to move the brush across the paper. It’s harder than it looks, but I like to have the book beside me and just keep trying each shape until it starts to look like what I see in the book.
Now, the psychological part of trying to learn a new technique and make it look like the book when I am only a week into this. Just like most people (I think), I have a hard time doing things more than once. If what I am working on does not look it should the first time, I tend to give up too easily. Doing one thing over and over is, I admit it, boring. It’s also the only way to get better. So I am trying to be diligent and practice every day. Not really one of my better qualities.
I want to get good enough to do this as cards for friends and family and maybe even for sale. However, I am no where close. Just focusing on the book I have, maybe I can get there. But when I think about the history of chinese brush painting and all the supplies and books available, it really does get overwhelming. So I am kind of working with blinders on when it comes to resources. I hope in the future to look into other books, but for now, Lucy Wang is the only teacher I need.
Here are some samples of what I did the first few days. It was tedious and I still need to practice, but I am keeping at it. I continually refer back to the book to be sure I am utilizing the correct technique. The things that I am finding difficult are the way to hold the brush, and to push and pull of the individual shapes. When I started, I was using hard edges, like a left turn in a car (??) but it needed to be a curve. When I figured that out, things went much better. Now I am trying to get the leaves to look like the book. It will take a while. But I will post my struggles.
