Sunday 3 February 2008

Attempts at Chinese Brush Painting...

Yesterday I got my hands on some authentic Chinese paints, thanks to my son who went to Gerrard Street in London yesterday. It's so nice to ask someone to buy something for you and know they will get it right first time!

These were my first attempts - discovered a sketchbook was no good as the ink took hours to dry. The Kahdi Mill paper was a lot better and gave a nice texture to it.
Today I tried to paint a sparrow by following the instructions in my source book - don't much like their way of doing it, too stylised for my liking. I want to paint sparrows but to make them more life-like - will have to experiment using my own knowledge, not someone else's!

Then I had a go in my Moleskine sketchbook - the perfect surface! It absorbed the ink without going soggy or running, and the smoothness of the paper allowed the brush to make the desired shapes. I like the insect designs from the source book very much - they are easy and effective and you can adapt them to suit your needs without too much difficulty.

I'm not planning on changing my style radically - it's just really refreshing to try something new and different. I've been painting with acrylics for the past couple of months and need a bit of a shake-up. I have been working on Elena's portrait this weekend, but nothing to merit being shown here yet. Hopefully this coming week I will have a bit more free time and will finish it.

2 comments:

natural attrill said...

These are absolutely gorgeous Caroline, especially the loosness and waterpaint marks, colours are lovely too. I hope this is just the start of another new style of work for you, I am looking forward to seeing more.
P.x

Unknown said...

these are really lovely Caroline-well done!