Getting Started with Chinese Painting
Unlike water painting or oil painting, Chinese painting is a unique art form.
Consisting of two areas (i.e.: Chinese brush painting, and finger painting), you can start creating beautiful artworks with themes ranging from landscape painting, flowers and birds painting, and portrait painting—to name a few.
How Do I Begin Learning The Art of Chinese Painting?
Starting your journey in the art of Chinese painting can be a pretty daunting experience for those who are new to this—yes, it’s a very extensive topic. However, the good news is that there are step-by-step guides that are made available (we’ll be posting them in the following blog entries) that will help to simplify your learning curve.
And you’ll need to prepare the following 4 things — there’s no need for expensive equipments — to begin painting:
- Chinese brush
- Chinese ink
- Rice paper—a special type of paper which is known to be thin and fragile; you’ll need to control the dryness of the brush before starting to paint
- A piece of white cloth
Got that ready? Let’s begin with our first lesson.
Basics 101: The Proper Way of Holding a Chinese Brush
We’ll start with the basics, and in Chinese art painting, this would be learning the proper way of holding a Chinese brush.
Depending on your goal (eg: having a brush stroke that’s thinner or thicker, longer or shorter, straight or curve) the way you handle the brush will determine the outcome of your brush stroke.
There are two ways for you to learn how to hold the brush properly: the vertical brush stroke and slanted brush stroke.
The former, you’ll be holding the brush up in a vertical manner (as shown in the 3rd image in the above figure). You can achieve a bold brush stroke by doing a vertical stroke with confidence (eg: painting bamboo branches).
If you’re looking to cover a larger space with your brush stroke, go with the latter (slanted brush stroke, 1st image in the above figure); lay the brush down an angle (about 45 degrees) to achieve this (eg: painting lotus leaves).
Now begin your practice. Allow yourself to get used to the results that can be achieved with this 2 brush holding techniques.
You’ll do great in no-time.
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