Red Flowers

We had our Arts class this morning as scheduled. The subject of today's class was a type of red flower (Amaryllis, taken from Chinese Brush: Learn to Paint Step by Step by Lucy Wang, Walter Foster Publishing Inc., 2003), and I painted three. They might look similar at first glance, but each has someting that is slightly different from the other.







This fourth one is a combined effort from the rest of the Arts class (me, Linda, and Qiu Ying) and Mrs. Fan, our Arts teacher, as a card for Ling in wishing her a speedy recovery.

More Birds and Flowers

And this is the second batch of paintings done after the Chinese brush painting guidebook received as a gift from Mary and Wesley.

Birds and Flowers made possible by Mary and Wesley

I have started painting the images in the Chinese brush painting guidebook that Mary and Wesley bought for me. Here are the first batch:

Gift-bearing friends came acalling

Mary and Wesley, fresh from their recent trip back home to Taiwan, came by our house yesterday, bearing one of the best gifts I've ever received since I started painting in US more than a year ago. Both are by Ms. Yang O-Hsi, and full of exquisitely painted pictures with step-by-step instructions. Thanks, Mary and Wesley, you really made my day.

While the left book was by special order from me, the right one was picked by Wesley, and I like it better than the one I originally asked for. What a surprise!

And here I am, putting the gift to work. Just kidding, this pic was taken earlier, but the joy would be the same as I would be drawing hours and hours of painting pleasure from the two books.

The radiance that I emit when I draw.

Here are today's fare then: landscape paintings.





I just cannot resist sharing this picture of water lily taken at a hill resort at Hualien, courtesy of Mary and Wesley, who were kind enough to share their photo album on their recent trip to Taiwan. I could see that they really had a good time.

Birds and Flowers: a flawless combination

I just love birds and flowers, and their combination, don't you? They are a natural combination that defies words, just needing to feel it in the heart. The paintings today are patterned after Lucy Wang's paintings found in Chinese Brush: Learn to Paint Step by Step (2005, Walter Foster Publishing Inc.).

Bamboo Garden

Bamboo painted on different colored-cards makes for out-of--this-world-like bamboo garden.

Celebrating Mooncake Festival

The mooncake festival (aka Mid-autumn Festival) is an annual Chinese festival celebrated on Aug 15 based on the lunar calendar, which is today. Apart from enjoying the delicious mooncakes, the kids would be forming a parade of hand-held lighted lanterns (traditionally with candles but battery-operated versions, which pose no fire hazard, are also available) while the adults would be participating in cracking the many word riddles. That would be the atmosphere back home. Here in US we have to settle for having some friends over for dinner followed by partaking the mooncakes that we have bought from MD Oriental, a local Chinese grocery store.

As with most other occasions of celebrations, sending greeting cards are also the norm. Especially in this Internet age, e-cards have become the preferred mode for the Internet savvy. And I received the following e-card from the daughter of my friend back home, Jiayi, just yesterday. Thanks, Jiayi.


Since I like painting, I have decided to draw a card to share with you all where the two vertical lines, which mean "though we are thousand miles apart, as long as we are safe and sound we can still bridge the sky to share the majestic moon together," are taken from a famous poem penned by a Chinese poet during the Sung Dynasty, Su Shi, or better known as Su Dong Po.

Poem in Chinese Calligraphy

My favorite online Chinese papers is Sin Chew Jit Poh. I especially love reading its Opinion columns, full of insightful commentaries on the political development back home often couched in subtlety, applying the elegance of Chinese prose to the fullest. Among its columnists, my favorite is Mr. Zheng Ding Xian who has an uncanny sense of the nuances embedded in political maneuvers. This morning, I came across his latest contribution written in the column literally translated as Night Rain Dawn Breeze using a part of a poem as the title (dated Sep 12, 2008).

Hubby likes the piece too and have superposed the poem on one of my earlier landscape paintings, which seems to depict the scenery described in the poem. Of course there is a deeper meaning to the entire poem, which hubby was not able to locate its provenance on a Net search. But he thinks it portrays a calm state of mind, waiting for nature/event to take its course when matter will become clear.



In the process, my calligrahic urge was spurred, and I wrote down the poems shown below.



This is a more flourishing version, my own freedom of expression at work.

Chinese Brush Painting of the Birds, the Bees, the Flowers, and the Bamboo

Here are more calendar-inspired paintings on rice paper.

More One-Stroke Painting, Calendar-Inspired

I continued with one-stroke painting today, on large sheets of rice paper, and patterned after similar paintings in a calendar.

One-Stroke Painting

I went for an eye exam this morning, and my eyes were dilated. That means today's offerings have to be done by the one-stroke technique, which is less taxing on the eyes.

Birds and Flowers: by themselves and together

A lone young bird perched on rock, wearing a forlorn look.

Wings fluttering, the peak zooming in on the nectar.

Looking upward, mouth agog. Uncluttered. Space is good.

A repeat from the above, but side view.

Bougainvillea in mid air.

Maximizing Resource Use

Some of the paintings below were done on rice papers saved from working sheets. Sometimes, I have to test the brush strokes and also the right mix of color on some working sheets at the end of which they are supposed to be destined for the trash bin. Howver, before that, I usually cut out the clean edges into regular or circular shapes for reuse (but pasted on colored blank cards) as part of the 5Rs of Environmental Protection (Refuse, Reduce, Reuse, Repair, and Recycle).

Flowers and Fruits

Flowers blossom and fruits prosper amidst leaves.

Birds and Flowers in the midst of Bamboo

Bamboo in winterland.

Bamboo in the summertime.

Bamboo viewed through a red lens.

A lone bird outnumbered by the many stalks of Morning Glory (the name in Chinese is literally Pulling the Cow. Go figure).

Birds and Flowers

These are today's works. Enjoy!

Nature and Landscape

A mixed offering of nature and landscape marks my painting efforts today, several being patterned after the paintings contained in the guidebook shown to the left, published in 1989 and on loan from Jenny, unless stated otherwise below. Jenny had originally bought the book for his son during his younger days. And I only chanced upon the book while visiting Jenny one day. As the chinese saying goes, the happiest person is not one who has the best thing; but rather one who cherishes everything one meets along the way. Thanks, Jenny.







This has appeared in an earlier blog but I repainted it, perhaps with some unintentional differences, since I have given it away to CE's friend, Olivia.

This is patterned after the front box cover of The Chinese Brush Painting Studio by Pauline Cherrett (Barnes and Noble Publishing, 2005).

This is a two-parter: the landscape painting is patterned after the painting entitled Waterway Near the Hanshan (meaning cold mountain) Temple appearing on pg. 172 of Chinese Painting Techniques: A Complete Course by Jean Long (Studio Vista, 1994) while the chinese couplets lining up the left and right sides are taken from pg. 169 of Chinese Landscapes Made Easy by Rebecca Yue (Batsford, 2007) that contrast (or rhyme) the merging of the sky and the water at the horizon (left panel) and the snow glow from the shining moon (right panel).