Flower Painting, Gong Pi Style, Part 1

We had the monthly painting class today, at our teacher's home. The topic: flower painting, Gong Pi style, i.e., meticulous stroke-by-stroke brush painting. It consists of two parts, the first part being the arduous chore of line tracing of the original, to be followed by filling out with color. In our case, the original is a flower pattern taken from the guide book the cover of which is shown on the right (again I have Vicky to thank for the guidebook). The right panel of images on the cover sums up pictorially the steps to complete a Gong Pi style brush painting.

In my case, I had to sketch out the lines on my own as my failing eyesight (I'm reminded to reschedule my cataract operation asap this year) makes it tough for me to be able to locate the lines of the original placed under the rice paper and trace them out successfully. In a sense, mine is a larger replica of the original, my natural sense of proportionality bailing me out in this instance. The ensuing part, adding color to complete the painting, will be done in the next class.