The Three in One Session

The 3 in 1 are the chinese brush painting, chinese calligraphy, and chinese cooking, a triple set of activity that we engaged today at Teacher Yang's house. The culinary demonstration of interest: chinese buns and dumplings. Just see the focused look on Teacher Yang's face and the yummy appeal of the finished products, all cooked and ready to be served. Truly a morning plus an afternoon of uplifting experience in body/palate and soul, thanks to both Teacher Yang (Chinese calligraphy) and Teacher Celia Fan (Chinese brush painting).

Going Gong Pi Style

In today's buddy painting session, Mrs. Kim ventured into the Gong Pi style of brush painting. And here are the fruits of our labor.

The Magic of Chinese Brush Painting

It's back to colored painting of birds and flowers. Today's efforts have been inspired by the Brush Magic website. Painters are really like magicians, except here that the magic stays on to enthrall.

New Painting Idea

At the suggestion of Mrs. Fan, my Arts teacher, I tried something new today: painting on cut rice paper of circular shape pasted on colored blank card. Here are the results.

The Spirit of Olympics: The Dancing Beijing

The greatest show on earth opens today to the world, and it's live from Beijing, but not for those in US though who would only get to watch it on NBC tonight, twelve hours late. But it's better late than never, and we await with unabated breadth, ready to savor the essense of what China was and has become, all condensed into three hours of fanfare and show extravaganza.

To commemorate the occasion, I have prepared five chinese brush paintings, using the one-stroke technique to save time, one each representing a ring in the now ubiquitous symbol of olympism shown above taken from here. Each of the five colors, black, blue, green, red, and yellow, symbolizes each of the five continents overlapping to indicate a shared and unified destiny. And together with the white background, the six colors represent all the colors that are used in the national flags of all countries on earth.

Chinese Brush Painting and A Surprise Visitor

The first two paintings are patterned after the teaching materials from Mrs. Fan, but the color here is more "water-down". Also, I painted them using the one-stroke technique.

And as luck would have it, I had a surprise visitor, of the avian kind, yesterday afternoon. Not exactly inside our house, but rather perched on a car top just outside our lanai. So I took shot, the photographic way, at it while it was enjoying the suntanning.





It seemed to be wooing the sky, the entire body length from the feet right up to the head oriented to a near vertical.

This is a more natural pose for its kind, eyes level, gazing pensively beyond. The tiny square pattern framing the picture is the result of shooting through the lanai wire netting for a closeup view.

The One-Stroke Expression of the Birds, Fruits, and Rock

Continuing apace, I completed two more calendar-inspired chinese brush paintings, capitalizing on the relative speed achievable using the one-stroke style, aka XieYi in Chinese, literally translated as "expressing the meaning".

A pair of birds descending on the bountiful lychees.

A pair of birds, seemingly gazing into each other's eyes, oblivious to the persimmon fruits, elegantly hanging from the tree branches.

Bird, Flowers, Lychees, and Bug

Two more calendar-inspired chinese brush paintings, combining plant and animal lives in accordance with Nature's way of blending, each comfortable in the presence of the other. Here's wishing that humans too would find that concord in their course through life. And Happy Birthday America!

When the grapes are getting ripe ...

Another addition to my calendar-inspired painting series, this time of drooping grapes. This is a relatively fast piece since it is painted in the one-stroke fashion. Also, the blog title refers to the title of a chinese song popular during my younger days. Talk about bringing back memories ...

Nature in Harmony

Here are additional nature paintings as a continuation of my last blog, except for the orchid, plus two more drawn on rice paper patterned after a calendar of paintings.

Chinese Brush Painting of Flowers and Nature

These paintings are patterned after those found in the publication Chinese Brush Painting (Pauline Cherrett, Quintet Publishing Ltd., 1991) on loan to me by Tom of Middle Way Buddhist Association.



I added these Chinese verses penned by Kong Ming, the famous military strategist in the Chinese Epic, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, loosely translated as "Who can realize the great dream first? I'm the only one through this life."

Magnolia.

Orange Climber.

Peaches.

Dicentra.

Bamboo and Plum Blossoms, on variously colored backgrounds

These are chinese brush paintings on colored cards of various hues, each perhaps bringing its own blend to the mix.



Here the gold color does not seem to jive with the light purple background, lending a rather nebulous feel to the gold-colored bamboo stems and leaves.