Riches and Honor: the floral kind

The Peony (Chinese name: Mudan), elegance extraordinaire, was the feature of this week's arts class. It's also known as the Fuguihua (literally, the flower of riches and honor). There are shown here drawn on rice paper, and captured using our Nikon Colorpix L6. Hubby used to apply the Autofix feature in the image software to enhance the brightness. But the result seemed less satisfactory, dulling the bright red color somewhat. So they are presented here, unaltered.









OK, this may be the odd one out. The Plum Blossom (Chinese name: The Mei). Because of its vibrancy in winter, it is one of the "Three Friends of the Cold" known in Chinese literature. (Care to venture a guess on the other two? No? There are the bamboo and the pine.)

A Smorgasbord of Drawings

With time, my collection of brushes has grown. The latest addition was gotten at the AOE Arts Supply, thanks to Linda, which is very close to our home. I figure that the small ring-like ribbons at the top of the brushes must serve a purpose beyond mere aesthetics. So I turned the styrofoam cushions that came with our PC into a hanging panel for the brushes, with push pins adding as hanging supports, tucked into a wall corner on the table. Instead of putting them into their respective cases, I would just hang them for air drying as shown. Just another instance of making use of materials, especially those about to be discarded, a crude DIY or sort.

My corner of Chinese brushes. The box in front houses the four brushes I recently bought from AOE Arts Supply that are among the hanging brushes. The Chinese calligraphy on the wall to the right is not by me, but by Venerable Hui Zhen.

Last week was another off week, for the Arts teacher. But not me, and here are the works in progress.

Mountain scene 1.

Mountain scene 2.

The Lan.

The butterfly.

The bamboo.

The Mei.

Nature in Simplicity

Words are superfluous when Nature is concerned as the harmony, the serenity, and the teeming life itself is beyond description. The next best thing to personally experiencing the sight, the sound, and the scent is through photography, its vividness seemingly jumping out of the picture.

But as far as personal satisfaction goes, nothing seems to be comparable to creating pictures out of a blank page. While this sentiment is held by the creator, the same may extend to the beholder as well. But as the saying goes, beauty lies in the eye of the beholder. I shall then leave it as that, except to say that I derive great pleasure in completing the following pieces, nature in simplicity.

The flowers and their many insect friends: a world of co-dependency.

Delicious black currants (blue?) drooping in numbers.

The Lotus and the unflappable leaves.

The willows, doing an impression of the pyrotechnic display during the day.

The Mei and the bamboo striking a harmonious pose.

The Mei striking out on its own.


Sprouting in unison, Nature's symphony.

The Toothbrush-Comb Combination in Drawing

The Christmas Box of cards has ten different colors, each numbering six to yield a total of sixty. Today I picked up the black cards and was wondering what can be drawn on them when an idea struck me, one that I had learned while in grade school. The method involves a toothbrush, preferably a used one, and a comb. The toothbrush is first dipped in the water color solution, white in this instance so as to contrast well with the black background, and is then rubbed against the comb held just above the card. In this way, the tiny droplets are scattered like a spray onto the card, the density of which can be controlled by leveraging the speed of the rubbing action. Here are the results.

The Mei-flower-dotted branches amidst the snow shower in the nightscape.

The Bamboo night.

Putting the two together ... This must be a rare sight in nature.

And here's a belated Christmas atmosphere with Mr. Frosty.

The cascading star-shaped crimson leaves ...


And the Mei Flowers that would adorn the thank-you card for a job well done to our newspaper delivery man.

Clearing BackLog

This week is another off week for my Arts lesson, the Thanksgiving holidays being the reason. But the show must go on as they say. So I have collected some previously done drawings but which have yet to grace this space for all to enjoy (and to get rid of my backlog too!).

Guan Yin Pusa.

The Mei.

The Chrysanthemum.


Another Mei.

Mudan and Mei: Elegance in Contrast

It's Friday again, last day of the working week, and the eve of weekends. Temperatures during the week have dipped considerably, heralding the impending winter months, times that we people from the tropics are much less enthused about.

My new brush pens arrived today, courtesy of a friend who brought them back with her from Taiwan. However, none turned out to be the exquisitely fine-tipped "red bean" brush that my teacher has raved about. Guess I'll have to look elsewhere.

The subject of today's arts lesson is the peony, aka Mudan in Chinese. It's one of the two floral symbols of China, the other being the plum blossoms (Mei), also featured here but are from my works of Oct 23, according to the dates at the back of the drawings.

The peony is a popular floral painting hung in chinese homes, as attested here (Lin's home, the backdrop to the second image from top).

Here they are, the Mudan and the Mei alternating.

The Mudan in pair.

The Mei in two clusters.


The trio of Mudan.
The Mei in discrete locations.

Another trio of Mudan.