Our 26th February Zoom Demonstration was given by Kaili Fu, an expert in the art of Chinese Brush Painting.
Kaili showed us pictures of landscape and flower on rice paper, and others on silk. It takes time to use these, because of their delicacy and the drying time involved. For the demo she used thicker rice paper. Like kitchen roll, it absorbs water when wet. Chinese artists make ‘rice’ paper out of whatever grows locally, bamboo, rice, straw, tree bark. All brushes are from natural materials. Some brushes are soft, to wash flowers, and leaves. But for trees, mountains, rock, uses stuff brushes. Traditionally, ink is ground from a block, but to save time, she’s using ink from a bottle.
The brush is held upright. Trees are done from top to bottom. It seemed like she was resting on what she’d just painted when she was doing detail, but perhaps the wet had already soaked into the paper.
Kaili had camera failure before we started so was improvising using her phone. All in all I think she did a good job in difficult circumstances. It may not have been the most dynamic or organised of presentations, but I loved the way she used the light, shade, and size of the trees to indicate space and distance. It was difficult to see what she’d done for a boat until she brought it close to the camera, when we discovered that there were birds drying their wings on the cross-poles of the rigging!
As some of us sketchers found when we did the February challenge prompt ‘Patterns’, there was a kind of meditative calm about watching her paint. Very deliberate, sometimes very small marks, carefully placed.
When the picture is finished, it has to dry. To support it, it is then pasted onto another sheet of stronger paper. Originally this would be a flour paste, but mostly they use wallpaper paste these days.
The second painting was a flower. The technique was amazing, producing a wonderful 3d effect. And I loved watching the detail of the butterfly.
Paint… Chinese water colour paint. All materials are derived from organic or mineral sources. You need to check out specialist suppliers for these, and the papers and ink blocks, if you want to be authentic.
All photos are screenshots; pictures copyright Kaili Fu.
