This month we were looking at small birds, specially the work of an artists we had not worked with before – Yu Chunglin (1925-1985). We were suing his fan paintings as examples.

Yu Chunglin

He made wide use of over painting – so, it was necessary to work slowly and carefully allowing each layer to dry before the next one was added. This technique generates a very 3 dimensional effect on the birds.

The results were very pleasing:

Sarah Turner – yellow throated bunting

Virgina Hayes – bunting

Karen Gowlett – swallows

Malcolm Gowlett – sparrows

Marion Dearlove – Hoopoe

Jean Gray – Snow Birds

This month we were looking at horses using examples from a number of artists including Au Honien, Xu Beihong and Zhen Shanping.

Au Honien

Xu Beihong

Zhen Shanping

The horses were mainly lei gu style both Xeiyi and Lingnan.

Should be fun to work with. The results are below:

Karen Gowlett

Malcolm Gowlett

Sarah Turner

Jean Gray

Virgina Hayes

Marion Dearlove

Rose Meech

This month we tackled freestyle green gold landscape. It uses all of the same layers as gongbi but is painted on semi sized paper. We used examples by Qu Leilei both final paintings and demo pieces.

Qu Leilei

Qu Leilei

Qu Leilei

First outline everything in ink then add texture and ink shading.

When dry, add indigo and burnt sienna washes. Double load the brush with burnt sienna topped with indigo. Put the brush tip where you want the blue and then work down using the whole brush.

When dry add the mineral blues and greens.

When dry add the gold outlines below or above some of the original lines. SOME not all.

It required hairdryers because we only had 3 hours!

These are the results:

Virgina Hayes

Malcolm Gowlett

Karen Gowlett

Sarah Turner

Marion Dearlove

Jean Gray