This month, we were looking at Winter landscapes using works by artist including Qu Leilei and Shen Zhou

Winter landscape work in the reverse of other season’s paintings with dark appearing in the sky and water and light appearing on land. Care must be taken to keep the white ink free.

These are some of the examples painted on the day:

This month we were looking at still life pictures with backgrounds using examples by the CBPS presidents – Qu Leilei and Jane Evans.

The aim was to start by creating a background using various puddles of washes and hake brushes to  paint a background using colours of your choice. Letting it dry (or, because our time was limited, dry it with a hair drier to save time) and then paint a still life over the top.

Worth noting is pictures loose colour if you dry with a hair dryer, so if you can, be patient and wait for it to dry.

These are some of the paintings produced.

This month we were looking at multi-brush loading and, although flowers
were on offer, everyone chose blue green landscape! We were looking at the
work of Qu Leilei and Xu Yunxiang. We were looking at a form of free style
blue green landscape. This technique is time consuming and cannot be rushed!
Nothing was finished in class.

Having completed our ink outlines, texture and ink tonal work – we then
looked at the requirements for double brush loading underpainting. Double
loading a wash brush of an appropriate size for the painting with an
appropriate shade burnt sienna to about 70% and indigo to about 30%. Put the
tip of the brush where you want to indigo to be and work down and across the
rock structure using the whole length of the brush – work stoke by stroke.
Overlap layers ad you work down. As you go the indigo runs out and you end
up with only burnt sienna. Do not reload the brush (if possible) until you
have filled the space you are working on. Think about the size of the brush
you need to allow you to do this.

Start at the front and work back lightening the tone of the colours as you
work backwards to give the impression of distance.

Leave Until Almost Dry

Next, the over painting. Load a brush with mineral green down to 70% and
mineral blue down to 30% blend in some 451 to darken the blue down to about
20%. Again, think about where you want the blue, and put the tip at that
point. Work down and across the rock structure using the whole brush –
pulling the brush down the structure for each stroke. Overlap layers as you
work down. Do not cover all of the burnt sienna at the bottom. As you work
back dilute the colours. Add in your foliage and colours on other objects in
the picture. Add some background was if appropriate.

Here are some of other examples started on the day and finished at home.

This month we were looking at working with resists – notably different kinds of salt, alum and full fat milk.

We concluded that the alum was the least effective.

That the different types of salt gave very different effects; 

And the milk was very effective.

The picture below  is currently on display in the Ashmolean. It is not just a magnificent picture of 2 horses, it is also developed using salt resist and the salt is still on the panting! It is a wonderful example of resist work.

We weren’t working on paintings, just creating examples of what resist can do. Some samples of our output is shown below.

Sarah Turner’s full fat milk landscape

Jean Gray’s poppy with salt and with salt removed

Marion Dearlove’s sunflower with salt removed (mostly!)

After original by Huang Qin Yuan 1914 – 1979

This month we were looking at Lingnan landscape. We normally work on Northern School landscapes which are more about line work and ink rather than colour, so this was a change. Where northern school artists would leave paper (white space), Lingnan artists use white paint. They also tend to make more use of colour and colour layering.

I think the results proved that we are mainly Northern School devotees! Only Karen and Malcolm have truly embraced the use of white paint!

We were working from an example by artist like Chen Shuren and Huang Huanwu.

Images

Chen Shuren

Huang Huanwu

Sarah

Karen

Malcolm

Malcolm

Marion

Jean

Rose

This month we were looking at colour layering using the work of Guan Naiquang, The idea being that colour is built up in many layers. This is still Xieyi style, using Xuan or semi sized Xuan – rather than Gongbi style using sized paper.

It’s a very interesting technique and allows you to develop a lot of depth in the picture and allows you to develop some unusual colours where you are layering transparent colours over one another. Requires patience an good brush control but well worth a try.

You have to be very careful and allow each layer to dry before you add the next one. None of the pictures were finished in class – hence the delay on the update

Sarah’s picture shows how far we got in class.

Images

One of Guan Naiquang images that we used

Sarah

Malcolm

Rose

Karen

Jean

Marion

Exploring the work of Chinese artist Gong Xian 

Gong Xian 1618 – 1689 late Ming early Qing Dynasties, known at one of the Eight Masters of the Nanjing

The Saturday group studied Gong Xian’s wonderful landscape

Spring Flowers Workshop Book Now!
Jane Evans will run a one day workshop on Sunday the 19th April 2015
10:00 to 16:00
Members only

Please email:  cbpsregion6@gmail.com