Flower and Bird with Qu Leilei

We had a very interesting session with Qu Leilei today looking a four pictures by Qing and Ming artists. The aim was not to reproduce the picture but to understand the techniques that the artists had used and to practice them. We focused on the foliage and rocks rather than the birds.

We were working on getting the brush strokes right – creating lines and texture – using both wet and dry brush and looking at how the washes were applied as dabs of colour using wash brushes rather than spread using hake brushes.

These are the pictures we were working with:

Lin Liang (1416-1480)

Xiao Haishan (ca 1450 -?)

Gao Fenghan (1683-1749)

And an unknown artist

And these are Qu Leilei’s demonstration pieces

Lin Liang demo

Xaio Haishan demo

Gao Fenghan demo

Unknown artist demo

And finally a picture of Qu Leilei with the last demo piece

Marion