{"id":248,"date":"2013-10-13T05:00:15","date_gmt":"2013-10-13T12:00:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/?p=248"},"modified":"2014-07-22T18:34:00","modified_gmt":"2014-07-23T01:34:00","slug":"attaxarty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/china\/attaxarty\/","title":{"rendered":"Chinese Brush Painting"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Chinese<\/a>I\u2019m a writer now, but once upon a time I was a painter. And before that I was the kid who hurried through my multiplication tables so I could draw paper dolls for my friends.<\/p>\n

We lived in the Philippines when I took up Chinese brush painting. My teacher, Professor Chen Bing Sun, <\/a>considered art the noblest of callings, and he expected no less dedication from his students.<\/p>\n

Back to the Basics<\/b><\/h4>\n
\"Prof.<\/a>

Prof. Chen Bing Sun and students<\/p><\/div>\n

Chinese brush painting begins with a grinding stone, a stick of dry compacted ink, and brushes made of bamboo and rabbit hair or wolf hair. No ready-made ink for the Chinese brush painter. She makes her own. Dipping her brush in water, she splashes it on her stone and then grinds her ink stick around and around on the stone until she has made ink that\u2019s black as a crow\u2019s back and thick as its spittle.<\/p>\n

This preliminary step is a kind of meditation. Like sharpening your pencils or scanning your facebook page, ink grinding is a gentle prelude to the main task.<\/p>\n

The next step is learning to hold the brush properly\u2014not at an angle as we do in the West, but straight up and down to control the thickness of the stroke. The same posture is used when writing Chinese characters\u2014a posture that, by the way, encourages keeping your back straight.<\/p>\n

The rice paper used for Chinese brush painting is thinner and more porous than paper used for watercolor in the West. It comes in a roll, so when a painting or sketch is finished, you need only paint a line across it with water and rip that portion away from the rest of the roll.<\/p>\n

Plants and Animals<\/b><\/h4>\n

My painting class met twice a week. The first few weeks we painted plum blossoms, outlining each petal for the detailed style or painting petals without edges for the free style. The stamens were a different stroke, dark and thin and trailing off to nothing at just the right point.<\/p>\n

\"018_18\"<\/a>Typically we graduated from plum blossoms with a painting called \u201c10,000 plum blossoms.\u201d Not 10,000, but still, many, many blossoms.<\/p>\n

Next we moved on to bamboo\u00a0and<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>orchids<\/span>, after which we studied chrysanthemums, peonies, lotus and pine trees interspersed with fish, birds, shrimp, crabs, chickens and horses. Every subject used different brush strokes and techniques.<\/span><\/p>\n

Skill vs. Creativity<\/b><\/h4>\n

But when, we wondered, could we paint tigers and landscapes and people? When could we be creative?<\/p>\n

\"025_25\"<\/a>The time arrived eventually, but only if we were willing to stick it out for a number of years. Persistence and discipline have long been high on the list of virtues the Chinese admire.<\/p>\n

Some of Professor Chen\u2019s students are still painting. \u00a0(See the website of Jamaliah Marais<\/a>.\u00a0) I stopped after 8 or 9 years. But the experience gave me another window into the Chinese mind and thus a better understanding of my Chinese husband. It also helped in writing my novel, Tiger Tail Soup<\/i>, which is set in China and features a Chinese narrator.<\/p>\n

Next week’s blog post is about modern art and the Ai Weiwei Exhibit at the Indianapolis Museum of Art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I\u2019m a writer now, but once upon a time I was a painter. And before that I was the kid who hurried through my multiplication tables so I could draw paper dolls for my friends. We lived in the Philippines when I took up Chinese brush painting. My teacher, Professor Chen Bing Sun, considered art […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[43,13,148],"tags":[45,297,296,51,53,925],"class_list":["post-248","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-art","category-china","category-philippines","tag-chinese-brush-painting","tag-painting-peonies","tag-painting-plum-blossoms","tag-professor-chen-bing-sun","tag-rice-paper","tag-tiger-tail-soup"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3Kn1e-40","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":6639,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/writing\/6639\/","url_meta":{"origin":248,"position":0},"title":"Stories to Go with My Paintings","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"December 3, 2017","format":false,"excerpt":"\u00a0Three weeks after we moved to the Philippines I started taking Chinese brush painting classes from Professor Chen Bing Sun. Four years later, I could pretty well handle the basics. I\u2019d learned to paint bamboo and plum blossoms, chrysanthemums and orchids. I\u2019d moved on to animals, people, and landscapes. I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chinese brush painting"","block_context":{"text":"Chinese brush painting","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/chinese-brush-painting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/02\/TTS-goats-e1392353441140.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":217,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/art\/tiger-love\/","url_meta":{"origin":248,"position":1},"title":"Tiger Love","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"October 6, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Cats and Dogs I\u2019m a cat person. Calicos and tabbies, a polydactyl Russian blue, a pair of Siamese, a not-too-bright long-haired white, I\u2019ve had them all. And though I\u2019ve owned a few dogs, including a regal Saluki and a pair of adorable beagles, I like cats better. 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Island of pianos they call it, drum-surf isle, egret island\u2026.My beloved home, and for\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "China"","block_context":{"text":"China","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/china\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"batik painting by Nicki Chen","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/04\/IMG_0508-225x300.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":2540,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/art\/batik-saving-and-resisting-color\/","url_meta":{"origin":248,"position":3},"title":"Batik: Saving and Resisting Color","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"November 2, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"Thinking in reverse. Years ago, when I did Chinese brush painting, the process was straight forward. I applied ink and color directly to rice paper. Anything I didn\u2019t touch just stayed white. Then I took up batik painting, and I had to start thinking in reverse. Batik is a resist\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"batik on silk by Nicki Chen","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0516-1024x682.jpg?resize=350%2C200","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0516-1024x682.jpg?resize=350%2C200 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/09\/IMG_0516-1024x682.jpg?resize=525%2C300 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":9599,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/art\/youthful-dreams-do-they-remain\/","url_meta":{"origin":248,"position":4},"title":"Youthful Dreams, Do They Remain?","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"July 25, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"painted by my mom What did you want to be when you grew up? My mom's dream was to become an artist. I don't know when that dream began for her, but by the time she was in high school, she was filling scrapbooks with her drawings. He stylish fashion\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Art"","block_context":{"text":"Art","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/art\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/07\/IMG_2855-2-e1626986515489.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":10222,"url":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/chinese-brush-painting\/flight-or-invisibility\/","url_meta":{"origin":248,"position":5},"title":"Flight or Invisibility","author":"Nicki Chen","date":"June 4, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"If you had the chance, which superpower would you choose, flight or invisibility? Quickly. Choose. It's said that your spontaneous response reveals something about your personality. Hmm. After a minute, though, don't you start to think about it? That\u2019s what interests me\u2014the details of the superpower. If I could fly,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Chinese brush painting"","block_context":{"text":"Chinese brush painting","link":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/category\/chinese-brush-painting\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/05\/Bird_silhouette_flying_in_the_sky.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=248"}],"version-history":[{"count":22,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2148,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/248\/revisions\/2148"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=248"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=248"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nickichenwrites.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=248"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}