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October 18, 2009 at 2:29 pm #988196
Welcome to the Classical Art: Non-Western Cultures ongoing thread.
This is the place where you could post all your efforts in the different genres, media, support created in classical styles of non-Western cultures including but not limited to the following: Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Indian, Islamic, Southeast Asian, Aboriginal Art, Middle Eastern Art, African Art, non-Western religious art, erotic art of the East, and art of the Pacific, South Pacific.
As I discover each area, I will post links to them. Feel free to add your links so we could enjoy them together.
When you do reproduce these art, please ensure that you don’t infringe on copyright and the artist concerned has deceased prior to 1939. If it is within the last 70 years that you are basing your work on, please do it in the spirit of and in the style of the work concerned but not an exact replica.
I look forward to seeing all of your artwork.
To start, I’ll post a few links that are good to explore.
Art of Asia
http://witcombe.sbc.edu/ARTHLinks3.htmlIslamic Art
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/ij/islamic.htmlIndian Art
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_paintingSandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 18, 2009 at 3:05 pm #1125694First off, I’d like to introduce the ones I’m most familiar with: Chinese brush paintings.
There are many schools of Chinese brush painting and over the years, many styles have evolved. Compared to Japanese art, Chinese brush painting focuses on bold brush strokes and techniques. The way they ink a brush plays an important role in Chinese brush painting. If you compare early Japanese art and early Chinese art in painting form, Japanese art were more line work. Chinese art has few brushstrokes and yet depicts entire terrains of foggy hills and imaginary landscapes.
The best way to learn about the evolution of Chinese art is to get a library book on Chinese art and you could see how it evolved from mostly black ink of different shades to the more watercolor approach of present days of contemporary artists.
To start, Chinese students usually learn the basics of drawing bamboo, chrysanthemum, plum blossoms, then rocks, mountains, then insects, and other life forms. People don’t seem such a priority it appears though necessary to dot the paintings with. You rarely see huge portraits in the early paintings.
The Mustard Seed Garden is the manual most students learn from in the past and it comes in four volumes. You buy them in two sets or one whole bundle.
http://www.artrealization.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=26&products_id=528
Set 1
http://www.artrealization.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=26&products_id=529
Set 2
http://www.artrealization.com/shop/product_info.php?cPath=26&products_id=530
There is an English translated version here.
http://www.amazon.com/Mustard-Seed-Garden-Manual-Painting/dp/0691018197
Here is a digital print of the Chinese one Book 2 dealing with plants.
For those who would like to buy Chinese painting supplies, here are some links.
http://www.orientalartsupply.com/products/accessories.cfm
Chinese painting uses Chinese brushes because it holds much more ink than watercolor brushes or acrylic brushes. In the beginning, I didn’t think it was important because I was drawing them small size most of the time of 4×6 inch each image but the more I learn the techniques, the more I realize I need bigger sheets of paper and bigger brushes to have that effect. The key is to load the brush with varied hues to effect the simple strokes of Chinese art.
Most online stores have Chinese brushes/sumi-e brushes. MisterArt by far is the cheapest.
For ink, you could buy bottled sumi-ink or grind your own with Chinese ink sticks. Some companies also sell color chips and you just wet it with drops of water, very much like using pan watercolors.
The above three are waterproof. Marie’s watercolor which many Chinese online stores sell are not waterproof. It wouldn’t matter if you are not using the Lingnan style of brush painting which requires a lot of washes on the back of the sheet of rice paper/sumi paper.
If you don’t have the above supplies, you could still do Chinese painting with normal acrylic paint and watercolor paper. Just thin the acrylic paint.
Rice paper has its frustrations because it warps and crinkles terribly but if you starch it later on, it will flatten and look very presentable in the end. I use mostly newsprint for practice of dry brush work but for traditional landscapes and Chinese subjects, I go back to rice paper.
This shop sells the color chips which you just wet it with water and you could paint right away. It has no residue because it turns to ink.
Here is a close up of what the chips look like.
http://www.blueheronarts.com/product_info.php?products_id=70
The site has 12 rules for Chinese paintings.
http://www.blueheronarts.com/article…?articles_id=2
Here is a book with 40 pages of review!
Here are some simple exercise practices.
http://www.chinese-tools.com/learn/painting
This is a contemporary Chinese art site thanks to brusher. Very exciting developments of the Lingnan style which requires a lot of washes.
Zeng Gang 曾刚 seems to be a very popular Chinese artist in China and here you could watch a lot of his demonstrations. He deals with Chinese subject but with a bit more realism and color but still maintain Chinese brush techniques.
http://video.baidu.com/v?ct=301989888&rn=20&pn=0&db=0&s=25&word=%D4%F8%B8%D5
two on youtube.
http://youtube.com/results?search_query=%E6%9B%BE%E5%88%9A%EF%BC%8C&search=tagHere is his official site and you could see his masterly work.
http://www.zenggang.com/index.htmThis is his gallery under NEWS and it has four pages. I like page 3 works a lot.
http://www.zenggang.com/html/a/index.htm
Here is my set up. I use a piece of felt underneath to absorb the moisture.
How to stretch cockled rice paper
I found the answer in this book called “Chinese Watercolor Techniques – Painting Animals” by Lian Quan Zhen.
Here are the detailed steps.
Buy wheat starch from art store – pH neutral ones. I got mine from an Asian grocery store to make buns with.
1:10 ration wheat starch to water. Put in pot to simmer like cooking gravy and until it becomes like clam chowder. Not the lumpy potatoes but thick. But not too thick or it’ll be hard to spread.
Get plexiglass as backing or any smooth surface. I have tons of transparency film at home of all sizes and that’s my backing.
Put the painting face down. Backside facing up. Spread wheat starch with a soft brush from the center out in one direction. You go back and forth you are going to tear it. My mom gave me just the same type of brush that the book prescribed. I even used my finger to smooth it out lightly. When it is all straight and flat, put a backing paper to it.
The backing paper is double layer raw Shuan paper. I just used the same Chinese rice paper. I tried using the Japanese sumi paper as backing and because it’s a lot thinner and finer, it tore very easily. Make sure the side is 2 inches more than the painting on all sides. Clean up the plexiglass around the painting and then align your backing paper and on it with equal sides width. Then I use my play dough rolling pin to smooth it out from center out again. Not back and forth. Incredibly easy to smooth everything out.
Then lift it up from the corner at once gently, and two corners and peel off the piece and the painting would be mounted. Attach it to a board on four corners to dry for 2 hours plus or half a day.
I pinned all four corners down to my kid’s cork board. Thank goodness I didn’t give those away yesterday.
These used to be cockled but now with wheat starch, it’s totally flattened out and the crinkles are only from the side of the backing paper that doesn’t have more paintings to straigten with.
And I tried the Chinese ink stick piece and it doesn’t bleed or lose color at all. This guy does not recommend you to use watercolor with sumi ink because the moment you put more sumi ink in, the watercolor will be reactivated. Use Chinese ink all the way. But if you use watercolor, use it first and then detail with Chinese ink if you really have to.
This one has two layers of backing sheet and it made it even firmer!
Sandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 18, 2009 at 3:21 pm #1125695I will now post some of my early attempts/horrors a year and a a half ago and you could see the improvement over the months.
May 2008
June 2008
July 2008
November 2008
watercolor in sketchbook and Chinese ink in waterbrush
Same thing here but the white dots are done by liquid paper correction pen
This is Chinese ink in waterbrush and the second one is photoshopped with stamp effect which I prefer because it’s starker.
Sandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 18, 2009 at 3:35 pm #1125696January 2009
This one is neither Chinese brush, nor Chinese ink, nor sumi e paper. But it is a Chinese subject . It would be a pity not to put it in Chinese thread somewhat.
Crayola watercolor, Kimberley General’s watercolor pencil, and Canson sketchpad. I’ll try to use at least sumi e paper next time.
April 2009
I used ground Chinese colored ink stick.
Sandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 18, 2009 at 3:39 pm #1125697Chinese brush and Chinese ink stick on Canson 70 lb paper 9×12 inch. I really like this paper because it has a beige tone to it and it’s cheap.
On newsprint
May 2009
Here are two on rice paper with Chinese ink, Chinese color ink sticks and Chinese brush.
In real life, no one would draw to the edge of the paper. I misjudged once again but the perspective on this tall stalk in front of me is just that!
I’ve been practicing tonight how they load a brush with 3 or 4 shades. The books never showed how and in the end, I dipped the tip of my brush in prefabricated ink that is darkest as compared to ground ink and I think I am getting some results. Here are a bunch of exercises I did.
More Chinese brush practices today following a Japanese sumi book. I scanned these even before the ink was dried so it wouldn’t cockle so much.
Sandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 18, 2009 at 3:45 pm #1125698Here’s another landscape piece. Because it was too wet, I let it dry this time on the felt mat and anchored down with weights in front of the heater. It still cockled.
So I ironed it. Haha…don’t bother. It only makes it worse.
I used my Chinese ink color sticks and ground them well and mixed colors for once. This time, I used Chinese rice paper in a roll rather than the Japanese sumi-sheets which cockle terribly. There is limited cockling but at some point, I’ll mount this the same way as my the other pieces earlier.
I went by feel and didn’t outline it first as the author did. I feel that it’s important to feel our painting even if it may not be anatomically correct.
Here’s a slightly brigher one and you see that I use weights to anchor down the paper while I drew.
I did a few experiments following the book, Learn to Paint Chinese Brush, by Jane Evans.
She has a few pieces that looks like watercolor works that is filled with soft colors all over unlike the traditional Chinese paintings that has a lot of white space and bare minimals to depict the subject. I have always wondered how people put in landscapes with background colors in Chinese painting and now, with this book I understood.
I knew from the last book that I shouldn’t mix watercolor in a Chinese painting if I don’t want the paint to run. I wonder, why would it run?
She actually puts the background color last by flipping the rice paper over and apply it from the back after she sprayed the entire sheet wet.
I never knew I could spray the sheet wet, let alone painting from the back. So here is the flower piece that has the background yellow from the back. I starched it already to take the cockles out. In fact, there is very little cockling when I sprayed the entire piece and it dried together. I suppose if it were watercolor, everything would run. She said gouache is the next closest thing to Chinese watercolor that has glue and doesn’t run. My gouache can be rewetted so I’m not sure if that’s true or not.
I just know that this Chinese ink stick colors, once I diluted the leaf color, I could paint right on top of the original blades and it would sink right behind while the water is still wet and it wouldn’t do a thing to the original blades. And I had fun mixing up the colors with just the blue, green, yellow and red ink sticks that I have.
Iris – Chinese ink and rice paper
This one is done with “borrowing” from Derwent Inktense, applying a wet brush to the pencil. Only a couple of blades, I used the pencil directly on wet. It’s very difficult to borrow for large backgrounds. It took me a while. It’s not as pretty as the Chinese painting.
Iris – Inktense on Canson 90 lbs watercolor paper
Here are two koi fishes in Chinese ink.
Koi Fishes with Chinese ink on rice paper
Here is the borrowing from Derwent Inktense again and I used the Koi waterbrush.
Koi Fishes with Derwent Inktense on Canson 90 lbs watercolor paper.
June 2009
I was too lazy to take out my Chinese art supplies and grabbed my roll of poster paint paper to do quick copies of the work in the books. Yarka watercolor and Chinese prefabricated ink. Chinese brushes.
Previously, I have stained a few patches with coffee and I used that area for this one.
Chinese brush, Chinese ink stick, Japanese thin calligraphy rice paper. It dries superbly surprisingly. It doesn’t wrinkle that much. I haven’t even mounted it.
Sandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 18, 2009 at 3:50 pm #1125699June 2009
Here are my three experiments. All of them, after spraying with water, they didn’t need starching and they are flat after I put it under some books. All are on Japanese rice paper. All the black parts are completed with Chinese ink and brush.
Acrylic paint on rice paper with wash on the whole sheet after all the drawing of leaves and the crane. The colors are bright but I have no problem of it buckiling or tearing the sheet.
Higgins Permanent Ink – red, blue, white plus Chinese ink. I put Higgins white on the crane and when it was drying after I sprayed it, the white was very obvious but the moment it dried, it blended it as though I didn’t paint it. But it is an important step to preserve the white of the weathers. When I did the wash, even when I swiped over the white with background colors, it didn’t affect it at all. The colors are okay. A bit artificial in color.
This last one was done with Derwent Inktense colors on the pencils. I shaved a bit into a plate and put some water in. I guess it’s okay. But very troublesome after a while. I used a wet brush and borrowed some white for the petals but it feels belabored with way too many strokes. At that point, it’d be easier to use ink stick.
These three, I tainted the Japanese rice paper with tea at the back of the sheet after I drew in black and color. Chinese ink, Chinese color inkstick and Chinese brushes.
Bamboo
I didn’t wait for this one to dry completely so I could see how much it would run. It actually looks good to have some run.
Shoreline in fog.
This one, I dabbled more red here and there to enhance the colors other than just the tree.
Chicks
This one is a wet on wet, except the mouth and the legs of the creatures.
Chinese ink stick, color and black, Japanese 6kg sumi paper, Chinese brush.
I gave the male duck on the left a companion on the right.
I’m very happy with this eagle even though it looked a bit frazzled like it was being chased by a bigger enemy and darting away.
I used the Chinese ink stick white to color all the body so that when I painted the backside of the painting with wash, it didn’t take on the blue paint at all. Great concept.
This is the first time I used acrylic white on a Chinese painting. The really bright white is acrylic. The lesser white is Chinese ink stick. The wash is done overleaf.
The book only gave me one mouse on the left but I gave it companions. Guess what is coming their way?
Sandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 18, 2009 at 3:56 pm #1125700August 2009
Here are some of the practice work I did. These are starched later on.
Chinese ink and Japanese rice paper and Chinese brush
By now, I was losing patience.
So, it was time to experiment.
I have a Western waterscape book and I wanted to try them with Chinese ink.
Chinese ink sticks are waterproof once they dried and I could use white ink stick colors as masking fluid or resist. But I was curious at how far I could go with milk.
So here you see, some parts of the blades of leaves on the bottom left are 2% milk first, then black ink over it. Since I didn’t wait till it was totally dry, due to my constant impatience, it didn’t show much. I was thinking of lining some on the verticals but then, Chinese brush could be frayed to replicate that. In fact, the whole painting doesn’t need resist seriously. What was I thinking? So this piece has only the lower left corner with milk. Also, the original is these very detailed waterscape as in all books but with a Chinese brush, I just can’t help splashing ink here and there. I guess once I hold a brush to landscape, I just can’t stop myself from making bolder marks than the very detailed marks of some paintings. I get very impatient with details.
I had some space left and tried another piece. I could see how useful masking fluid/ milk/ white resist makes life so much easier in these cases but by now I feel it’s cheating for some reason.
I tried one more piece and this one really got me thinking. Why do I need to do the resist portions? If I just avoid painting on them, it would leave them white to show snow and water. But I did use milk extensively on the tree trunks and the grass in the foreground. I guess it makes things easier and you could splash more freely once you have laid the milk down for some tinier details as branches.
This one I tried it on Academie Heavyweight Sketchbook. The Chinese ink loses its shine on normal paper and it is more blotchy. But at least it didn’t crinkle as much.
I used Chinese brush and Chinese ink on 130 lbs Pentalic sketchbook here. I’m totally lost as to how to go about doing it. The ink just pooled and it doesn’t absorb as fast as the rice paper albeit it being so much thicker than the rice paper and I couldn’t get dry brush on just when I expect the ink to dry out. Then when I finished with the mountains, I started wondering how do I show fog on this paper. It’s going to be a learning curve.
Then I used Yarka watercolor on rice paper for the huts and the red flowers, Chinese ink and brush for the landscape, and turned it over, wet it with a sponge and dotted blue watercolor all over.
This one has red watercolor on the top and reverse is green and blue watercolor.
This one I thinned Liquitex acrylic paint from a tube. The color blue is so dull compared to the Yarka watercolor. Perhaps it’s because it’s student grade? These two I have to increase saturation in Photoshop to show the blue.
Sandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 18, 2009 at 3:59 pm #1125701The fish has a back wash of water just to flatten the page.
I didn’t starch them but hung them up at the cork board at once while they were wet. It dried very flat almost like the starched ones without the stiffness. But when I scanned it, the cover crunched it up again.
That’s all the Chinese paintings I’ve done so far. I’ll continue to work on them and will post more in future.
You don’t really have to have all the Chinese supplies to do the Chinese paintings. Any paint that could be thinned could achieve similar results.
I often replicate Chinese paintings with charcoal now. I’ll post them tomorrow.
Sandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 19, 2009 at 12:05 am #1125772Ah, already quite a lot of very nice stuff here! Alas, I’m starting my fearsome week of long night shifts again this week, so I’ll only be able to make a proper study of this thread when I come back next week. But have fun, everyone.
To close with, a link to what must the oldest and most classical of classical art, but a form which has produced some great work:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave_painting
I have always liked this, for example:
__________________________
http://brianvds.blogspot.co.za/October 20, 2009 at 9:18 am #1125757Very inspiring, informative and interesting, Sandra. I have some Chinese ink sticks and some brushes…but I have never used them. So I am looking forward to giving this a go very soon.
http://june-walker.pixels.com/
Life beats down and crushes the soul.... and art reminds you that you have one. Stella AdlerOctober 20, 2009 at 6:43 pm #1125702June, yes, please do try them. It’s not as hard as it looks.
Brian, I just got a job today and I’ll be doing swing swift and probably graveyard shift from time to time. How do you keep awake?
I like that horse too. I happened to have a cave painting book and it briefly showed the Altamira cave paintings in Spain. Bisons!! I assume the red is from blood.
http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&sa=1&q=altamira&aq=f&oq=&aqi=g8g-m2&start=0
My youngest son was told that in the US, barns are red because in the beginning, people smeared blood on barns. (I wonder if it was a result of bloodshed or just for decoration.) And since then, most barns are painted red.
Today, I was going through my Persian Art book and understood that while they had cave paintings too, the well preserved ones are mostly the miniatures around 5 to 7 inches in general. There were many styles but initially, most of the art had people at the bottom of the painting. Gradually, they used more space. The more spectacular ones are those that depicted court life. Their script faciliated the smooth lines of their art and yes, they are line art heavy. Lots of gold and opaque colors.
I want to copy a few of the intricate ones.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Persian_miniatureTheir early art was traced back to 1370 and the height of their art was in the 15th and 16th century.
http://www.artarena.force9.co.uk/hpart.html
But here is one that originally was brush, ink, watercolor.
Mu’in Musawwir – A Camel 1678
I used Chinese brush and ink and Bombay India colored ink on Bogus Recycled Rough Paper.
Talking about Persia, I read that the griffin, a protector against evil, first appeared in the Persian empire in 4-5 BC.
I have once drawn a griffin based on this sculpture but now can’t find it. If I find it, I’ll post it.
Sandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 20, 2009 at 11:17 pm #1125703This one is after another Persian painting and it was very delicate but very plain line drawing. I added white highlights and colors to the background with oil pastel, white colorpencil. The lines are Chinese brush and Chinese ink. All small bits of colorings are Bombay colored india ink. Love those inks. So convenient.
Sandra
All Media On-Going Sketching Thread Part 13 at WC!Gallery
[FONT="Georgia"]Bless the LordOctober 21, 2009 at 3:00 am #1125758I love the cave art of animals! I think they used mainly ochres (red, yellow, white) dug up from the earth! Maybe charcoal for the black.
http://june-walker.pixels.com/
Life beats down and crushes the soul.... and art reminds you that you have one. Stella AdlerOctober 21, 2009 at 7:53 am #1125680These are all very beautiful Sandra. The horses are great. There is one of your drawings that has three trees, a feeling I’d love to get with my landscapes.
It’s all new to me, but I think I will give it a try. I’d like to get that looseness.
http://trafford.etsy.com
http://janetmiriamsart.blogspot.com
http://acartoonistsdaughter.blogspot.com -
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