Chrysanthemum leaves practice

Chrysanthemum is one of the Four Gentlemen. This flower, along with bamboo, plum and orchid are usually become basic training subject in sumi-e or ink brush painting. It was hard for me to take on this lesson for several reasons. The first is probably because I am not familiar with this beautiful flower and plant. I have no direct observation necessary in catching the spirit of the flower. So, all I did was downloading photos from different internet resources, spending quite some times on staring at the pictures, and doing the exercise. This is one of my exercise with chrysanthemum;

Bamboo obsession.

I am probably obsessed to this image; full moon and bamboo twigs against it. 

Admiring strength, persistence and loyalty.

Along with pine and plum, bamboo is one of Three Friends of Winter. In chinese tradition, bamboo gains great admiration for its characters. It remains green even in coldest winter, has apparent strength and flexibility at the same time. While most trees lose their leaves and many turn dormant, bamboo keeps growing. Bamboo symbolizes strength, loyalty and persistence.

I painted this as an exercise while my heart was admiring all of good characters bamboo represents throughout the seasons and years.

Bamboo

Bamboo, doodled while Euro 2012 is on tv. Brush pen on plain paper.

Bamboo shading

The first sumi-e book I bought was Kay Morrissey Thompson's "The Art and Technique of Sumi-e". Written on the base of Ukai Uchiyama teaching, Thompson focuses more on monochrome painting. However, it was Jean Long's book "Chinese Ink Painting, Techniques in Shades of Black" that tells me much more about the subject. I painted the image as an exercise in shading.

Calligraphy learning

After four months of training, I feel like making no significant progress in sumi-e techniques. I might be wrong but I believe this is because I don't have  the essential skills in calligraphy. And I undertake to learn calligraphy. Some friends are doubtful and said, "Aren't you too late to learn calligraphy? It takes years to master the techniques." Yes, they probably right. It takes years to master the techniques. But, I don't really care about it. I just have and love to do it. 

Wild orchid

Wild orchid, painted at the lunchbreak during a workshop on disaster response in Jogjakarta, May 2012. Brush pen, HVS paper.