Special Subjects: Beginning Chinese Brush

By Monika Cilmi

With comprehensive instruction and artist tips and tricks, Special Subjects: Beginning Chinese Brush is the perfect resource for beginning artists. Explore and experience this traditional medium!

Special Subjects: Beginning Chinese Brush teaches aspiring artists everything they need to know to get started creating Chinese brush paintings. From choosing brushes to painting techniques, composition, and development, Special Subjects: Beginning Chinese Brush is bursting with valuable skills and lessons to help you learn how to use this traditional medium.

Artist Monika Cilmi guides you through an exploration of a variety of step-by-step Chinese brush paintings, covering basic concepts and techniques, such as different brushstrokes, as well as how to blend traditional methodswith your own personal style. Building on these introductory techniques, you can practice your craft with projects that cover a variety of subjects, including birds, flowers, and traditional landscapes. This is one tool that no artist will want to be without!

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 1, 2017
• ISBN: 9781633224056

Book preview

BEGINNING CHINESE BRUSH

Walter Foster

Chinese brushwork is an ancient art form that developed hundreds of years ago in China and is now very popular with artists all over the world. It captures the essence of nature and expresses the feelings of the artist. The animal and flower subjects symbolize good fortune, good luck, wisdom, renewal, purity, and more. In Chinese brush painting, each brushstroke has its own spirit and moves in that moment; it cannot be improved or corrected. Rather than sketch or outline, the artist holds the subject in mind and transforms that image into reality using quick and instinctive strokes. To the artist, the whole painting becomes part of the subject itself and, therefore, part of nature. —Monika Cilmi

CONTENTS

Tools & Materials

Getting Started

Shape and Contour

Adding Color

Practicing Brushstrokes

Playing with Hues

Capturing Patterns

Creating a Composition

Building Texture

Rendering Foliage

Using Large Strokes

Painting with Nuance

Enriching Detail

Focal Point

TOOLS & MATERIALS

The materials used for Chinese brush painting are called the Four Treasures: brush, paper, ink, and ink stone.

BRUSHES

Chinese brushes are made of animal hair glued into a bamboo handle. New brushes are stiffened to protect the fibers.

Brushes contain either a single type