The demo by Jean Turton on Chinese brush painting of flowers was well attended by forty two members and four guests.

 

Jean, a knowledgeable and talented artist, gave an initial talk on the history of this art form, and how it started long before most of our other art mediums.  This means it doesn't follow the standard art ethos of today. She also explained "the four treasures of the study" essential to the art form. These are flat ink stones to grind your ink; ink sticks made with either pine, oil or red mercury oxide base for grinding (ready made ink is available); soft round brushes made of various animal hair; and Shuan paper, made of bamboo fibres and sometimes mulberry to make it stronger.  Some of these can be seen in the pictures below.

 

Jean used a freestyle painting method to paint flowers, with an image in her head rather than a pre-drawn image on the paper. The large round sheep hair brush was loaded with white then another darker colour was added to the tip only. Pressing the brush carefully on the paper with a little twist created perfect two tone petals. Leaves were created using the shape of the brush itself to create the image. All paint soaked into the paper immediately and being Chinese ink and water colours, they didn't run into each other and dried within fifteen minutes.

 

Beautiful pictures were created, then Chinese calligraphy was added and a red "chop" stamp, which identified the creator. Her four paintings were based on Spring, Summer, bamboo and a cat for fun in the last five minutes. This was an informative and surprising demo. "Do you know what it is yet?" very often came to mind!

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Sarah Downing

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