This is a downloadable recording of Amaryllis Calligraphy and Gongbi Painting ZOOM Workshop with Victoria Li in October 2022. It is now available for purchase. You may download it or watch it online, and you may also sumit your finished work for critique by email.
Subject Matter: Amaryllis Flower
The poetic inscription is: 好花知时节 “A good flower knows its season well”. The gongbi painting reference sample is from the most authoritative textbook-the Gongbi Flower Paintings by 3 Masters. The artist of this amaryllis painting is the famous gongbi artist Tian Shiguang(1916-1999).
Class Description
Gongbi elaborate-style painting is a kind of art that, when you watch others doing it, it looks tedious and boring, but, when you do it yourself, it’s very meditating and relaxing. Although it is time consuming to finish a Gongbi painting, the success rate is much higher than free-hand painting. The techniques you gain from Gongbi practice will provide a solid foundation for other styles of brush painting.
Class Format
1) Calligraphy practice in four styles: Standard, walking, cursive, clerical. The calligraphy session will be inserted while we wait for the painting to dry between each layers.
2) Basic Gongbi Painting Skills
(a)To learn how to hold two brushes in one hand (one brush with color; the other with clean water) for color shading.
(b)Learn the basic techniques of ink outlines;
(c)Study 3 basic ways of color washing: 1) Separated washing; 2) glazing, 3. Highlighting.
3) Work on the entire sample painting, starting from ink outline.
4) Critic in class for each student no matter how much you have finished.
The reasons to study calligraphy and Gongbi painting together in a workshop:
1. They both emphasize on line quality, so it will benefit each other in terms of brush control.
2. The coloring of Gongbi painting is very similar to western style watercolor painting, but they are quite different in composition and brush strokes. Chinese brush calligraphic and gongbi painting will make your watercolor painting more exquisite.
You may need some more time after class to refine the painting, and for calligraphy, you need to practice more and then to put it on the painting.
Material list:
1) None-absorbent Sized Xuan Paper: For each workshop I will use 2 pieces of 13.5’’x 9" sized Xuan paper.
Cicada-wing-sized-xuan is highly recommended for easy tracing and more sized in getting sharper lines: https://www.blueheronarts.com/cicada-wing-sized-xuan-paper-gongbi-painting-27x545-p-2497.html
2) Brushes:
One liner brush: Renbo Nian's Brush: https://www.blueheronarts.com/bonian-small-wolf-sheep-mixed-hair-brush-p-3835.html
Or Seven-wolf-three-sheep brush: https://www.blueheronarts.com/seven-wolf-three-sheep-combination-brush-p-868.html
In addition to the liner you need three Basic brushes: one soft hair for water, one stiff brush for color, and a small for details. https://www.blueheronarts.com/basic-three3-chinese-painting-brushesall-p-22.html
3) Color and ink :
Marie’s 12 color tubes:
https://www.blueheronarts.com/marie-color-chinese-painting-colours-small-p-107.html
Ink: https://www.blueheronarts.com/chinese-calligraphy-sumi-painting-100g-p-4190.html
4) Light box : 9.5’’X12’’ (optional)
