As Claire has stated in her most recent blog post, we have carried out a lot of very interesting Chinese Brush Painting Challenges throughout 2020. The last few before Christmas seemed to come in like machine gun fire which meant for not a lot of thinking time – sometimes not a bad thing!
Below is a quick amalgamation of the last few challenges to give ideas should you get stuck for some inspiration. Please post back if you are inspired and if you take any of these in a different direction…
Challenge 8: Bird and Boat
As usual there were many variations on this theme. For this Challenge I was reminded of time on the South West Coastal path near Wembury. I was inspired by a beautiful spot on the coast looking to ‘Shag Stone’ where the Cormorants and Shags gather to fish in the sea…
Challenge 9: Umbrellas
Claire has written a blog about this one here: Our ‘Umbrella’ Challenge
Challenge 10: Fungi
I have to say that this Challenge ended up being an unexpected pleasure with so much variation from everyone. I went back to my research of past paintings to put together something classic. I brought together a Pine Tree for Longevity together with other Longevity symbols such as the Tai Hu rock and the Ganoderma Fungi. This I painted on grass paper to get the soft shades of grey:
Challenge 11: Mist & Challenge 12: Festive Trees and Rats
I think it is safe to say that Mist is probably the biggest Challenge subject for any painter so it was an excellent subject to have a go at as any chance to practice mist is not wasted for the Landscape painter. I decided to combine my research with our last subject of the year to give a misty Landscape with festive trees. In our Challenge 11 call I had discussed stylised cloud and mist so thought it was best to give a new example on a traditional theme. The title of this piece is literally Misty Pine Mountain however the character I chose for Misty literally means Indistinct:
I hope you have enjoyed these Challenge pieces. As I said earlier should you be inspired by any of these please feel free to Comment back at any time.
Here’s thanking everyone who took part in any of the Challenges and wishing all of us a Happy 2021 and excellent painting opportunities.
Best wishes,
Paul
Double Happiness Studio MH 