Double Happiness Studio MH

Yesterday, we welcomed Leicestershire Chinese Brush Painters Group (LCBPG) back to our first in-person workshop of 2021 in a different venue but still within the University of Leicester Botanic Gardens. It was fantastic to be back and to see people in 3D rather than just via a screen. I have really missed you all!

Anyway, with this being the first workshop I thought it was a good opportunity for us to go back to our classical roots (oh dear) and look at trees in Autumn (especially as we have so many fantastic examples in the Botanic Gardens). Here is a prime example of the Botanic Gardens as it was yesterday, which Claire reminded me was perfectly in keeping with Remembrance weekend as the dropped Acer leaves do indeed look like a sea of poppies:

We worked our way through building up our own Autumn trees and I wanted to share some further examples, both to bolster what I was talking about, but also to enhance your homework. I am reminded that there are some great examples in the Mustard seed garden manual. Below are two examples of a tree without its foliage along with another which is classically made up of dots for all those pointillists out there:

The next example is related to how trees are portrayed in classical paintings and the stories in them. I talked briefly about Twin Pines which is one of Zhao Mengfu’s (1254-1322) most famous paintings (painted ca. 1310). A little research will deliver this on the web. However, I thought I would post up probably a lesser known example of Ni Zan’s (1301-1374) Autumn Trees, which I favour:

The next example of classical trees in Autumn comes from Wang Meng, considered to be one of the Four Masters of the Yuan Dynasty (ca. 1308-1385). He was a maternal grandson of Zhao Mengfu:

The final painting I wanted to share is a classic by Guo Xi (1020-1098), Old Trees Level Distance. Note the fabulous knots in the tree trunks along with minimal lines making up such expressive trees:

Here’s hoping this inspires you to place trees at the centre of your paintings. Do post back your inspirations.

Happy Painting,

Paul

I have just finished reading a wonderful book on holiday and thought I would share the details here as I am sure that others interested in all things Chinese would enjoy it. As the blog post suggests it is entitled ‘Stranger in my heart’ and is written by Mary Monro. ISBN 978-1-91158-668-5.

The book was published in 2018 by Unbound and can be found on their site at: https://unbound.com/books/stranger-in-my-heart/. Obviously, it is available on other book sale sites.

It is a wonderful story of, as it states on the front cover, A daughter’s quest to discover the lost world of her father.

Claire originally discovered this book at our holiday let when we went to Shropshire in the Summer. She said I would enjoy it and so it was waiting for an opportunity which came recently when we went up to the Forest of Bowland.

It resonated with me in a number of ways, not least of all because I had travelled in the footsteps of her father, John Monro, in Hong Kong and it filled in a lot of blanks that I had. One that I was surprised about, when I stayed on Mount Davis in Hong Kong, was what looked like pill boxes on the steep hill sides. They were still there in 2002 but I hadn’t realised they had been there since the Second World War. Probably, down to the inaccessibility of some of the countryside.

Mary Monro writes in a very easy to read way which makes the text come alive. She has obviously carried out a phenomenal amount of background research which provides clear motivations for key moments in 20th Century history as well as linking so well to her family’s history.

There is much to recommend this book and I will leave this post with thanks to Mary Monro for sharing her family with us and the synopsis on the back of the book:

John Monro MC never mentioned his Second World War experiences, leaving his daughter Mary with unresolved mysteries when he died in 1981.

He fought at the battle of Hong Kong, made a daring escape across Japanese-occupied China and became Assistant Military Attache in Chongqing. Caught up in Far East war strategy, he proposed a bold plan to liberate the PoWs he’d left behind before fighting in Burma in 1944. But by the time Mary was born he’d become a Shropshire farmer, revealing nothing of his heroic past.

Thirty years after his death and prompted by hearing him described as a ’20th Century great’, Mary began her quest to explore this stranger she’d called Dad…

Enjoy,

Paul

New Opportunities for beginners who want to study Chinese Brush Painting with Paul

UPDATE: Paul’s video for this project is now available on the Attenborough Arts Centre Youtube channel here: Paul’s Chinese Brush and Ink Kit

I have been asked a number of times ‘what have you been doing in lockdown?’. Basically, I have been using the extra time to sort out as much as possible from years of painting along with trying new things, some of which have now come to fruition…

I wanted to flag up a project that has now reached its conclusion and is looking excellent thanks to a wonderful team at the Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester.

Following the successful online Chinese Brush Painting (CBP) workshops around Chinese New Year 2021 I was invited to input into the Attenborough Arts at Home project.

The idea behind this was to create a complete package for absolute CBP beginners in order to give students access to the fascinating and fabulous art of Chinese Brush Painting.

Students can buy a beginners CBP kit which is available through the Attenborough Arts Centre in Leicester. I was able to have input into the kit which is why I am happy to have my name attached to it. Over a period of time in the Spring I filmed a studio quality Introduction to CBP which has been edited and packaged so that when you buy the kit you also receive the film.

It would be the ideal start for anyone who has not had the chance to go through a formal introduction to the art of Chinese Brush Painting but is keen to see what all the fuss is about.

Should you, or any of your friends or students, take up this introduction do please let me know what you think and any thoughts about next steps as I am always keen to help make the art of Chinese Brush Painting accessible to all.

Happy Painting and all best wishes,

Paul

Well, madness overcame us this weekend. That, and a genuine desire to see something beautiful. I’d say we managed it…

The Blakeney CBP Group who we have been working with for some time now are currently holding their next painting exhibition and we decided to go and see it. We were a bit naughty as we didn’t tell them and just decided to turn up. Poor Chris, I think we gave her the shock of her life! Anyway, here is Claire with Chris at the wonderful Cley Marshes Visitor Centre once she had recovered a little:

We can thoroughly recommend you to go and see it – the exhibition is on until Wednesday 26th May 2021. If you’re nearby and fancy a dose of Chinese Brush painting culture please go – there is a wonderful selection of paintings and cards on offer, at very decent prices, from a thriving CBP group, in a fabulous location. There is also great coffee and cake to be had along with big skies which is what Norfolk does so well:

We were lucky enough to add extra culture to our stay too. One of the gems of the Norfolk Coast is a fabulous gallery at Glandford dedicated to Birds which I always drag Claire to if we are over that way. The range of artists and paintings that they have on show is always inspiring so here’s a shameless plug for The BIRDscapes Gallery whose website is linked here.

We are not going to pretend it was easy to find somewhere to stay – it was not. However, we managed to be COVID safe all weekend, thanks to excellent Norfolk hospitality, which was all we could hope for. And we managed to get away from the incessant rain for a short while:

A big thank you to the Blakeney CBP group for providing a well needed dose of spiritual uplift. It was wonderful to see you and your excellent work and we cannot wait to be back painting with you. Well done and keep on growing…

All best wishes,

Paul & Claire

Spoiler alert: I will be revealing the 2021 Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year as part of this blog post. If you have not been able to see the final and intend to watch it, please read no further at this time.

Last weekend (Saturday 27 March 2021) I was honoured to be asked to present my perspective on ‘Chinese Landscapes I love’ to the Chinese Brush Painters Society. In the end this turned into ‘Influential Chinese Landscape Paintings’, still with the above as a subtitle. I decided that as we were going to have the presentation over Zoom that we had opportunity to look at a very few paintings in some great detail. I, therefore, ended up in the middle of the Northern Song Dynasty (960 – 1127AD) looking at just two Artists with a couple of asides.

The first is the fabulous Guo Xi (1020 – 1098) who was a master of Landscape Painting. He produced many stunning art works, some of which I was very lucky to be able to see when I visited the National Palace Museum in Taipei, Taiwan.

The painting of Guo Xi’s that I chose to look at was Early Spring which he produced in 1072 and is considered one of the great masterpieces of the Northern Song monumental landscape tradition.

Among many fascinating facts about this piece is that Guo Xi developed a strategy of depicting multiple perspectives called “the angle of totality”. This is one of the reasons why the piece has such aesthetic beauty and why it retains its enduring appeal almost one thousand years later:

The second artist I looked at was Wang Ximeng (1096-1119). His painting is: ‘1000 Li of rivers and mountains (千里江山圖)’. Measuring 51.5 cm high by 1,191.5 cm wide, this sweeping ink-and-colour on silk scroll painting is his only remaining work.

Stretching nearly 12 meters in length, Wang’s masterpiece is impossible to take in all at once and because of its size there is no way I can show the whole painting here as it would simply be too small to see anything (I did try) so I present the tiniest section as a taster. You can actually see a lot more on Wang Ximeng’s Wikipedia entry which I would encourage you to visit:

The painting can be roughly divided into six sections. Each section is linked with detailed images of lakes, boats, cottages, pavilions, bridges and many many figures. However, the focus of each section is invariably its striking blue and green mountains.

Again, this stunning piece has multiple perspectives and is endlessly fascinating to look at because of this.

Since its creation around 1113AD, “Qianli Jianshan Tu,” or “A Thousand Li of Rivers and Mountains,” has been held up as a masterpiece of traditional Chinese painting. But here is a wonderful reminder that just as stunning as the painting itself is the fact that it was created by a teenager. This always reminds me that we must make space to encourage the next generation of painters.

In which case I now turn my attention to something absolutely brand new and that is the 2021 Sky Arts Landscape Artist of the Year.

After watching a wonderful series, Claire and I were watching the final Commission episode where the winner, Ophelia Redpath, spent time in an area I walked many years ago. It was wonderful to watch the process of her creating her commission but it was when it was unveiled that it became clear that she was absolutely the best person to have won this competition. Her enduring landscape of Dinas Oleu relies, as the Chinese works above also do, on multiple perspective and her interpretation of the beautiful Welsh landscape is sublime. The addition of the Kite is also perfect. I do not believe I will grow tired of looking at this painting as there is so much in it. Like Chinese Landscape paintings it draws you in and I am conscious of stories unfolding in its landscape:

I hope you have enjoyed the above paintings and can take something from them to spur you on with your own Landscapes…

Happy Painting,

Paul

Moving on from the Year of the Ox, Reg came up with our next theme which was that of Transport. This proved to be a wide ranging topic which started with Oxen and ended up in all sorts of paintings.

I decided I wanted to explore the subject of rickshaws and the first painting, below, was inspired by a photograph of a sleeping modern rickshaw driver. I really enjoyed painting this as a study and learnt about the mechanism of a modern rickshaw:

This enabled me to use this knowledge in my second painting. This, too, was inspired by a photograph of a rickshaw rank in a street in old Beijing but I completely changed the framing of this painting to give it a more Chinese perspective rather than keeping with the perspective in the photograph. I also made sure that there were an auspicious number of rickshaws (eight) disappearing in to the distance in the painting. The Calligraphy on their red covers is an impression of Chinese Calligraphy rather than something specific:

There now follow a couple of wonderful paintings on an even more contemporary theme. This is what Pat has to say about her paintings:

“Coasthopper buses run along the North Norfolk Coast between Wells-next-the-Sea and Sheringham and are much loved by visitors, walkers, bird watchers and locals. They pass Cley Windmill and Norfolk Wildlife Trust Cley and Salthouse Marshes, where Blakeney CBP Group hold regular exhibitions of their work. It is delightful to look out from the Gallery, to watch these sturdy little buses, bouncing along the coast road, bringing visitors.”

I hope this inspires you to think of other types of transport which you could paint…

Happy painting,

Claire

What a fabulous evening we have just had! Before Christmas the CBP Challengers group set ourselves the challenge of Seals and we have just seen some of the best Chinese paintings of an unconventional subject that we could imagine. Well done to everyone who contributed and thank you.

Unfortunately I cannot share all of the wonderful work but we have been given permission to share some of the paintings…

Please note that the Calligraphy for a range of sea mammals is available on our blog post: Calligraphy – Sea mammals.

First up are a couple of paintings by Reg. Both are a play on words which fits the Chinese tradition so well:

Next are a couple of paintings from Claire. The first painting is of a baby seal and concentrates on the texture of the seals’ skin. It also explores the head looking straight at the viewer (which is by far the hardest composition) although the eyes are looking at something off the painting:

Claire’s second painting explores more of the flopping movement of a seal/sealion when they move on the beach. Particular note was paid to the flippers:

Kim was the brains behind the challenge as she proposed Seals/ Sea-lions/ Walruses. She painted some wonderful seals but the piece I wanted to include was this fabulous one of a group of Walruses:

My painting was inspired by the excellent paintings of the 10th century Chan painter, Shi Ke who lived during the 5 dynasties period. His work was featured in the stunning ‘Masterpieces of Chinese Painting 700 – 1900‘ exhibition which took place a few years ago at the V&A Museum in London. In Shi Ke’s paintings, chiefly of Buddhist and Daoist subjects, he set out in the Chan manner to shock the viewer through distortion and roughness of execution. I hoped to capture the essence of that with the following painting:

I was going to formally entitle this piece ‘Harmony’ after the original which has the title ‘Two Chan Patriarchs harmonising their minds’. However, Claire reminded me that it would be probably be more in keeping with the Chan mindset to not put a title on the painting. I purposely painted this painting on grass paper in keeping with the age and tradition of the original work. You may also notice the addition of a moon with a very misty Rat Dragon cloud in the sky denoting coming toward the end of the Year of the Rat…

It is worth noting that the book of the Masterpieces exhibition where we got to see Shi Ke’s work is available online through this search.

Some of you may recognise that I have done something similar in the past. You would, of course, be correct as I have been inspired by the works of Shi Ke many times. For those who are interested in this fascinating artist please also see my other blog post entitled: Be bold

We trust that something here may cheer you up and inspire you while we are stuck in lockdown.

Happy Painting and Keep safe,

Paul

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

During 2020 it became more and more obvious that we were not going to be able to run workshops for our Leicestershire Chinese Brush Painters (LCBP) group. After a deal of thought Paul devised a Google Meet challenge for the group on a fortnightly basis to keep us linked together and provide a focus for our painting practice.

I thought it may be of interest to look at the results of one of these challenges. Anyone in the group can suggest the topic for the next challenge and subjects have been wide-ranging. At first glance, not all have been popular but, my word, have they produced some excellent work and different takes on subjects. We have all used different and varied stimuli, including Google images and Pinterest, as well as our own reference books, photographs and local observation. I must admit the topic of ‘Umbrellas’ was not immediately attractive to me but I decided to try and find an example I could work from. I eventually found a few from Chinese folk art sources (see below) and tried to paint them in a different style.  I painted the above picture in haste and on a very rainy, miserable day!! I think my energies are evident…

Below is the example of Chinese Folk Art I used for my first painting above:

When the actual Google Meet session took place I was amazed at how differently the individuals in the group had interpreted the topic. There were paintings of collections of decorative umbrellas as seen from below, there were figures of elegant women and rotund monks carrying umbrellas/parasols and there were even bats, whose structure of their wings echoed the structure of the spokes of an umbrella!

Another member of the group extended this topic into the next one and produced a field of pumpkin tops looking very much like umbrellas! Sue decided to paint a wealth of different umbrellas which were all for sale:

I became so engrossed with this subject and the potential for use of shapes, colours and patterns that I recently painted another more detailed version shown here:

We have found the sharing of our work and research has urged us on to painting out of our comfort zones and it really has challenged us.

Thus, we found yet again that a topic which did not initially inspire some of us, turned out to be one of the most stimulating. This was not the only subject which has led us to greater things.

Please feel free to use any of these examples to copy or extend and we hope you will experience the same thirst for further exploration of this topic as we did.

Happy New Year!

Claire Seaton

In preparation for a new challenge I thought I would post up the Chinese Calligraphy for a few different sea mammals that we were considering painting…

We started our thinking with consideration of painting a seal. However, this has taken a little finding as ‘seal’ in Chinese has quite a different meaning i.e. a chop for ‘sealing’, or completing a painting.

I think I have now found it but if you know a short-hand version or something more specific please do let us know by replying to this post.

A lot of sea mammals start their name with a very literal ‘sea’:

From what I have discovered, a generic seal is regarded quite literally as a sea leopard (or panther):

The next variant surely must be the sea lion, which again is literally what it says:

Above is the simplified Calligraphy. If you would prefer the traditional Calligraphy this is shown below. You will notice that sea (or ocean) is the same whether traditional or simplified:

Finally, some people were interested in painting a walrus. This fits in beautifully with this sequence as it is literally a sea elephant in Chinese:

I trust you have fun painting your sea mammals. Please do post any inspirations as we would love to see them.

Happy painting and keep safe.

Best wishes,

Paul

It has been quite a while since we have updated the Blog. This hasn’t meant that we’ve not been painting. Far from it! It’s simply meant that we’ve been trying to spend less time on the computer and more time in the studio…

Challenges 6 & 7 have both been about working on Contemporary paintings and in particular have looked at the work of Wu Guanzhong who is a highly recognised contemporary artist in China. Challenge 6 was to take something of his and recreate it. Challenge 7 was then to move this on and paint something that we found in our area in his style.

One of the best pieces from the challenge is Claire’s plunge Waterfall. This embodies Wu’s style while also reflecting Claire’s own. Her painting is shown below:

This isn’t to say that there wasn’t some other wonderful work produced. There certainly was! If you have been inspired by Wu Guanzhong and wish to post up some of your responses to this challenge please let us know.

Happy painting,

Paul