Website

While it has been in the public sphere for almost two months now, I doubt it is yet found by search engines which seem to concentrate on my blog.

So today might be the right time to redirect you towards the website I created for my paintings... it is still incomplete, and all the dimensions of the paintings are wrong, but it will give you a feel for my complete work.

Any comment/criticism would be very welcome !

So have a look and drop a line for any reason

www.chineseinspirations.com


Cheers

PS: I will keep posting progress here, on the blog, too !

Latest one and monkey in progress

Ohara Koson - Bird serie

Heron in the snow - Ohara Koson

And the last one of the Ohara Koson's bird...

Kingfisher II - Ohara Koson

Lotus...

Seasonal...

(paintings not yet mounted hence their appearance, especially the left one...)

I am so scared of ruining that one that I keep postponing the next step (painting the leaves in green) and instead keep building up the shading... I guess however that I can't do that forever and this afternoon I will be forced to look at my green paints...

Some more koi...

The Christmas holidays haven't yet been as productive as I would have wished them to be. To be honest, I haven't yet painted anything. So here are a few more koi I did just before Christmas...

Snowy kingfisher

Koi and egrets

I do struggle to paint on my own, at home. Yet if I take two days off work specifically to paint, what a pleasure it is ! So last week I took thursday off and friday (11th of november) was public holiday. So I had two days with nothing else to do but paint. And those were two quite productive days. I almost finished a second version of my heron in the snow (the one that sold at the fair), and I did some more birds in the snow (the egrets below copied from a painting of Ohara Shoson, as was the heron) and I did some more koi that I decided to organise as a triptych. A wash is near complete and a gongbi lotus painting is on its way!

First pieces sold...

On the 22-23 october, I took part, for the very first time, in an art and craft fair. I had no idea what to expect, and I didn't know if my artwork would be suited for such a fair.

It turns out that I got extremely good comments, people were super positive about my work, and I even sold 6 pieces ! 2 on the first day (including one I didn't really want to see go, and that was the first one I sold...), and on the second day, one lady bought two pieces in one go ! I couldn't believe it! It gave me such confidence! I will certainly keep painting :)

Here are the ones that have now gone. Let's hope they are enjoyed wherever they are...

Fish

Saturday was all about fish...free style fish...
So on sunday, I rather tried a combination of chinese painting and western watercolour. And here is the result:

Unfortunately, the chop is not really suitable for watercolour paper...
This one is in progress:

And the proper chinese free style gives that...

Original vs traditional

Eagles

The class on saturday was all about eagles. I was really glad to get back to more traditional chinese painting: more freestyle. As much as I love gongbi (the very detailed style), I wish I could do more freestyle, on bigger pieces of paper, and even standing up, why not!
So we started with a few head studies...

And then we went on to copying a variety of eagles of different shapes, in different positions...

I was then "challenged" to drop my beloved gongbi brush (the bottom one) and use not only bigger brushes, but also, what in my view is, a massive piece of paper. I paused and had lunch first, thought about it, and decided to go for it. I cleared the whole table, prepared everything, stood up, and started... I started with the head, and very quickly realised that if I wanted my eagle to fit in the page, it would have to be completely disproportionate. Never mind, here is the result... and I have to say... it was good fun (kitty posing for the scale)!

And I finished the day with a fluffy one :)

Buddhist figures

So far so good...

But it's far too detailed to spend a long time on it...

Finally...

This one definitely won't end up on a wall, but at least, it kept me busy for a little while ;-)

slowly getting there...

Kingfisher

Chang-eh

While browsing through the examples of hare/rabbits in chinese painting that were provided during my last class, I found a painting depicting Chang-eh, the goddess of the moon, with a hare on her laps. I thought the painting was amazing, very delicate, with lots of strong colours...
Knowing that I had two days off the following week, and thinking about the meters and meters of thin silk I had at home, I decided I needed a copy of this painting ...
I usually really struggle to paint at home, alone, but when it comes to painting on silk, it is such a pleasure, that it doesn't matter if I am part of a group or not.
So I spent yesterday afternoon (3 and a half hours) doing the contours and almost all the colouring. I spent two hours today finishing the clouds, painting them, adding the moon and a sort of wash that I am not extremely pleased with.... but never mind, nothing I can do now! And here is the result...

The picture is not great as the silk is quite wrinkled, shiny, and trying to take a pic with artificial light at 6.00pm is not great anyway!

A very quickly drawned horse...