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