Heron in the snow - Ohara Koson

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

Kingfisher II - Ohara Koson

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!

From botanical illustrations to chinese painting

As far as I remember, I have always loved drawing or painting, but I never had any proper class. When I was a kid, probably around 11 years old, I won a drawing contest. The price was a voucher to spend some money in an art shop. I used that money to buy some watercolours... that was my first introduction to this technique.

I have always found old botanical illustrations absolutely fascinating. You know, the kind of drawings explorers would bring back from their travels around the world... an interesting mix between art, science and travels: probably my three passions in life ! So I naturally started painting flowers, with more or less success!

When I was living in Australia (between 2003 and 2006), I enrolled in a botanical illustration workshop over a week end. A week end is far too short, but I absolutely loved it! The setting (a kind of first floor glasshouse within one of the CSIRO buildings in Canberra), the people, the atmosphere... it was great ! And during this workshop, I produced this picture on the right.

When I moved from Australia to the UK in 2006, I started investigating for a similar class... but couldn't find any. Instead, I found a class entitled 'oriental watercoulour'.

I have to admit that I had to do a bit a web search to find out what that was about. Still not quite sure about the content of the class and still not knowing what 'oriental watercolour' meant, I decided to give it a go... and that's how I discovered Chinese brush painting...