Progress report...

I am still LOVING painting.  It is a nice change of pace.  It adds something new and creative into my everyday life.  I just love Laoshi because his passion for his craft is so apparent.  He said he has so many requests right now for paintings...he is terribly busy and that is on top of all the students he has. 

This is where I am at in my painting progress.  I am painting an identical one simultaneously for the practice.  The other one is not very good.  This is the better of the two so I thought I would share this one ☺

It is not done yet...I just started the flowers today.  It is far from perfect, but I am pretty proud of myself. 

This is what I am really happy about.  I finally got one of Laoshi's paintings!  It is gorgeous.  And his attitude and passion for his art is what make it special as well.  I also think of all he has been through, his love of painting and art being suppressed during the cultural revolution...it is just amazing to me what some people have been through in a lifetime and yet his joy is still so apparent.  He inspires me!

just sitting on the mantel...needs to be hung still

They are peonies in the night

the pictures do not do it justice, but I think you can get a feel for how wonderful Laoshi's work is! 

Sunday stroll...

Sunday after church, my friend and I had lunch and walked around town.  It was a lovely Nanjing day.  The sun was shining, but it was not too hot or humid.  Those days are going to be here soon enough!  She is a Chinese girl who is in college and she loves literature.  She is actually majoring in English and her knowledge of western literature is much larger than mine.  She teaches me also about Chinese cultural and I just love the conversations we have.  She has such a sweet innocence about her that is very refreshing. 

She took me too a book store that is the coolest bookstore I have ever been too.  It is underground and it was just beautiful inside.  I have a couple pics, but will go back and take more.  I only thought about taking pics on our way out, so I only got a couple.

I really liked the way the books were displayed.  It looks like the store must be owned by a Christian because there were two huge crosses hanging on the wall...it was really cool.  They had very few books in English, but I just love books and paper, so that did not matter to me.  ☺  I bought two books.

 I bought Le Petite Prince....a classic and The Border Town, recommended to me by Han Fei, my friend.  I showed it to my language Laoshi today and she agreed.  She said it is a wonderful Chinese love story.  The books are in English characters and Chinese characters.

This is the name of the book store, Librairie Avant Garde.  I will definitely be back and will try and take more pics next time!

Market day...

So unless I have a ton of stuff I need to get at the store, I just take my bike.  I have a grocery store I like that is about 6 miles round trip to get to and a fruit market that is probably 2-3 miles round trip. 

I added these two baskets to the side of my bike and I have a small basket on the front as well, so I can carry quite a bit. 

This is a pic of the fruit and veg market I go to....this is a lady I buy from regularly.

 I bought potatoes and Edamame from this guy.  The bag of potatoes I bought had 7 potatoes in it and it costs 4 Yuan...that is about .64 cents USD.  I am still shocked when they tell me the price, I cannot believe how inexpensive most of the fruits and veggies are!

Strawberries are in season right now and they are so yummy!

Also had some eels at the market...I think they are eels.....ewwwwwww!

And they had some craw-fish or some type of crustacean.

Compare and Contrast...

In the U.S.....this is how our garbage was picked up.

In China....this is how our garbage gets picked up.

I got my eye on you....

Progress report...

I am loving my painting class!  I just love Laoshi.  He is so passionate about his art and it really shows.  I just want to share my progress with you so you can get an idea of how a painting looks beginning to end.

This Pic was from last week

This is my painting this week

Can you see the difference in the leaves.  The color is darker, more bold and the vein on the leaf is starting to be filled in.  It is really cool seeing the painting coming to life.  This is after about 6 or 7 layers of the color.  

 

 

The above pics are the fundamentals of Gong Bei painting that I am still supposed to work on daily at home.  I do work on them at home, but unfortunately not daily.  Even though Laoshi has let me move on to the color phase rather quickly he tells me that I still need to practice my lines at home as often as I can because that is the hardest and most important part of Gong Bei style painting.  Being able to use the brushes properly and to make lines "thin like mouse tail" is extremely important.

Even though I usually have a back ache and a head ache from trying to concentrate so hard, I am still enjoying myself immensely and cannot wait to see what my painting looks like next week!

making Progress....

So I have been going to my painting class for a couple weeks now.  I go twice a week and am loving it.  I like it because most Gong Bei style paintings are inspired by nature and I just love trees, flowers, birds, etc...Below are pictures of the brushes and paints I use.  Laoshi says that the paints are plant based, so they are non toxic and that the brushes are made with real animal hair.  Other ladies asked him if the paint we use is acrylic, oil or water color and see says it is no of those.  That is it just a natural way of painting.  We do mix water with some of the paint, so I kind of see it as closer to water color, but the paintings end up way more intense than traditional water color because you do layer the paint and depending on how much water you use the colors are more or less intense. I guess that is like water color. ☺

I really like it though and was excited that Laoshi graduated me to the next level.   On Tuesday after a couple weeks of just drawing lines, swirlies, circle, etc....He let me trace my first painting.  You trace an existing piece of art with the brush and a little ink and water.  It does take a steady hand because the brushes are very whispy, not stiff like some paint brushes.  And you are supposed to be very fluid when tracing the lines.  I was very happy and proud of myself because Laoshi said I did a very good job.  It is always nice to get good feed back from a teacher. ☺

So this is the beginning of my painting.  It is hard to see because to create the black lines, the ink we use is mixed with water to make very light lines. 

Here is the start of some of the actual painting with colors.  Laoshi has very specific techniques that end up really resembling nature.  Like for these leaves you have to not paint the very inner part because that will be a different color...a bit lighter I think, like the veins on a real tree.  And the underside of the leaves will be different color than the top of the leaves. 

 

When I see Laoshi's paintings I know it is going to take a long time to even get close to the type of work he does.  He was helping my friend paint a bird on her painting and as he was painting the bird just came to life....the way he could draw each individual feather was amazing.  It is really cool and I am excited to share my progress with you.  My friend said she did this painting about 10 times.  Laoshi told me as well to go home and trace this painting again so that I have 2 to practice on.  It is really very fine art and my hand gets very shaky at times when I am trying to concentrate really hard, but I am really enjoying it and am excited to learn more.