Learning about Chinese art techniques

In June 2017 my son Jacob announced he was getting married. In July. In Hong Kong. Whilst very unexpected and sudden it was marvellous to celebrate his wedding!

Whilst out there I admired some images of traditional Chinese Art, particularly bamboo, and thought wouldn’t it be marvellous too if I could find out a little about some of the techniques they use. So I searched on my phone and found what seemed to be a group of Chinese artists and emailed enquiring about a lesson, not really expecting a response, let alone that it would be possible to have a lesson within the 4 days we had there after the wedding. But I did get a response, from an excellent artist called Winn Siu Davies http://www.asiacontemporaryart.com/artists/artist/Winnie_Davies/Waiting18166/en/

I am glad that as I only had a phone I could not take a good look at all her fantastic work, and impressive cv, before I had the lesson (on the morning of the day we were to fly home in fact) as I would have too in awe to have the confidence to try it!

Winnie was great. She showed me all the traditional materials: brushes, ink and traditional mulberry paper. The ink in fact used now is Japanese as the Chinese lost the skills for making following the Communist Revolution. But most of all she showed me some key brush strokes. As requested we concentrated just on the bamboo in the lesson. Afterwards, I bought all the materials, including special watercolour paint and teaching book (in English!). Then we flew back. Since returning to the UK I have been practising a Chinese style a lot, supported by Winnie on What’s App. I have brought colour into some of the works. I have put mounts on some of the more successful ones and purchased frames for them. At the time of writing this (August 2017) some of my works are on display for sale in the Ipswich and Suffolk Club, for £60 each.

I intend to do more work in this style and hope to get more confident with it. I am helped also a lot by the fact that I have long been interested in Daoism which is the inspiration for much of traditional Chinese painting.

August 2017