Three friends



The Pine Tree



The Bamboo

Three friends of winter. Three pieces of fruit. Three people. Three is one of my favourite numbers, together with seven. I think that two is good, but for some reason, if there are three things, or something happens three times, it seems more concrete. This weekend, I attended a course led by Suzanne Chong on Chinese Brush Painting. It was completely amazing - I really enjoyed it. I never knew bamboo leaves could be so hard to paint or that getting the 5 petals of a plum tree blossom to look good and even is just as difficult. Apparently, the saying is that a plum blossom takes a year to perfect, but bamboo leaves a whole lifetime. The three friends of winter are the pine tree, bamboo and the plum blossom. These plants are a symbol of getting through the hard times; even flourishing and putting forth fruit in the dead of winter. The trees are depicted as old, with tree holes, as this symbolises longevity, strength and power. I definitely learnt that Chinese Brush Painting can look easy, but as soon as I tried it, I realised that it requires a tremendous amount of patience and practise! I also learnt that Xuan paper (raw) absorbs the ink much more readily and gives such a different result to say, standard A4 photocopy paper, that it is sometimes hard to control where the ink bleeds and to get the wash right. Similar to water colours I think - priority - must perfect the consistency of the wash! Here are some of my humble efforts from the weekend.

The Plum Blossom

I also tried oil pastels this week, together with a household candle as a resist for a water colour still life of fruit. I definitely need to do it again, as I messed up the highlights wholeheartedly (didn't have my head screwed on at all this week by any means) and probably went to heavy on the orange (probably because I love orange so much)!  I promise to try again and do a better job of the highlights and resists :).

The Oranges