New Branches

[Lake]

My first practice before going to my first class. Not proud of it but very excited.

[Antcliff]

Good luck! I can't draw a triangle.

I love the way they are all looking at each other. Sweet.

Seth

[nar]

Best of luck, Lake.

The flowers are slightly better than the birdies IMHO, but both are great. It's all far better than anything I could do.

Kindest,

- Neil

[Macavity]

Hi Lake,
The images conveyed spring, with blossom and buds about to open. I wasn't sure about the scale. The birds/chicks seem heavy/large in some way compared to the petals. Perhaps you were trying to convey the clumsiness of chicks? I like the colour of the blossom, the way the branch angles to give depth.

What tools/technique are you using?

hope to see more

cheers

mac

[delph_ambi]

Lovely. Charming picture.

[Lake]

Hello All,

From reading your comments, I'm sure you all know art better than I do . This is my very first one, a lot of things are not correct.

Seth, I can't even draw a straight line! Glad you liked the way the chickens are communicating.

Neil, yes, the birds are clumsy. I don't have any basic sketch treaining which might be a main factor.

Mac, pleased you asked the question. When I said a lot of things are wrong at the beginning, I mean I didn't have the right tools drawing this picture, they were all substitutes. It is called free hand brushwork, or literal style painting or whatever you call it. The tools are big, medium, small and super small size of brushes made of goat hair, wolf hair and even badger hair. And the black ink. The paint should be a specialty, too. Since I'm not equipped with the tools and materials, I used watercolors instead and only two sizes of brush to complete the job that requires four. Even the paper is rumpled. It is rice paper or sumi rice paper called by Japanese.

Delph, glad you think it is lovely. This is very very beginner. I could not draw your kind of pictures that require strong skills in sketch. So I am going the other way. I really enjoy doing it and hope I can make some progress. This might be an expensive hobby, yes?

Thank you all for your encouragement.

Lake

[delph_ambi]

Lake, if you don't have the right type of black ink you can make a good substitute by grinding up some sticks of charcoal and mixing with water. Ordinary watercolours will work for colour. So long as you have rice paper and a few of the correct brushes, you have all you need. Rice paper always rumples - don't worry about it! Brush technique is what matters. Master the basic strokes. They matter far more than sketching technique in this type of painting.

[marten]

Lake, this is really good. Pretty impressive in fact. I think the blossoms look great. I think the ground that the chicks are standing on could use a little more definition, and the color is not my favorite, but I do like how that color is repeated around the branches for balance.

What does the kanji say in the top left?

I hope we get to see more!

Marten

[Macavity]

and even badger hair.

Now I know the culprit!

[Lake]

Hi Delph,

Thank you for your professional advice. Yes, you are right, I need to master the basic strokes. In the future, I think I still need to learn some sketching techniques which I think are the basic skills for whatever type of drawings, they can only improve one's works.

Hi Marten,

You have a good eye. The ground color is not right, I don't have the required color, so just used the leftover around the branches. The characters are usually the title of the drawing (sometimes, there might be a few lines of verse), the date, place and the name of the person who draws it. You reminded me that I need to get a stamp with my name on it (when a work is done, the artist will always stamp it, making it authentic).

Hi Mac,

I didn't know there is such kind of brush untill the teacher told me, that made me smile.

Thank you all.

Lake