At a recent exhibition some visitors ask me "what are those little circles?". They are referring to my Red Cliffs Nostalgia painting.
Apparently they are not familiar with the impressionistic representation of leaves on trees/shrubs in the genre of Chinese Brush. This way of expression is actually extremely common in Chinese Brush landscape paintings. I assumed that everybody is well versed in it and never gave it a second thought, until now that is.
There are numerous examples of how to paint trees, shrubs, leaves in the Mustard Seed Garden, a gold standard reference book for students of Chinese Brush painting. For those who are familiar with this text I would be guilty of preaching to the choir. For those who are strangers to the reference, allow me to illustrate some examples from the book. I tried to research corresponding material in English and I couldn't come up with any, but I did come across terminology that is alien to me, terms like lanceolate, reniform, orbicular, sagittate. Well, you get the picture.
Aside from using the disc shape, there are other shapes that are utilized; some are more readily relatable than others. The attached reminds me of aspen, alder and ginkgo leaves.
Simple lines can be used to depict leaves. The following example illustrates using upward bowing and downward bowing lines:
How about simple vertical or horizontal brushstrokes:
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