Third workshop at the Garden

For my third workshop, I had a plan to showcase one of the Garden’s Taihu stones as the star attraction. These stones are made from limestones found in Lake Tai in Suzhou, China. They’re known for their unique pores and holes, along with their strange shapes and appearances, making them popular choices for decorating formal gardens or courtyards.

Working with rocks and stones can be tricky, but it’s also rewarding. You need to get the right amount of chuen (wrinkle) and ts’a (rubbing) to create the illusion of texture and unevenness on the surface.

I also wanted to mention that I’ve found the Sketchbook app to be a really helpful tool for my workshops. The layers format allows me to move and resize different landmarks to create my paintings. It’s like having a real-time argument about how the placement of objects affects the overall feel of the painting.  

The Taihu stone that I have chosen resembles a person with a backpack.

I’ve got a fun idea for the workshop. I’m going to lead the participants to the spot where they can get a view of the stone. The avatar of a backpacking person however can only be perceived from a certain angle, and I’m curious to see how many people spot it. It’ll be a real eye-opener!

The backdrop of this painting would be the teahouse in the Garden.

I am going to use one of the examples of trees from Mustard Seed Garden to replace the tree in front of the building.  I want to expose the workshop to the materials from the Mustard Seed Garden.

With the aid of the Sketchbook app, I can turn on and off the different layers to demonstrate the composition of the proposed painting.

The actual photo of the Garden:

Extracted backdrop:

Trees from Mustard Seed Garden superimposed on the photo:

My person with a backpack takes up the lower left corner:

I am doing a proof of concept painting using a semi-sized Xuan paper.  My rationale is that the sizing makes the paper more forgiving, especially for the novices in the workshop.

Unfortunately I am not getting the Chuen and Ts'a effects to show up.  The sizing allows the water and ink to sit on the paper longer, thus minimizing the contrast.  Change of plan.  I'll have to bite the bullet and use the regular unsized Xuan, and hope for the best.

My practice Taihu stones definitely have more pop now.  The brushstrokes are more evident.

Fast forward to the workshop, the following picture shows what was actually painted in class, in a span of 90 minutes.  90 minutes of visual aids, vertical panting on an easel and explaining.  It was worth it.