I studied the painting for a few weeks, and decided I would try to copy the painting, using my understanding of Gou, Chuen, Ts'a, R'an. I started out with charcoal sticks on Xuan paper, developing my lines and rubbings with charcoal. I then used the coffee that I was drinking as a pigment to process the lines and shading, to get that sepia look. Ink was used to further enhance the lines and the shaded areas. Raw Xuan paper turned out to be a perfect media for this endeavor.
It took on the charcoal nicely, and by paying attention to the stray (excess) charcoal dust, one can incorporate them into a nice gradient when applying the wash. The thick lines give thickness to the image and help to bring a 3 dimensional feel to the drawing, as was discussed in how to paint contour lines in my landscape blogs.