The kids were Juniors enrolled in the Mandarin class at this high school. We had about 15 participants and most of them had not held a Chinese brush before. I showed them the steps in painting a ram, as detailed in my last blog "Rehearsal" and here are the results.
The paintings were done on red construction paper for 2 reasons.
Xuan might cause the ink to bleed too much, especially for a novice and construction paper should fare better in this regard. The other reason, a major reason, is that the white native color of Xuan is to be avoided when painting New Year's decoration. White is associated with funerals and only red should be used in joyous festivities. The distinction here is that we were embarking on making New Year's charms rather than pursuing a piece of artwork per se.
Interesting to note that the student of the first painting was distraught that the ink bled too much and the eyes were obscured. So I pointed out to him that in the Xieyi style of brush painting that might not be a bad thing. If anything, the bleeding was more expressive, and allowed the audience to form their own interpretation of the eye orbits.
Also of interest is the second to last painting, where the student pinned a foot long tail to the ram. That anatomical feature is incorrect and was not present in my demo piece. This illustrates an interesting dilemma. Should we paint what we imagined, or paint what we see. In her case, she subscribed to the notion that animals should have a tail.
Finally the last image was by a "perfectionist". When the other students had finished painting and was attempting calligraphy, she was still trying her fourth or fifth attempt, frustrated. I showed her how to slant the brush down such that she could use the belly and the tip to effect a shape, rather than just using the tip alone to form her painting. She was able to put that into practice as evidenced by the ear. Her lines showed good modulation too.
It definitely was a satisfying experience for me. My only regret was I did not take pictures of all the works. I lost track of which works I had documented.
