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Spring is well and truly here and with it glorious blossoms. If it inspires you to paint your own composition from life, please tell us about it and show us the results. It would be good to share experiences and especially to see your compositions from life. This newsletter contains reports of the workshops run by both Nick and Shuhua. Once again, I hope they act as a reference for those who were able to attend and as inspiration for those who were not present. The workshops were all well attended and inspirational. Sadly, despite my good intentions, I am yet to pick up a brush to ‘have another go’! However, if you do, please share your results with the rest of the group by sending me an email with details and a photograph. Brian has sent us some information on paper cutting and hopes to provide us with more articles for future newsletters. I hope you find it inspiring and that you will take up your scissors and knives and get cutting! As you will probably know, the workshops for LeiLei in May are over-subscribed and have a waiting list. If, however, you have booked a place and find that you cannot attend, please let me know so that I can allocate it to someone else. If you have not booked, let me know if you want to come and I will add you to the waiting list. I am sorry that we will have to disappoint some members, but I will try to produce a full report so that, if you were not there, you are aware of what happened. I am enclosing the notice for Angela’s June workshops with this newsletter. If you wish to attend, please return the booking slip promptly so that we can allocate you a place. The only exhibition that I have heard of related to CBP is the one in the Ashmolean. If you hear of any others, please let me know so that I can print details in the next newsletter for the benefit of everyone. Happy reading! Anne

Poster We have a poster advertising the Group. Let me know if you can display one for us.

Welcome We would like to David Wilson (Sheffield); Maureen Surgey (Altrincham); Rita Threlfall (Sale); Sylvia Tiffin (Sale); Beverley Mucenieks (Crofton, Wakefield); Anne Grundy (Sandal, Wakefield) as new members. We hope that you will enjoy your membership and look forward to welcoming you to future workshops.

We will soon be planning the content of our workshops for next year. Please let me or any of the committee have your ideas.

Sunday 12 January 2014

Buildings and Boats in the Landscape

Nick Hornigold

Saturday 25 January 2014

Flowers with bird in gongbi style

Anne Allan

Saturday 22 February 2014

AGM

Reading calligraphy

Brian Morgan

CChhiinneessee BBrruusshh PPaaiinntteerrss’’ SSoocciieettyy ((YYoorrkksshhiirree))

April 2015

Issue 96

A n n e A l l a n , S e c r e t a r y 9 6 W i l l o w f i e l d R o a d H A L I F A X H X 2 7 N F T e l 0 1 4 2 2 3 6 8 4 8 2 e - m a i l m a i l @ c b p s y o r k s . c o . u k w w w . c b p s y o r k s . c o . u k

Events diary

Please make a note in your diary of the following dates

Saturday/Sunday 23/24 May 2015

Flowers with birds Zen landscape

Qu Lei Lei

2015 We are now planning the programme for 2015 and we have arranged the tutors who will be running the sessions. Please let us know if you have any specific requests for topics and we will try to include them. All ideas are most welcome.

Workshop dates – 2015 Our hall at Pool has been booked for the following dates. Please remember to reserve them in your diary. Saturday /Sunday 23/24 May – Qu Lei Lei Saturday/Sunday 20/21 June – Angela Reich Saturday /Sunday 18/19 July – Kaili Fu (new dates) Saturday/Sunday 5/6 September – Xiao Bai Li Saturday /Sunday 3/4 October – Pauline Cherrett Saturday /Sunday 7/8 November – Maggie Cross (changed dates) Saturday 5 December – Christmas Buffet Lunch – Chinese knotting – Stella Yeung Please note: the hall at Pool is undergoing building works during August, so we have avoided that month. We have booked a full weekend for both June and September instead. We hope that we will be able to plan something different during August – so all ideas are welcome.

Saturday/Sunday 20/21 June 2015

Flowers with

insects and birds

Angela Reich

Saturday/Sunday 18/19 July

tba

Kaili Fu

Saturday/Sunday 5/6 September

English landscapes Portraits from black & white photographs

Xiao Bai Li

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Paper-cuts in traditional rural China These are far older and of greater significance than most people imagine, and are inseparable from daily life and folklore. As with the carvings on slabs of stone, and the shadow puppetry, here is yet another vast source of folk art, going back millennia, and as yet largely hidden from Western eyes. The paper-cuts can be categorized, and here I hope to give you a series in the category of Streamers, which are the paper-cuts used to pray for blessings, to offer sacrifices, to eliminate disasters and diseases, and in attempts to exorcise evil spirits. These paper-cuts are highly regional; the ones displayed in these articles are from Shaanxi Province only. (1), The five poisonous creatures;- about the fifth day of the fifth lunar month, called ‘the evil days’, a number of poisonous insects and reptiles breed and proliferate, and these include snakes, scorpions, toads, centipedes and geckos. This is also the time when some common summer diseases start. The people are especially concerned at protecting their children, and they paste paper-cuts of these creatures, hidden within gourd paper-cuts, on doorframes, as the gourd brings protection and good omens. This is usually accompanied by an exorcism ceremony. There is also usually a scissor shape included in the design, to symbolically cut up the poisonous creatures. (These creatures are often also beautifully embroidered in 3-D, on children’s bed quilts, to scare off these creatures and diseases.) Paper-cuts of this kind are seldom seen as they are traditionally burnt at the end of the exorcism ceremonies. The illustration here is of a quite elaborate paper-cut of this kind, showing creatures the people prefer, and incorporating scissors to symbolically destroy the causes of pestilence.

(2) Household safety;- In an age-old tradition, when families and livestock in remote areas became unhealthy, or when there was some local disaster, housewives made special paper-cuts. In these, there would be a woman on both sides of the family altar, bearing burning joss sticks, and beseeching their ancestors and the earth and heaven deities, for help. On the paper-cut altar there would be several figures, representing all the deities. The housewife would then walk around the house three times, bearing the paper-cut in front of her. Next she would burn it, and throw the ashes into a bowl of clear water, while repeatedly imploring the gods and her ancestors to use their magical powers to exorcise evil, to ward off disasters, and to keep her family safe. She would then take the bowl outside, repeating the same prayers, and throw the water and ashes onto the ground. The idea was that burning the paper-cuts changed the people in the paper-cut into immortals, who would then exorcise evil, stop disasters, and keep her family safe.

Thank you, Brian, for this interesting article. I, for one, can’t wait for the next instalment! If you were unable to come to Brian’s paper cutting workshops, you could see some simple paper cut techniques on YouTube. The majority are in Chinese but Katie Lam has some explanations in English – though not the intricate knife- cutting ones that Brian taught us.

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Exhibition at the Ashmolean Museum, Oxford From Palace to Studio: Chinese Women Artists, 1900 to the present

10 March 2015 to 27 September 2015

The information published states: “At the beginning of the 20th century, the palace retainers of China’s Empress Dowager Cixi included a ‘ghost painter’. This accomplished female artist was tasked with producing paintings in the Empress’s name, and only rarely signed her own works. This exhibition begins with one of her paintings and goes on to document the emergence through the 20th century of female painters as independent artists with their own incomes, ateliers and international reputations.” See this link for more information: http://www.ashmolean.org/exhibitions/details/?exh=112 Free entry in gallery 11

Exhibitions

Chinese collections in the UK Last month, I mentioned that I hope to try to list details of where you can find Chinese artefacts in UK collections as a regular feature of the newsletter. This month I am mentioning the collection held by Leeds Museums. Quoting from their website: “Leeds is lucky to have a variety of Chinese paintings which range in date from the 14th century to the 1990s. They also cover a range of subject matter and techniques, including early survivals of religious frescos, romantic riverside scenes, languid lovers by lakes, and ink and wash paintings that highlight the moods and details of nature.” Lotherton Hall houses many Chinese artefacts, mainly porcelain, but sometimes has paintings on display. Temple Newsam has an excellent example of hand painted Chinese wallpaper. Contact Leeds Museums directly if you are planning a visit to ensure that you will be able to view some of their collection. If you know of any museums with good collections of Chinese art and/or have visited any, please let me know. Anne

Are you a member of the national CBPS? If so, have you considered entering a painting to be reproduced in the 2016 calendar? Let’s have some entries in the next one, by our members! Anne “Just to say that the deadline for entries to the 2016 CBPS Calendar has been relaxed to 20 April 2015. We welcome entries from all CBPS Members. Any member can submit up to 3 paintings. We want the calendar to represent the best work of the society, and to show the range of possibilities in CBP. The Committee looks for 2 key factors when selecting the images for the Calendar: quality and originality. To maximise the numbers of members who contribute, no painter can have more than picture in the final calendar.“ Please send entries to Katrina Stephens. Katrina.Stephens@maistra.co.uk If you are not a member, why not become one and enter – you still have time!

Virtual Collection of Asian Masterpieces I mentioned this website in last month’s newsletter. I wonder how many of you have been looking at it on a regular basis? http://masterpieces.asemus.museum/index.nhn As I explained last month, more than 120 worldwide museums are involved in this project. The idea is that museums holding significant collections of Asian art will contribute images of their masterpieces with associated stories – written or video – about them. Each day a new ‘masterpiece’, housed in one of the participating museums, is uploaded to the website as Masterpiece of the day. You can then look back over time at previous masterpieces. This last month has seen a wide variety of objects but, enjoying Chinese art, I was particularly interested in seeing the painting scroll of Peaceful Life by Bian Lu – 14th century, housed in China’s Tianjin Museum, uploaded on 16 April. I was also fascinated to read about a bojagi and see the photograph of a silk one embroidered with Chinese characters. (A bojagi is a Korean wrapping cloth with many uses dependent on its size – rather like patchwork quilts?) This is a fantastic way of broadening your knowledge of Eastern culture. Has anyone taken up the challenge to view the objects on a daily basis? If so, would you like to send me a comment about any objects that you find particularly fascinating for adding to the newsletters? Anne

Qu Lei Lei will be our tutor in May. You can see some of his work and life on this video http://youtu.be/Mlo_2B0M964 Thank you to Mary for pointing it out

Exhibition Original oils and watercolours are on show at the Gallery at The Art Shop, Hawksworth Street, Ilkley LS29 9DU by our favourite tutor and CBP supporter, Jeremy Taylor until 24 May 2015. I hope you get chance to call in and admire them – and even be tempted to buy.

Forthcoming Art Exhibitions Harrogate and Nidderdale Art Club – at Ripley Town Hall 10.30 am to 5.30 pm 2 – 4 May 2015 Menston Arts Club – at Kirklands Community Centre, Ilkley, 10.30 am to 5 pm (Sunday 4.30 pm) 9 – 10 May 2015 Hipperholme and Lightcliffe Art Society – at Smith Art Gallery, Brighouse, 10 am to 3.30 pm (Saturday), 4 pm (Tuesday and Thursday), 5 pm (Monday and Friday) 30 May – 25 June 2015.

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Figures with Pine Trees – Nick Hornigold Nick explained that this was a classical subject, either ladies or scholars with pine trees. He showed us a couple of paintings he had done, one of which had been damaged. He explained that it was possible to repair them. Use a small patch and stick it with wallpaper paste onto the back of the torn painting. Leave to dry before mounting. We then learned about Nick’s figure measure. Cut a narrow strip of paper the same height as the figure will be in the finished painting. Fold this paper in half and the first crease is the hip line. Fold the top and bottom in half again to give you the knee line and the chest. Fold the top down to the chest line to give the chin line. If you then use pale grey ink, you can mark these positions on your painting as a guide. Nick suggested doing the figures first as these are the most difficult to get right. Pine branches are not so demanding!! Figures. The faces make figures difficult - so cheat!!! Do not paint from the front; it is easier to do a profile. Beards and moustaches cover a multitude of sins as does hair on the ladies. Put in the eyes half way from the chin to the top. Nick used a very fine brush to draw the outline and features of the figure. In the morning, he painted a scholar as his subject and in the afternoon a lady, both with pine trees. His advice is to keep things simple, to practice the heads and faces first using dryish brush and strong ink to avoid giving a fuzzy line. He provided worksheets for the two pictures and painted the robes and sashes quickly with a large brush. The scholar holds a rough wooden staff to show he is in tune with nature! The lady has a fur collar which is allow to run somewhat to give a soft edge. The figures have the robes to the ground to avoid painting feet. Pine Trees. These can be done in two ways. Either draw the branch outline and then fill in the trunk or paint the trunk first and then add the outline. The branches should be staggered and should leave the trunk at right angles. Sometimes the branches can slope downwards. The pine needles should be painted in clumps with a split brush. They can be painted in ink and then washed with green or just painted as a clump. It is down to individual preference. As usual, Nick gave lots of help to the beginners and, as can be seen from the gallery, the results were very successful. Thanks again, Nick, for an interesting day. Jean (Beever) Thank you, Jean, for reporting so thoroughly on this workshop in my absence. As usual, Nick ran a super workshop with lots of tips to make everyone’s ‘efforts’ a success. Well done, all!

2 examples of a lady under a pine tree

Scholar under the pine tree – the morning subject

Thank you I would like to thank Charles for supplying the photographs of the workshops. He not only takes them during the session but also formats them and sends them on to me incredibly promptly! Thank you, Charles, for your invaluable help. Anne

We have a poster advertising our group. So if you know of anywhere where we could display one, please ask me for one.

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Examples of some members’ work

Birds – Saturday 11 April - Shuhua Jin Shuhua took a painting by Qi Baishi (right) of a kingfisher on a rock looking down on prawns. Qi Baishi lived 1864-1957 and was a favourite of Chairman Mao having been born in the same town. He is often referred to as China’s Picasso and his work is highly sought by galleries and collectors. As he never threw any of his paintings away and his output was prodigious, so there are many examples of his work. You can find out more about him and view some of his paintings on many sites on the internet. Shuhua explained that the rock is painted in 2 sections and it is important to leave the white areas. As well as ensure that it ends in an angle. The original painting would be quite long and narrow, probably of different proportions to our copies. Despite having the photograph as reference, Shuhua said that all our paintings would differ. He began by loading his large white cloud brush with a variety of shades of ink, light to dark, and then, on single xuan paper, drew in the top part of the rock by pulling the brush downwards using sidestroke. He varied the strokes and achieved some dry brush strokes as well as adding details with the tip of the brush. He completed the rock with the lower section. Filling the brush with a mixture of indigo and mineral blue, Shuhua painted the head and body of the bird using a small orchid/bamboo brush. He used a mixture of scarlet and yellow for the bird’s breast (deeper at the front) and yellow with burnt sienna for the beak. He completed the bird with details in ink ensuring that the eye is left with a white surround by leaving the paper uncoloured or by adding white paint.

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After lunch, Shuhua took one of his own paintings as the composition that we would work from. This shows a bird on a branch, supported by a vine leaf. He began by painting the bird. Whilst this occupies a fairly small area of the painting, it is important to get maximum variation of tone, colour, brushstrokes, etc. The bird can be of any species – our choice. He mentioned that some famous artists, eg Bada Shanren (born Zhu Da ca. 1626—1705) often painted very strangely shaped birds but they still represented the beauty of nature. Shuhua filled a small brown wolf hair brush with pale ink, ink with burnt sienna and yellow – all very pale – and with this painted the head, body and wings. With darker ink and a smaller brush, he added the darker markings whilst the first shades were still damp so that the colours merge. He drew in the details carefully and added the white of the eye with white paint He then drew the supporting branch using tones of burnt sienna and ink. With a larger brush and using tones of pale ink, he drew in the shape of the banana leaf with a sidestroke. He then washed over this with shades of mineral green and burnt sienna and added the final markings once the original washes were almost dry. Shuhua then gave us individual help. When we had completed the painting, Shuhua discussed his recent exhibitions and showed us photographs of his works on a tablet. This was a most informative day and we learnt al lot of techniques by trying these 2 very different topics.

Shuhua’s morning painting

– painting prawns

Shuhua’s afternoon

painting – bird with leaf

After we had all had chance to paint the rock and the bird, Shuhua showed us how to paint the prawns, stressing that they must all be in different positions and some should overlap each other. He painted them in light ink mixed with indigo. He added dark marking in darker ink whilst the light ink was still damp (though not too wet). He completed his painting with calligraphy and 2 seals – his name seal and a mood seal – ‘Enjoy the spring’. Shuhua gave us lots of individual attention, ensuring that we all produced a fair copy of the topic using correct brushstrokes.

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Photographs showing Shuhua’s exhibition of Chinese brush paintings

Examples of paintings produced by members at the Saturday workshop

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Modern still-life – afternoon topic

Shuhua’s painting table

Original painting by Qi Baishi

Still life – Sunday 12 April - Shuhua Jin Shuhua took the topic of ‘Still Life’ as the theme for the day. He showed us the photographs of the 2 paintings that he was going to produce and explained that it would be better to begin the washes on the afternoon project in order for it to be dry after lunch. I will however, report it as if it were done in sequence. The first painting that Shuhua took was another by Qi Baishi of a vase with white flowers and lots of branches. Even though Qi Baishi lived in Beijing, he was part of the Shanghai School of painters and very influential. The flowers and stalks are painted in shades of ink whilst the only colour comes from the burnt sienna and yellow in the centre of 2 flowers and the burnt sienna of the vase. The first decision is to paint the vase or the flowers first? Shuhua recommended that we paint a pale ink outline of the vase in order to position it accurately on the paper. He suggested that we could draw our own shape of vase if we wished. Using medium tone ink, he drew the lines of the stalks noting that the thicker ones are near the vase and go upwards. The stalks then fall downwards towards the left corner (leaving space below the vase on the right for calligraphy and seal). Using lighter ink, he drew the petals of the flowers in 2 strokes with a gap at the top centre. All lines are drawn with strength and include some dry brush for contrast. He then added dark ink for the calyxes. The vase is painted in sidestroke brushstrokes following the form of the vase and not as a wash, using burnt sienna. Some areas are lighter than others (bottom right) and some are darker (top left). Shuhua strengthened the colour down the right edge with a vertical stroke. He painted the centres of the 2 flowers and finished the composition with calligraphy and a seal. Shuhua told us that name seals are important since they are difficult to forge and so are often used to authenticate paintings. After lunch, we worked on an example of a modern approach to still life, painted by Shuhua. This one is of stylised plum blossom. He took a piece of cardboard and, using a 2” decorators’ brush, applied a pale wash of pale ink mixed with blue. He then dropped the painting on to this and took a print. He did this many times, achieving a textured background of a pale wash. He then used his brush to spatter texture onto the paper and then sprayed paint by flicking the hairs of the brush. He then printed straight lines by using the edge of the board, and printed squares in blue, mauve and pale ink (initially using a wooden block). These squares echo the seals that used to cover old paintings when each collector liked to add their own. He added a few circles by painting coins and pressing them on to the paper in red and blue. Many techniques are possible to build up a pale textured background. This was left to completely dry. Shuhua then painted the line work, initially in light ink and then again in darker ink, sometimes in dry brush, but always seeking variety. Using medium ink and a dry brush, he drew the flowers in angular lines. He added stamens and pollen (horizontal rice dots) in dark ink, dark dots to balance the composition, and enhanced some lines. He added more ink washes in areas to balance the composition before adding washes of yellow, pink and orange to the flowers. He completed the composition by adding more ink work to the bottom left, emphasised the blue squares and added ink dots as appropriate. When the painting is dry, more emphasis can be made of the dark ink lines. After we had all had chance to experiment with our version of the composition (with Shuhua’s guidance) we then gathered around whilst Shuhua talked us through a whole range of his paintings which he had brought with him to show us. These were of a variety of subjects and in a variety of styles – traditional and modern – and gave us lots of inspiration for our own work. . We left the workshop feeling exhilarated!

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Beautiful examples of Shuhua’s work

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Workshop forms A few members tell me that they are having printer problems and sometimes struggle to print out the form for booking a workshop space. Don’t worry! If you cannot print it, just copy the details on to a piece of paper and send that. We only produce the form to help you send the information that we need for our records. I hope this helps for those occasions when your printer is ‘playing up’!

Our Group’s Website I hope that you are all aware that we have our own website at www.cbpsyorks.co.uk On it, there is a section where each of us can have our own gallery of paintings. So if you would like your own gallery to show your paintings, please let me know. I will need photographs of your paintings, along with a title for each of them. If you are able to reformat them it would be ideal if you could make them 400 pixels wide, but don’t worry if you can’t. I will do it. You can send these photographs to me by email, by post or you can always bring your paintings to a workshop and Charles will photograph them for you. I would also like to add a few words about you (see the other galleries for ideas!). It would be good to have a gallery for every member – so please join in! Do use the website and send me your comments!

Our Group

Paintings by

members of

the group

Chinese Brush Painters Society As you know, we are the Yorkshire Group of the national Chinese Brush Painters Society. If you would like to join the national Society, contact Mrs Linda Horne, 38 High Street, Willingham, Cambridge CB24 5ES or download an application form from the website. You can see details of the Society on the website: www.cbps.co.uk where you can also see some inspirational paintings. Members receive a most informative newsletter 4 times a year and a calendar of paintings by members once a year with the October issue. Membership costs £24 pa (individual, £26 pa double) and membership runs from January to January. If (when?) you join, please will you let me have your membership number so that I can add it to our database?

Workshop Fees As you know, I must have fees for any workshop beforehand so that I do not have to spend time sorting it out on the day. However, this doesn’t mean that I cannot take bookings for future workshops at a workshop! I seem to have misled you - sorry! If you have the form and your cheque/cash for a future workshop, please let me have it at any workshop and I will be happy to process it later. That way you will save the cost and trouble of posting it! No problem! It is not a happy situation when members have to lose their money when they do not attend a workshop for which they have booked. However, costs have to be covered, as we are sure you will understand. So to clarify our position: if less than 7 days’ notice of cancellation is received, the full fee will be payable, except in extreme circumstances when it will be at the discretion of the officers and committee to recommend that a refund can be given. We hope that this is fair to everyone.

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Lotus – completed painting after Anne’s workshop – by Howard Asher. A lovely

composition.

Paintings and sketches from Brian (Morgan) - Temple of the Azure Clouds, Beijing; Llasa Potala Palace; Great Wall, Badaling (sketched on his last trip).

Gallery of members’ paintings

The lotus study by Carole

Frost (after Anne’s workshop)

– another lovely painting

3 recent paintings from Bruce in Canada. The portrait is of his previous CBP tutor. Once again –

lovely paintings!

4 lovely paintings from Mollie – showing different styles and topics