Ink Masters - Fan Kuan

 #inkmasters #ink #fankuan #chineselanscapepainting

One of the most famous ink landscape paintings in the history of Chinese art is this one by Fan Kuan.

I was once lucky enough to view a book that had a foldoutreproduction that was roughly the same size as the original scroll.

Lets just say the original is about 10 times or more larger than this image! 

notice how mist and water move your eye across and down the image.

How the trees on top of the peak balance those below. 

INk Masters Hasegawa - Pine and Bamboo

 #ink #inktober #japanesepainting #pines #hasegawa 

This time we're looking at a Japanese painting - Pine and Bamboo by Hasegawa Tohaku.

The image belwo is 2 sections of a larger work 

This is a very "formal" work featuring Pine and Bamboo.

Bamboo is particularly difficult to paint as it requires advanced brush skills whether you are using an outline or "boneless" technique or combining both. Hasegawa could have used color and there are some beautiful paintings using color by later Rimpa and Nihonga painters but has stayed with a monochrome "palette" of black creating depth without perspective by using tones and space with a composition seeming random but well proportioned use of the spaces between bamboo trunks contrasting with low curves suggesting the ground and hinting at slopes. 

Finally the contrasting but closely adjacent pine and bamboo branches above draw our eye right to left from light grays to deeper darker tones. 

What can we learn from this about tones and layout ?

Or just enjoy the ink ! 

Follow me for more in my INktober Ink Masters series

Another Ink Master - Mi Fei

 ANOTHER INK MASTER - MI FEI

#mifei #ink #inktober #Chinesepainting

Why is this special?

It seems quite simple doesnt it to modern eyes used to seeing pointillist techniques in both Asian and Western painting but MI FEI was one of the first if not the first Chinese painters to use this technique of black ink and textures built up using dots not strokes! While other painters were suing minimalist sweeps of the brush Mi Fei concentrated on texture while still creating traditional S curve compositions using "empty" space and voids.

Join me for the next inktober Inkmaster post 

Ai Haze updating a dew old draft versions

Black Ink in Guo Xi's Early Spring.

 #inktober #chinese inkpainting 

For Inktober I'm focusing on Chinese and Japanese monochrome ink paintings.

This is a cropped closeup of part of Guo Xi's Early Spring.

An European painter might have chosen to emphasize flowers and green leaves but this is early spring in northern china and the artist choose to emphasize the first signs of spring as a change in structure with branches dotted and darkened by dots and strokes of black to show emerging growth but lighter grays used to suggest a middle ground and vegetation on the upper left.

Here's all of that same work.

Again the black ink creates tone structure and texture ! 

INktober and Monochrome Painting

 #inktober again so lets look at monochrome paintings this month

Here's a very famous Chinese painting of a horse.

Its possible there was originally some tinting given the age of this work but black is the dominant color and it certainly shows how a Chinese brush maestro could do with a limited palette but superb mastery of ink and gradients ranging from solid darks to lighter washes and lines.

Follow me this month for more masterworks using ink!