STUDY - XUE

 BEST wishes and blessings for those about to do HSC or other exams !

Inktober - more asian classics !

 #inktober 

20th century "Expressionism" Ink Scroll

A notable tendency from the late 19th century onwards and throughout the 20th century is an looser bolder "wet" style of ink and brush. I suspect the availability of photographic illustrations for text books has encouraged this along with collections going on tour through major cities along with more people being able to buy exported heavier papers? 

Zi Yong's 1000 Character Classic

 There were originally said to be 800 versions of copies of the 1000 character Classic created by Zi Yong to provide student monks with calligraphy examples. These were distributed across Eastern Zhejiang and surviving copies exist in various collections!

The left hand columns are an older form of caoshu with the kaishu on the right with all the characters showing strokes more similar to xingshu running script. Beautiful and educational! 

Zi Yong was originally a court painter but retired to become a Zen Monk and than an abbot. 

Thanks to the modern Internet those of us who are not Zen monks can also enjoy this. Many thanks to whoever digitized and uploaded this copy for others to study and enjoy!

Asian Inktober _ Lets look at some Classics ! Su Shi

 For October lets look at some Classics ! Tree and Rock by Su Shi 

Yes #SuShi also known as #SuDongPo

He was one of those Famous Chinese Poets who had the "Trifecta" of skills writing poems doing calligraphy and painting too! This is one to study! Fortunately later collectors refrained themselves to adding their seals at  the edges of the image ! 

Notice how theres actually only a few strokes due to the use of dry brush and the dense small solid blacks for detail emphasizing  the texture of the rock and the shoots. 

Minimal yet maximal! 

schedule change emergency

Followers and visitors due to a schedule change at work I have to work today. Also the commencement date of a new casual role has been moved forward. There will be a weekly post but not today ! Also this blog may be going on an extended hiatus ! 

Ink Masters

Inktober is here again 

Let us consider the East Asian masters of Ink on Silk and Paper.

Yes I know I do this every year but 

INKTOBER !!!

If you don't have access to good books with high quality reproductions visit Wikipedia and zoom in and look at the fine details of linework and gradients ! 

INK and Calligraphy n Inktober

Inktober is here again ! 

So this months themes will be the beauty of ink in painting and calligraphy. 

My hopefully not too blurry photo is a page from a book showing xing shu calligraphy by Cai Xiang 

The book is Zhou Kexi  The Art of Chinese Calligraphy 2009