Demonstration Art

Sketches

Here is a relatively simple cucumber sketch for practice.

This scan of the front and back of a cucumber leaf may be helpful for sketching and in your painting.

Demonstration Painting

Painting the cucumber: The first instruction in the guidance below is to paint the cucumber. Try to do so with one stroke. Load the brush as if for a dry stroke, then add a little more ink at the tip. When painting the cucumber, start by bearing down with the brush at the beginning, then speeding up the stroke, and then slowing down and pressing the brush on to the paper again at the end. It make take practice, but you should be able to get a cucumber that looks similar to mine with just that one stroke.

Alternatively, use the korokutensai-hō technique by outlining the cucumber, then filling in the inside. The other way around works, too.

Painting the leaves: Most of the time when painting leaves, the leaf is painted first, then veins are added on top. Because cucumber leaves are so large, it may be easier to do it the other way around in this painting. Paint leaf veins first with each of five thin strokes starting from the point where the leaf would attach to the stem. Then paint the leaves. Cucumber leaves have five lobes. The idea is easiest seen in the lowest leaf in my painting. Other leaves won't necessarily be facing directly toward the viewer, so slight variations will be necessary when painting them.