Demonstration Art

This week's demonstration painting is Wisteria and Yellow Warblers. In it, I use kaiji-hō strokes for the stems of wisteria leaves and paint individual wisteria blossoms like those of sweet peas.

The illustration below shows what kaiji-hō strokes look like. Some of you may recall that they are also used for some kinds of bamboo leaves.

Sweet pea structure. The illustration on the top left is the sweet pea flower as a whole. Below it is the calyx, and at the bottom left in grey is the male stamen. The five-part illustration on the top right shows the individual petals, and the female stamen is on the bottom right.

Wisteria blossoms are comprised of many florets collectively making up a raceme. Each floret is like a sweet pea blossom.

For those who wish to practice calligraphy, here is the kanji character for wisteria (fuji). It requires 18 strokes.

My demonstration painting of wisteria this week is a kachō-ga modeled on a painting by Suzy "Kazuko" Reynolds, Washu Sensei. She taught sumi-e at SDCCD for many years and was the founder of Washu-Kai. I have her original painting.

Here is my demonstration painting.