Chinese Painting

Chinese Painting

Chinese painting involves essentially the same techniques as calligraphy and is done with a brush dipped in black ink or coloured pigments. As with calligraphy, the most popular materials on which paintings are made are paper and silk. The finished work can be mounted on scrolls, such as hanging scrolls or handscrolls.

The two main techniques in Chinese painting are:

1. Gongbi (工笔), meaning "meticulous", uses highly detailed brushstrokes that delimits details very precisely. It is often highly coloured and usually depicts figural or narrative subjects.

2. Xieyi (写意) or freehand style painting uses tonality and shading achieved by varying the ink density, both by differential grinding of the ink stick in water and by varying the ink load and pressure within a single brushstroke.

In our class, we teach the Xieyi (写意) style.