'Chinese Landscapes Made Easy' shows you how to paint stunning landscapes in the classic Chinese style with a core material list of just six essential Chinese brushes. Starting with how to hold and control a Chinese brush, the author builds your confidence by demonstrating simple techniques on paper, before tackling more complex marks in conjunction with a series of painting ‘lessons’, each dedicated to a different key element of Chinese landscape painting. The projects section takes you through all the step-by-step techniques in order to complete your very own works of art. Each project has a colour palette and information on brushes to use, so you can be fully prepared. Master just two simple brushstrokes – ‘dots’ and ‘long dots’ – and you will be able to paint a simple waterfall. With more practice you can progress to more advanced strokes that enable you to depict subtle light reflections on land. With clear illustrations on key hand movements and easy-to-follow techniques, "Chinese Landscapes Made Easy" guides you all the way to mastering this beautiful form of landscape painting.

Animals.

Rebecca Yue’s unique approach to calligraphy comes from years of teaching this ancient art. Most teachers prefer to demonstrate all of the basic brushstrokes before teaching you how to form words. However in Rebecca’s experience, students soon become bored with this method and fail to progress. Whilst teaching new brushstrokes, 'Chinese Calligraphy Made Easy' allows the reader to practise them, and brushstrokes learnt previously, by writing Chinese words. From this, the reader feels a sense of achievement and satisfaction at the end of every lesson – which, in turn, stimulates them to look forward to the next exercise. As the lessons progress, the words introduced become more complicated. When there are enough words to form phrases, projects are introduced. These include painting Chinese characters onto a bonsai pot, a t-shirt, a vase and making personalised greeting cards.

Try your hands at these historically and culturally important methods, and create some beautiful paintings of your own. Chinese painting is an ancient art that has evolved and become refined over many centuries. Artists brush ink and color pigments onto silk or paper using a variety of techniques, with two main approaches: gongbi a traditional and realistic style based on line drawing, and xieyi style, a freehand method that uses fewer strokes to suggest objects in a less literal way. Painting themes generally fall into three categories: figure, landscaping, and bird-and-flower. Chinese brush painting is mainly presented in lines, shades and white space to express the feelings about nature, social phenomena, and the very essence of the universe. The framework for this expression is often traditional: certain subjects carry cultural connotations that are well-known and imbue the painting with a layer of meaning beyond face value of objects shown. The traditional subjects such as mandarin ducks, butterflies, and the 'Four Gentlemen' (plum blossoms, orchids, bamboos, and chrysanthemum) are examples that contain this rich cultural meaning. Readers will learn first about the tools and materials, then painting techniques. Early pages explore the very basic painting methods and subjects—perfect for beginning painters—but continue to build skills for painting plants and animals of increasing complexity. Chinese Brush Painting illustrates several Chinese brush painting techniques with the use of different tools, brushwork and color mixing. With the step-by-step projects, you can first follow the introductory lessons to learn the necessary skills of brushwork, usage of paper, and characteristics of water, ink and colors; then follow the advanced lessons to learn the compositions and more complicated color applications.

Written by a team of eminent international scholars, this book is the first to recount the history of Chinese painting over a span of some 3000 years.

Paint beautiful works of art using the special brush-and-ink techniques cultivated for centuries by Chinese artists--techniques that allowed them to represent the structure and spirit of any subject. Every image here provides inspiration, while background information enlightens you on how the style developed, and practical guidance helps beginners select brushes, paper, ink, and other supplies. Master the skills of both the Literati (freehand) and Meticulous (more formal) styles, and see how to create each of the classic and meaningful Four Gentlemen--the blossom, orchid, bamboo, and chrysanthemum--as well as a range of elegant birds. More than 15 exquisite projects include a flower-and-bird parchment fan, bamboo greeting cards, and lantern with a nightingale in peach blossom.