Beginning to learn Chinese painting must copy the painting

I think you can spare some time for line practice, first of all, line alone practice; then Pro Mustard Seed Garden Drawing Records; and then Pro Chen Hongshou Water Margin Leaves, and then copy and then Pro Yongle Palace Mural, through the practice of drawing lines to achieve the degree of relaxation and elasticity.

There is a problem with the lines becoming "weak" when you first start practicing, which is actually a problem with the brush. At the beginning of practicing the line, the general public can be divided into two categories:

One category, will only press down, the hand can not lift, the number to the front of the thick, heavy ink, to the second half of the dry, into drag the pen.

The second type, will only lift the pen, do not dare to press down, with the tip of the pen on the paper, more and more rowing the more no strength, to the most and floated.

These two cases, have ignored the process of a line of the brush, that is, the line drawn over the time, lift and press is a combination. A good line, just like a musical phrase, must have high and low ups and downs, strong and weak orderly, will not always be a key to the end.

After practicing for a while, you should aim for a relaxed and flexible line.

A relaxed line is one that has just the right amount of strength in the combination of lifting and pressing the brush. A relaxed line is more dynamic and lively. On the other hand, a tense line will be stiff and although it looks strong, it is too hard and solid. Just like a person, in a more relaxed expression will be particularly natural, look also pleasing to the eye, on the contrary, a tense person, facial expressions and movements will be unnatural. Loose and tight is a mutual concept, loose and tight is a combination, too relaxed, the line has no spirit.

It is natural to be nervous when you start to hold the brush, because you don't know the properties of the brush, and the meridians and muscles of the hand and wrist have not yet been trained. But at a certain stage, after we have some proficiency, we need to relax our arms and wrists to make them less constrained, so that the brush and the lines will be more natural and rich.

The line with a big arc should pursue its elasticity. A long curved line, do round, turn, through, in order to have elasticity.

Round, that is, from beginning to end of the line needs to be rounded; turn, that is, when there is an arc of the wrist with the wrist to turn around, but the line is still the center of the brush, so that the entire line through; through is smooth, no sense of stagnation, as blood vessels do not have an obstruction, it is the flow. You can imagine a copper wire bent into a garden arc shape and a cotton thread arranged in a circular arc shape, the two comparisons, the copper wire is rounded and elastic, the cotton thread has a shape and no spirit.

When the quality of the line is stable, the ability to shape a certain basis. You can choose to copy the works of Ming and Qing masters such as Jin Nong, Chen Hongshou, Shen Zhou, Yun Shouping, and so on; and then according to the interest to choose the Song masterpieces, the Yuan four schools, the four schools of the Qing dynasty and other works to copy.