What are the 4 basic strokes of Chinese painting?

The basic strokes of Chinese painting are center-front, side-front, smooth stroke and reverse stroke.

1. Center-front: requires the brush to be perpendicular to the surface of the paper, with the tip of the brush implied in the middle of the line, and is characterized by its roundness and thickness.

2. Side-front: the tip of the brush should be biased on the side of the paper, running along the end of the line, characterized by rich changes, more pale and sharpened.

3, smooth brush: the direction is from left to right, the hand follows the direction of the brush, characterized by smooth and rounded.

4. Reverse brush: the direction of the brush movement is from right to left, the tip of the brush advances against the direction of the brush, characterized by difficult and heavy, robust and powerful.

Expanded Information

Brush Techniques in Chinese Painting:

White Drawing: Using ink lines of different thicknesses to draw the outline of an object.

Double Hook Fill in Color: first outline the object with ink lines, then fill in the color in it.

Bone-less: No ink lines are used at all, only changes in ink and color are used to express the beauty of the form of the object being painted.

Writing: Emphasizes the expression of moving, idea and divine color; the shape is generalized and abbreviated, so the form is abbreviated and the image can be imprecise and unrealistic.

Types of brush lines:

Iron line drawing: like iron wire, uniform thickness.

Orchid leaf strokes: like orchid leaves, with lightness and thickness.

Nailhead and Mouse's Tail: like a nail's head and mouse's tail, with a heavy starting stroke and a light finishing stroke.

Cao Yi out of the water: as from the water out of the intimate clothing line drawing.