calmI poured today, into my deeper ink stone. Mom gave me a beautiful, shallow, tear drop shaped ink stone that has tiny bamboo leaves carved into the stone around the well; however, I also have a very utilitarian rectangular stone that has a very deep well. Mom's stone is good for a single painting at a time. I wanted to do more than one painting, but I went a bit... overboard...
So in order, from start to finish, as I get sloppier the more tired I get...
I really wanted to do stems... with better control of having the darker ink on the edges and lighter ink in the center. The three more slender stalks were done with a brush that was squashed flat and the darker ink was touched lightly to either side. The thick one I used one of my longer brushes and tipped it with black and painted the thick ink onto the shaft. Both methods give a better rounded look than I've been getting.
Since I had the really good, thick, sticky ink from the grinding surface, the "eyes" and joints didn't bleed that badly, and the thinner stalks actually look like they're in front of the thick one. I really liked the effects.
The sparser leaves also meant I could do some that look like they're in the back as well as the dark ones up front. So I actually signed this one and put my favorite stamp on it. I need a new signature stamp as my Dad changed the last character in my name from tranquility to jade.
The not-a-fail pine tree on a mountain. Finally got the rocks looking a bit more the way I wanted them, and I spent a lot more time on the bark. I still need to work on branch placement and planning them a bit better, and I'm thinking of thickening in a few more needles. Probably along those branches to the left. Make it look a bit healthier and fuller, but I think this was enough better than the previous to make me think about spending even more time on it, eventually.
Got the multiple colors on a brush to finally work with the real ink well, as part of the well has a sloped wall, so I can touch exactly the amount of ink I want onto the very, very tip of the brush. So you can see how the petals of the flower gradate better. The hearts of the flowers still are a bit too dark, but I start there. So... I shall work on that. The leaves weren't quite as graceful, but the grouping still works for me, I think...
By now I'm tired. It's just very young bamboo, laid out in the wind... and a very squiggly dragonfly. Hee. It was fun.
And I still had more ink... so I did a few pages of calligraphy, not very well, as I was getting tired. But the one "wind" and the one "not" look pretty good even from here. The rest is trash... *laughter*
It felt good to do.
