On too-crowded bamboo:
A slew of cherry blossom attempts that all fail pretty much:
Two index card doodles:
I doodled 'em on index cards I normally used for story ideas while we were all sitting and waiting at a restaurant for our food. I carry a brush pen in my purse and sometimes I play with it.
My ink sticks:
The big one is one that my mother gave me from her father's collection. She'd gotten it when he died, and she could only speculate that it was an ink stick that was so good he hadn't wanted to use it. I've only used it once. It was so scarily good, I sealed it back up and am using the other sticks until I get good enough to use that one. I just want to NOT pass it onto Jet the same way, though. So I'll keep painting and calligraphying and maybe I'll get good enough for that stick.
The book behind the sticks is The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting. I love it, especially when it tells me stuff like the trunk and branches of a plum tree should be sinuous like a dragon.
Tree on the way to the mountain:
I'm trying to do the mountain from Mushi-shi, but I have to figure out moisture control and the whole multiple colors on a brush at a time with the right amount of waterthing. *laughs*
A rather better plum blossom painting:
FINALLY, I get the blossoms right on the orchid... but the leaves... I don't like as much on this one. But the darned fowers are finally the way I really want them, and it had to do with the water control again and laying the tip down the right way. Yeesh...
