Several weeks ago we had the pleasure of visiting a local artist, Mr. Cai. His name is pronounced "Ts-eye" He is a painter of traditional ink and wash paintings. He lives in a large apartment, with three bedrooms, a large living room, nice kitchen and spacious bathroom. One of the bedrooms he has transformed into his studio. The walls are covered with metal sheeting. He attaches the painting he is presently working on with magnetic strips. Sometimes three of four paintings in various stages are up on his walls.
Mr. Cai uses a Chinese paper that was so thin it is translucent, yet so strong that it can get very wet without tearing. His favorite size to use is 1 meter by 2.5 meters. He begins the paintings by laying the paper on a large table covered with felt. Using various sized brushes he starts in the middle of the paper and begins to paint using black ink. There are no preliminary lines put on the page for guidance. The paper absorbs the ink very quickly, spreading into the surrounding fibers. The only way you can get a tight dark line is to use a brush that is almost dry. After the general outline of the mountains, trees, boats, etc. are painted on with the black ink he then lets the picture dry.
Washes are then added to the picture with a large brush. The colors are mixed in advance and arranged in assorted small bowls. The washes are painted onto the backside of the painting. This is done when the paper is on the wall, with each color added as a separate layer. For bolder color, the color is repeated many times. In essence all the color is painted onto the back of the page and bleeds through to the front. Mr. Cai had a very beautiful way of highlighting the mountains in soft green- and-blue wash. The sky was often an orange or pinkish tint with stronger-colored clouds intermingled. Accent areas left as the white of the paper, and become mist, clouds, or spray from waterfalls, or rivers. The contrast of the black stones and white waterfall, or black boats with white masts, is very striking. The paintings are a very interesting composition of sharp black/white contrasts and subtle blending of colors, achieved through the applied washes.
When the painting is finished it is mounted on another piece of white paper, making the whites whiter, the blacks blacker, and the colors brighter. It is then finished by adding a border of white silk around the outside, three to four inches wide. The painting is then framed or sold as is for the buyer to frame. If left unframed it is rolled up and easily stored.
Another interesting art done in our local area is silk embroidery. Size seems to matter in China; bigger is definitely better. Often the pieces are very large, 1.5 by 3 meters. Sometimes several smaller pictures, each 1/3-meter wide by 1-meter high, make up one large wall setting. Both the cloth and the thread are made of silk. The artist can embroider anything that a person would normally paint. The colors are so vibrant and varied, all with that special sheen that silk has. In a single small bird you may have 15 different colors used to show the shading of the feathers. It is considered special to have large numbers of things in a picture. We saw a picture they were very proud of that was entitled "100 Birds Pay Homage to the Master." The picture was a kaleidoscope of color as 100 different birds covered the picture, with a large exquisite peacock occupied the center stage. Another one seen on TV was a village scene, many meters long, depicting the lifestyles of 1000's of different people. I find the less busy pictures more to my taste, especially the village scenes or the plum blossoms and small birds. Popular subjects are a herd of galloping horses, dragons, large city scenes, flower clusters of large and varied varieties, boating scenes, birds, and nature scenes of mountains and rivers. Stretching the silk in a beautiful wooden frame finishes the embroidery.
In some areas of China they actually have two people embroider one piece of silk simultaneously, one on each side, each doing a completely different subject. This is not done locally, but we have seen it on the TV. There may be a lion on one side and a village scene on the other. The embroidery is then stretched between glass and put in a pivot frame so both sides are visible. I have seen it but still do not really believe that it is possible to do. One lady has become very famous by doing silk portraits. She was interviewed on TV and says the most difficult thing is the differing ages of people, because the different skin textures are made by varying different embroidery techniques. The portraits are as detailed as any oil painting, only the colors are even more vibrant and beautiful, especially those of elderly peasants. There is so much of their character and vitality of life portrayed in the pictures.
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