More Japanese brush art at Box Hill Community Arts Centre

This morning I attended another workshop on Japanese brush techniques - this one was called 'Japanese SumiE Ink Painting' and our tutor was Junko, who was just as charming as Miho was last week. The ink and brushes we used were the same as last week, and the technique very similar but this time we were painting pictures instead of letters. After showing the students examples of her own beautiful work, Junko demonstrated how to use the brush to create different effects on the paper. After we'd practiced for a while, she encouraged us to paint bamboo, which she said was the easiest one to start with.

Then she showed us how to paint two fish. I was too heavy handed with the ink, and my poor fish are much darker than they are meant to look.

Then we could choose what we wanted to do. One of Junko's paintings was of a fluffy cat, and I asked if I could copy it and she gave me her painting to work from. I am very critical of my own work, as well as being impatient and wanting to do something perfect the first time, so I wasn't overly pleased with my version of her cat. But she was delighted with it; I was the only student who did the cat, the others were doing flowers and birds.