Eastern Versus Western...

This month in my watercolor painting class, Colleen is focusing on Eastern style of Oriental Strokes.  Last night, I decided to do the same picture in the Eastern Style versus the Western Style of painting.  I thought it might be interesting exercise to do.  I will admit that I didn’t follow all the Eastern style rules, and I did take more time in sketching out the Western style painting.  But when comparing these, I think is very interesting.  Here they are...

Eastern Style--

"Italian Garden Wall"; Oriental strokes on 11" x 14" Sketch Paper.

Western Style--

"Italian Garden Wall"; Watercolor on 9" x 12" Cold Pressed Paper. 

Thanks for stopping by and I would love to hear your input on this East versus West.

Oriental Strokes & A Thank You!

This month, Colleen has been having us work on our Oriental Strokes.  It's Sumi-e painting to a certain extent but she wanted us to take into focus all of the possibilities/styles of oriental strokes including the Chinese strokes too.  She wanted us to look at the different aspects and rules of Western art/composition versus the aspects/rules of Eastern art.  She talked about the four gentlemen of Oriental painting-- the plum, the orchid, chrysanthemum, and bamboo.  Last week, she did a demo of all the various strokes and did this wonderful quick demo of painting a wild orchid.  This last week, she allowed us to bring in our own painting ideas.  I brought in a photo of a local building and this is what I worked on...

"A Tree Top & Spire"; Watercolor on 12" x 14" Sketch Paper.

It's loosely based on this photo of one of my favorite buildings...
Salt Lake City's Columbus Community Center

Part of the process was to try to simplify the original  down to it's essential parts.  That is easier said than done.  After I had lightly sketched it on the sketch paper then it was time to paint.  I tell you it is hard to keep your brush vertical and your wrist stiff!  But for a relatively quick in class painting, I think it turned out kind of fun!

You may have remembered that I posted a painting of the Popette a little while ago.  Well, tonight I'm taking her along with me to Colleen's Gallery Open tonight during the Sugar House Art Walk.  The Popette was SO pleased with her portrait that she wants to thank Colleen personally.  Here's the Happy Popette with her painting that I gave her for her birthday this last week...

Photo- The Happy Popette and her painting!

Thanks for stopping by and please feel free to leave a comment!