Learning to Paint
culture  

Learning to Paint

By Maddie

This summer, my grandpa is teaching me how to paint. He does traditional Chinese painting and likes to paint birds, fish, other animals, and landscapes (especially Yosemite). I’ve also seen some oil paintings he’s done, such as an abstract of the Golden Gate Bridge and a portrait of my grandma. Usually after I leave work, I go to his house for dinner, and afterwards, he shows me how to paint anything I ask him for. I typically request small birds, like sparrows or finches, since I want to focus on one animal first before I move on. Actually, a lot of small birds come by his house since he built his own small stream in the garden! They like to wash themselves there, and it’s really cute.

Traditional Chinese painting mainly uses a brush pen and ink. It’s more about giving the painting shape and life than completely sticking to reality. It takes a bit to get used to using the brush, but with an expert hand you can really create some beautiful effects. For example, the tip of the brush is generally dark with ink, and traveling up the brush the ink is lighter and more diluted. You can also put different colors on different parts of the brush, like making the tip red, the middle orange, the base more orange-black for an ombre-like effect.

I’m still learning, but I’m excited to practice painting this summer! So far, I’ve only been drawing sparrows and sticking to the standard black ink, but once I’m more accustomed to the brush and technique, I’ll start experimenting with colors and different animals and landscapes.

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