Chinese Postcard 2

My first lousy effort of Chinese colored brush painting on rice paper (well, it's actually made of bamboo). It's embarassing, but it serves as a starting point of my Chinese brush painting. My first watercolor painting was embarrassingly bad, too, and you know, there is a first for everything.

Oh, I can list over a dozen of mistakes about this one, but the fundamental problems coming from my unfamiliarity with Chinese brush painting. I thought it was similar to watercolor painting and applied the same techniques. However, that was the source of my grief.

Rice paper absorbs lots of water, so waterbrushes do not work well with it. It's hard to see colors, because rice paper becomes translucent when wet. It's also hard to fix mistakes due to its nature. The wet-in-wet technique on rice paper doesn't quite work the same way as on watercolor paper (plus, I couldn't see colors when it was that wet). Also, the brush I picked up to do the writing was of lousy quality. I know it sounds like an excuse, but I had better luck with my other brushes. I'm still unfamiliar with the difference between my brushes and have to do a lot of trial and error.

Chinese painting is HARD! Gotta work on it more...

Media: technical pen, watercolor, Chinese brush pen.