Chinese Painting and Calligraphy

Wednesday 4th July

We were led by Ms Haitao Cheng in a brilliant and entertaining painting calligraphy class. She started the class by briefly going through some of the deep meanings behind the esquisite paintings and what they represented. For example, the people in paintings tend to wear clothes made of silk due to its comfort and sign of wealth. In addition, There was another painting which portrayed two fishes with eyes pointing in different directions- one with its eyes looking upwards and another one with its eyes looking downwards. If the fish’s eye is up, it represents that it is disrespectful and shows few signs of pride. She mentioned the representations of the colours of the clothing. For example the colours red and yellow shows the how rich you are and the level of authority you possess. 

Ms Haitao Cheng briefly mentioned about the differences between two dynasties, the Ming Dynasty and the Tang Dynasty.  The Chinese Dynasty have a policy where they have to connect with all the foreigners and make them feel comfortable in their visit.  One of the differences emphasized by many of the paintings were the variations in size of the people from the two dynasties. In the Ming Dynasty, the people tended to be very thin whilst the people in the Tang Dynasty were very fat. 

Finally she gave us a choice of two paintings to draw from, one was of roses and butterflies whilst the other was of two pandas and trees. She drew each of the paintings to show us what technique we need to use to produce at least a decent attempt. However, she made it look a lot easier than it actually was!

Majority of people chose to paint the roses, however I chose the pandas. It was unusual as painting the pandas seemed to be the most complex but drawing the pandas seemed to be not very difficult. Many students tended to find drawing the butterflies the hardest and painting with different shades of the same colour. I found using different shades slightly difficult because you had to mix the black with a specific amount of water to give a light black stroke for the trees and leaves. My end product of the pandas I personally feel was actually quite good. However, the trees and leaves I painted were all over the place and did not look good. Despite all this, it was one of my favourite activities on the trip and a really enjoyable start to the day.

Husson Khatana