Chinese Brush Styles Oil Pastel Landscape

I have done another oriental painting, this time I use Chinese Brush painting as my reference. Check out original painting is HERE.


一叶轻舟万重山

I painted this on a smooth and opaque surface. Yes, it is tracing paper. I discovered more about oil pastel on tracing paper. My tracing paper is very thin, therefore when I place it on a coarse surface such as wood table, it does help me work out the texture. Nature of tracing paper allows me to erase my mistakes by using eraser. In contrast, finished work have to be taken serious care to prevent scratches.

I am quite happy with the outcome I had achieved, it does express the "artistic conception" (意境).

Oil Pastel on Tracing Paper

This is an experimental painting, I applied oil pastel on opaque tracing paper.

The initial painting looks like this:


I realized that the smooth surface of the tracing paper is rejecting oil pastel from blending and layering, therefore with few strokes I finalized the painting. My intention is to make the daisy smile, good thing of tracing paper is, I manage to use tortillion to work out the daisy petals.



I think this is not so bad, I think tracing paper are suitable for oil pastel painting that does not rely on blending.

Penang Cheah Kong Si

Penang island is a beautiful island in Malaysia, also known as 檳榔嶼 in mandarin. The name "檳榔嶼" is in the navigational drawings used by Admiral Zheng He of Ming-dynasty China in his expeditions to the South Seas in the 15th century.

Penang Island is full of Chinese traditional old buildings. It is now part of UNESCO's World Heritage Cities Program. I am painting one of the heritage, Cheah Kong Si (谢氏宗祠)。

This is the initial sketch.


And this is the final painting.


This is the view of the front gate, it is made of wood and painted in red. This is the first Penang oriental building I have paint, I wish to do more in the future.

Oil Pastel for the serious beginner by John Elliot

Obviously, I am a beginner who are very serious on using oil pastel as a medium for fine arts. Browsing through amazon for the books about using oil pastel, I only find this book on the list. I made an order online one month ago and today finally, this book arrived.

I am so glad I own this book now, as the information in this book is so useful to me. It suggest me which oil pastel to choose from, shows various painting surfaces and how to frame my finished works. It gives me ideas of how to do still life, landscape, faces and figures etc using OP. Also interesting topic regarding mixing medium such as oil pastel on oil, watercolor, acrylic etc. As well as wash techniques using solvent, or simply use water for water soluble OP. Everything mention in the book is new to me, I learn a lots.

I wish to see more books regarding oil pastel in the future, and if you are serious of trying oil pastel, check this book out!

ACEO to Canada

Three cards for the ACEO exchange project reached Canada at the same day.

20th, "Alone on the beach"


21th, "Sunshine"


22th, "Thaipusam"


All of them painted using cray-pas expressionist oil pastel.

Pang Jiun's art

Pang Jiun's art amazed me a lots! This is where I get the idea of doing oriental oil pastel paintings from. His oil painting have a very strong feel of Chinese brush drawing (水墨画). With post-impressionism and Fauvism from oil paintings, he blends the oriental style into his art.

He likes grey, he produce a lots of greyish painting on oriental buildings, bridges as well as landscape. A very important element of oriental painting ~ "remains white" (留白). It leaves certain portion of paintings blank without fill in any colors at all (not even white color). As we draw a bird on a white paper, blank white color becomes sky; if we draw living things, white becomes land; draw a boat, white becomes water.

Lets look at one of his painting "Galaxy in the world", you will observed the greyish as well as "remains white" elements.



This is the first painting of Pang Jiun that I had discovered. I love it so much and feel no hesitate to paint it in oil pastel to experience the oriental's mood.



The size of my painting is 16 x 25 cm. I paint it on white drawing block uses cray-pas expressionist as well as a little bit of buncho OP.

Michelle and Daisy

Another two ATC reached the destination.

18th. Daisy reached Danville, USA


19th. Michelle reached Ponte Vedra Beach, USA

More ACEO for exchange project reached destination safely

I have more cards that reached the destination.


14th Elephant, reached Punta Gorda, FL USA.


15th Woman's BWM, reached California USA.


16th Harvest, Paddy reached Klamath Falls, USA.


17th An old ape reached Clarington, OH USA.

Water Lily Oriental Style

清水出芙蓉，天然去雕饰。

This is Oil Pastel Monthly Challenge for October 2008 at Wetcanvas forum. I am trying to express oriental feel into this painting. I am using cray-pas expressionist, paint on A4 size drawing paper. The actual size of this painting is 16 x 21 cm.

First, I sketch the drawings using color pencil, I choose perl because it is not obvious and can be easily covered by OP. I paint a few scratches of blue to the water lily, and paint it with white to blend the blue and leave it just like that. I use my favorite green (green gray) on lower leaves, and yellow, a little bit of light green and again blends them with green gray for leaves at center.

Water surface is the most challenging part, because it consist of different colors. I start from bottom, fill them with dark blue, dark green and grey. Further up where I work on the reflection of trees, I paint them in dark green, dark brown and at final stage I apply black shades to express the movements of the water. The reflection of the cloud must be in light blue, grey and white, I apply dark blue lightly and blends them with white too. The upper side of water is in light blue, which that is the reflection of blue sky.

The shadows are mainly started with either dark blue or dark green. And applied another layer of dark brown and at last shaded with black.

I like this painting, I think I am going to try more oriental styles.

Cock

"Cock" is the 13th ACEO for the exchange project.



It was reached California, USA safely.

Snail

My snail was reached Holbrook, USA safely. This is the 12th ACEO for the exchange project.



I remember I painted it during Hari Raya Holidays at Penang Malaysia, with my cray-pas expressionist.

Step by step: Brighten your life ACEO

I still remember two months ago, I am surfing the net for info of creating ACEO, as I have some doubts such as what kind of paper should I use? what paper color is suitable for oil pastel? Should I use pencil for sketching before painting it with OP? What are the additional tools do I need to create this mini size of art.

Today, I have done more than 30 pieces of Art trading card, I have my doubt answered, and continue to accumulate more experiences on creating Oil Pastel ACEO. While enjoying the weekend and waiting for more cards to reach the destination for the exchange project, I created another card and take photo shots my work in progress.

This is my first ACEO WIP post, I would like to do it as details as possible. I welcome any comments and suggestions regarding where to improve as well as tips and tricks.

For creating ATC, the card size is important, it must be 2.5 x 3.5 inches. I couldn't find any ready made ATC size paper from the art suppliers, therefore I bought a large black color mounting board and cut them into pieces myself.





I realized that, graphite pencil may blend with OP and produces dirty color, and also it is hard to see on black color mounting board. Therefore I bought a white pastel pencil.



I can't draw something from nothing, well I always need a photo for a reference. Fortunately I can get the photo of the object I wanna draw from the net. Here is a good site that finds me a series of images from flickr based on the tags I specified.

Study the image I picked, the color tone, the shades, the focus point and the beauty. This is important, I may have to love the painting before I start the painting. After that, I sketch it with white pastel pencil.



Next, I picked out the OP from the box to another container, those are all the important colors I need it for the painting.



I am quite new to cray-pas OP, although I have using it for quite sometimes. Still, some of the colors doesn't blend well on black mounting board, which I have yet to discover. Therefore, I usually trying it out for a small portion to build up my confidence.



Alright! It seems to goes well, so I continue ...


I like to use white a lots, I find it blends well with any other colors.



Yellow is always a headache for me, because of the opacity it gives, it looks dirty on black. I don't have any other materials for underpaint, I heard acrylic is good for underpaint, but I am yet to try.


This is not yet final, I will come back for the details. But at the moment, its time to go goes for the background.


My intention is to create a blurry background where some how you can feel the flower is surrounding by other flowers.

I have mixed various colors at various portion by circling it, then I blend them together, with the help of grey color OP.

After done on background, I come back for the details of the main object.


This is the secrete tool for details on a mini card. It is call tortillon, but I call it color blender, which I helps me blends colors to produce the intended textures.


I come back for the background, adding white color at certain portion.



Finally it is done, I hold it with my hand to feel the size as I always do.



Lets have a closer peek!



Alright, hope you enjoy my step by step walk through. I hope this will brighten your life as well as my life too.

Resting boat

This is the 11th ACEO, "Resting Boat" and today it reach Texas, USA.



cray-pas expressionist oil pastel on black mounting board.

10th ACEO Moth

My ACEO "Moth" for the exchange project reach Eufaula, USA today.



This is the 10th ATC that reached the destination safely.

Driving in the night

The 9th card for the exchange project has reached India. I am glad Mithila likes it. I am painting it with my cray-pas expressionist oil pastel on black mounting board.

Can you guess what car is it?

Stillness

This is 8th ACEO for the exchange project. I present you the "Stillness".



This card reached Norway. In fact, this is the last card I had made but it reached Norway first, while all the other cards are still on it's way.

Love

Love reached West Haven, USA.



I am using pale color on black mounting board, to express the contrast.



This is the 7th ACEO that reached overseas country. I am glad June likes it.

Ladybird

My 6th ACEO for the exchange "Ladybird" reach Australia today too.



Now it is with Shelly.



At this moment, 19 of them are still on the way.

Kek Lok Si in Oil Pastel ACEO

Kek Lok Si was just reached New Zealand today.



This is my 5th card for the exchange project.



Painted by using Cray-pas expressionist 36 colors Oil pastel on black mounting board size 2.5 x 3.5 inches.