Customer Reviews

A.B.C. of Chinese Painting: Book 1

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This book on Chinese watercolor painting doesn't come near the other volume on Chinese Brush Painting by author and artist Ning Yeh. Some examples appear to be a little kitschy, at least to Western taste. Still this book is a valuable asset, e.g. because of the material recommendation list of which I like the section on brush types the most. Reliable, detailed information on oriental painting materials is hard to come by and the stuff described in this book is readily available from orientalartsupply.com. On page 18 there's a great description on how to perform the basic bone stroke and applicate it to painting the plum blossom. This exercise alone is already well worth the book's price.

This book is less that $30 on Oriental supply site. This price is ridiculous and should be reviewed. This must be a mistake!.

Ning Yeh's "A.B.C. of Chinese Painting. Book 1"(1992) seems his last book published by his company in promoting the art supplies business. It shows you what brush to use for each stroke, but they are limited to the ones in his catalog. You may want to have more choices or check new products that have become available, for example: 7 Piston Fill Waterbrush & Water Brush Fountain Pens - Value Pack If you use western watercolor on rice paper, dry mounting with silicone paper is recommended because the watercolor paints tend to run or bleed when re-wet during wet-mounting. Silicone Paper for Dry Mounting Chinese Painting or Sumi-e(27" X 10 Yard)The categorization of the Chinese painting paper in this book is very arbitrary by calling his single-ply rice paper the "best hsuen"(xuan), but failed to tell us the common name for what it is actually is since it has so many varieties and brand names. Only the "Red Star" brand jing-pi xuan could be called the best by most professional Chinese artists. Also, there is no mulberry paper in his supply although he did use "cotton paper" for landscape, which I am not sure what is it. 30 Sheets #1 Mulberry Paper for Chinese Painting or Sumi-e (13" X 17")5 Variety Sheets Colored Mulberry Paper with Golden Flakes 27"x18"

The book covers iris, poppy, lotus and some other flowers with a distinctive style which represents American-Chinese painting in the 1980s and still a source for inspirations today. The boneless landscape projects in the end of the book went too far from the traditional Chinese landscape, and has little learning value for beginners.