Chinese Paint Brush Painting

The Chinese consider their writing and brush work to be considered art. And if you have ever looked at one you would see the precision of each stroke and time that they put into their work. To be considered a great artist you must first study all the masters before and then you will take all of their styles and combine them to make your own, and be considered a great brush painter. We focused on three different types of brush strokes to create a bamboo painting. Just like the artists before we studied the strokes before and practiced them a lot! Once we felt we had each stroke down we continued on to make the painting on rice paper. For those who haven't used rice paper before it is fragile, rips easily, ink spreads in it, and it wrinkles up so when working with your children don't feel bad if it does just that.  Below is my final product for my Chinese Paint Brush Painting:

I chose to add in the lotus leaf to my painting because flowers have a special meaning to me in my life. I repeat organic forms in my art a lot and especially flowers because they are very spiritual to me. Other's in the class adde in sparrows, houses, pandas or just did plain bamboo. When assessing the children those who go beyond the bamboo and start taking the new knowledge and making new forms and the ones who are excelling above and beyond the assignment.
You can find a tutorial to this project at Teacher+Artist=Passion: Chinese Brush Painting: