The Peonies: Chinese Painting

I've been pretty lazy in the art department of my life lately due to the fact that I am finally able to play games on my ps3 that I bought 3 yrs ago and the games that were x-mas gifts 2 years ago. There I admitted it. Out in the open. Done.

Sadly they were Dragon Age: Origins and Bakugon Battle Brawlers which is kind of like a Yugi-oh thing with the card game and monsters part but it is also basically an elaborate game of the old style Pin Ball machines in that you can run your 'ball' through an obstacle course to gain more points. Oh and you need to land your ball on a card in the middle of the playing field at the end or else you lose all the points you picked up along the way. Surprisingly this game was a lot of fun despite its obvious catering to the 8-12 year old age group, but it did get repetitive after awhile.

Anyways, on to the goods! I decided this year to paint some pieces for my parents for gifts. So far I only have a background going for my Dad's piece which is going to be some Jazz musicians. But I have finished a painting of the peonies for Mom.

My test piece of chinese style Peonies was done on a type of paper that is used for calligraphy and ink, making it incredibly resistant to the natural bleeding effect of water colors. The actual piece was done on traditional Xuan (rice) paper and I can easily equate the consistency of this paper to painting on a piece of paper towel.

Too much water in your brush makes your paint blush out in all directions without control. While I liked the way it gave rough edges to the leaves you can see how the colors just bled all over the place into a muddy wash of color. I am considering redoing it but I think I'll just get the same thing all in part to how this paper behaves when touched with water.

Behold! The test subject on ink paper!
(happy with how the peonies turned out... not so much on the foliage)

VS. Traditional Xuan paper! Curly edge Shadows of Awesome!
(happy with the foliage on the right but not on the left!)

Both side by side on my counter top for size comparison.
(the inked one is a regular 8x11 sheet of paper)

So yay for traditional media! I haven't done any for YEARS. Probably since highschool. How sad :( With how my dad's painting on canvas is turning out it sorely shows. But more on that later! For now enjoy the Peonies, I know I'll probably be painting these over and over again because they're so fun to do!

Oh and I'll get the jump on the wishing of Happy Holidays, Merry X-mas, and Happy Yuletide! I think that covers everyone :)