Ngan Siu-Mui Art School: Art Lessons in Chinese Watercolor Painting

Chinese Watercolor Painting Lessons / Workshops (Lingnan School Style)

Rising of the Clouds
*Ngan Siu-Mui 2002*

Nowadays, many are rediscovering the beauty of traditional Chinese arts and the benefits attached in practising them. There is a telling Chinese saying: "Absorbed in painting, you know not old age is coming". Chinese painting is known to greatly benefit our mind and our body.

Chinese Watercolor painting classes are open to beginners as there is no previous training required. New and longtime students share the exciting voyage in the realm of Chinese arts under the guidance of Ngan Siu-Mui, a "Consummate artist who lives to teach others" (Killingbeck, The Chronicle).

Students learn how to use their wrist, elbow, forearm in order to move the Chinese brush energetically but always in control of it. Ngan Siu-Mui shows how to use Chinese ink, pigment and watercolor paper properly. Your painting will show lively movement, energetic strokes, and likeness to the subject. The end result is a well balanced composition.

Here is an interesting essay by Vanessa Lam
⯈ About the Painting Style of Lingnan School ― Master Chao Shao-Ang (趙少昂)

Topics covered in the Chinese Watercolor Painting Worshops

Different kinds of Chinese Suen Paper
Chinese Watercolor
Chinese Brushes, Ink Stick and Ink Stones
Traditional Chinese Brush Strokes
Water and Color Merging Techniques
Chinese Ink Shading
Chinese Watercolor Painting Composition

Chinese Watercolor Art Paper

How to choose and use proper Chinese watercolor paper for painting artworks. Here are some popular art papers:

Raw Suen Paper
Sized Suen Paper
Ma-Chih
Pei-Chig

Chinese Water Colors

Chinese Watercolor painting, NganSiuMui.com

Common pigments and traditional colors:
burnt sienna, indigo, gamboge yellow, vermilion, emerald green, ceruse, cobalt blue, and some more.

Chinese Brushes, Ink Stick and Ink Stone

How to choose and use the proper brush for painting different subjects. Some common brush types are: soft hair brushes, hard hair brushes, flat brushes, mixed hair brushes, worn out brushes, sharp brushes.

Traditional Chinese Brush Strokes

Learn how to use traditional Chinese writing techniques in watercolor painting.

Master the brush to draw the proper strokes' sizes
Create energetic movement
Control the expansion of water
Create proper shade for the ink and color

Water and Color Merging Techniques

How to add the appropriate amount of Chinese color to water in order to put layers on the paper. The techniques related to the application of water on paper play a very important part in the creation of outstanding watercolor painting artworks.

Chinese Ink Shading

Skillful distribution of the Chinese ink produces many different shades, such as focal, dense, heavy, light and clear. Shades give a three dimentional effect to the subjects.

Chinese Watercolor Painting Composition

Bamboo under Moonlight, Lingnan School style, NganSiuMui.com

Create a stunning painting by using the Yin and Yang principles. These principles are based on elements like shapes and voids, heaviness and lightness, smoothness and cragginess, straightness and curviness, similarity and dissimilarity.