Art in the Time of Pandemic: What's On and What's Off

Art in the Age of Pandemic: What’s On What’s Off

It has been a very long time since I have updated this blog.  This is due to so much rapid change at present  and uncertainties for the future.  I have been working through these trying times but mostly adjusting to cascading dominoes of change. So my next few blog posts will be about what is on and what is off, at least to the best of my knowledge. For Today: 

What’s off:
In person meeting of hearts, souls, and minds at the annual learning consortium in Westminster, known to beloved teachers and students as Common Ground on the Hill.

What’s on:
Online version of Common Ground on the Hill. This poses new and interesting challenges for visual artists such as myself.  The material costs will go up due to shipping of supplies and students having to buy their own supplies from the manufacturers instead of in-person division of bulk materials.  However, this will be greatly offset by reduced costs from students not needing to rent rooms or pay for out of town meals.

The silk is cut and ready for distribution for my GOTH course this summer, Ink, Silk, Pencil, Paper.  While cutting the silk, I made a small but significant discovery.  A wayward caterpillar had entered the silk roll and make tiny holes at well defined but problematic intervals.  No worries.  I could cut around it.  But this left odd sizes of extra silk that will be added to the purchased 8" x 10" pieces at no extra cost.  Good for extra practice pieces!


The Imperial Method, or Gong Bi, painting is traditionally executed on sized silk or papers with carefully drawn fine calligraphic lines, then filled in with inks and pigments.  The washes of inks and pigments are applied with two brushes: one filled with water and the other with pigment or ink.  Switching back and forth between ink and water creates an airbrush effect.   It is tricky but you’ll have fun learning how to do this.  I learned the technique from Master Jin, at the Beijing Central Art Academy many years ago.  He was a mountain of a man with a delicate, sweet soul, who told marvelous tales which you will learn too.


Below are some examples of antique Chinese silk painting.  Look closely at the marvelous brush work.  After learning how to make these exquisite lines your line drawing will improve and you’ll be able to apply some of these techniques to western drawing on paper.

Here is an example of one of my illustrations in pencil that makes use of the gong bi line and wash techniques, only using pencil and stumps.  You’ll learn this too!