Oh, yeah, we're part of a Sisterhood!!! I refer you back to my 'girly-girl' entry about the wax burner!! *snorts*
I thought it would be so noble, so cool, so terribly wonderful to learn sumi-e with these special brushes made of various animal 'hairs'--squirrell, wolf, badger furs, cock feathers, sheeps wool, etc... Loading the brushes carefully after grinding-grinding-grinding the inks for ages on surzuri stone, filling them with the requisite water, I start painting.
In the middle of a stroke, each brush would seize up in its own, unique way. Ninety degree angles. Splayed like pigeon toes. Frazzled like my nerves by that point. I am ROARING at the things after several hours of this, yet still I keep on.
I do this, over and over, night after night for TWO MONTHS. Ink, brushes, screaming, ranting, roaring, crying out to God, throwing things around the room...I'm WEARING the stuff, but nothing on the paper is worth shite. I STEP in the ink stone with the ink. I manage to send several lotus bowls full of dilutions pouring over tables.
I am an idiot. I am the stupidest person to ever pick up the brush, and I keep hearing the master's instructions to his students about the brush being like the samurai's sword, and I want to KILL!
Nevermind me with oil paints or acrylics! No matter how well I clean up, I still go to work with multicoloured strands of hair. I don't get it!!! How do I do that?!?!
(I DID finally master the sumi-e brushes, but it took a full three months of this agony!!)
That's one of the reasons I wanted to learn all this stuff...the persistence you can chalk up to being both Aquarian and VERY stubborn. I was determined I would learn this OR DIE!!!!
That's kind of my motto: Learn or DIE!!!! (laughs) I approached iconography and grinding and applying tempera the same way.
But there is an entire (very cool) philosophy behind all this, as well as several WONDERFUL books that will make you fall in love with sumi-e (or the Chinese version of calligraphy, since except for the terminology, they're both the same).
A samurai learned with a BRUSH before he was given a sword. If he could not master the brush, he never went on.
The "Four Elements" of sumi-e and calligraphy are the brushes, the inks, the stones, and the paper. Each animal gives its nature to the brushes created from it (which is why I will one day take that bottle of kitty whiskers I've collected over the years from shedded whiskers and make a cat brush, as well as will make a brush of my own hair), so a wolf brush should 'attack' differently from a squirrell or cock, etc. There are also five elementals--earth, air, water, fire, and metal (which I would have thought was "earth", but go figure).
So...you don't express your passion with the brush made from sheep, and you don't go into mental exertion with a rabbit brush. Plus, each sort of fur/hair/plume paints a bit differently, holds water in a different manner, etc.
Like anything else Oriental, it's got layers and layers to the meaning. But it does take persistence.
...Not to mention that most shops that carry the supplies are Oriental, hence they won't believe you know what you're buying.
Whoops! On my way to the Post Office (to mail out more BPAL...snickers...) I remembered--another element is Wood. My memory is going!!
I think they removed "earth" and used "metal", and then there's fire, water, wood, and air...it's either that, or they removed "air", but wood and metal are in there.
Sigh. You can tell I haven't brush-painted for a year.
An excellent tale! I'm amazed at your persistence. I'd have given up the moment I spilled something, I think, and chalked up to my not having been meant to master the skill.
Oh, yeah, we're part of a Sisterhood!!! I refer you back to my 'girly-girl' entry about the wax burner!! *snorts*
I thought it would be so noble, so cool, so terribly wonderful to learn sumi-e with these special brushes made of various animal 'hairs'--squirrell, wolf, badger furs, cock feathers, sheeps wool, etc... Loading the brushes carefully after grinding-grinding-grinding the inks for ages on surzuri stone, filling them with the requisite water, I start painting.
In the middle of a stroke, each brush would seize up in its own, unique way. Ninety degree angles. Splayed like pigeon toes. Frazzled like my nerves by that point. I am ROARING at the things after several hours of this, yet still I keep on.
I do this, over and over, night after night for TWO MONTHS. Ink, brushes, screaming, ranting, roaring, crying out to God, throwing things around the room...I'm WEARING the stuff, but nothing on the paper is worth shite. I STEP in the ink stone with the ink. I manage to send several lotus bowls full of dilutions pouring over tables.
I am an idiot. I am the stupidest person to ever pick up the brush, and I keep hearing the master's instructions to his students about the brush being like the samurai's sword, and I want to KILL!
Nevermind me with oil paints or acrylics! No matter how well I clean up, I still go to work with multicoloured strands of hair. I don't get it!!! How do I do that?!?!
(I DID finally master the sumi-e brushes, but it took a full three months of this agony!!)
Nechtan :)
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That's kind of my motto: Learn or DIE!!!! (laughs) I approached iconography and grinding and applying tempera the same way.
But there is an entire (very cool) philosophy behind all this, as well as several WONDERFUL books that will make you fall in love with sumi-e (or the Chinese version of calligraphy, since except for the terminology, they're both the same).
A samurai learned with a BRUSH before he was given a sword. If he could not master the brush, he never went on.
The "Four Elements" of sumi-e and calligraphy are the brushes, the inks, the stones, and the paper. Each animal gives its nature to the brushes created from it (which is why I will one day take that bottle of kitty whiskers I've collected over the years from shedded whiskers and make a cat brush, as well as will make a brush of my own hair), so a wolf brush should 'attack' differently from a squirrell or cock, etc. There are also five elementals--earth, air, water, fire, and metal (which I would have thought was "earth", but go figure).
So...you don't express your passion with the brush made from sheep, and you don't go into mental exertion with a rabbit brush. Plus, each sort of fur/hair/plume paints a bit differently, holds water in a different manner, etc.
Like anything else Oriental, it's got layers and layers to the meaning. But it does take persistence.
...Not to mention that most shops that carry the supplies are Oriental, hence they won't believe you know what you're buying.
Nechtan :)
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Too bad you can't really make a brush out of snake anything. :/
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I think they removed "earth" and used "metal", and then there's fire, water, wood, and air...it's either that, or they removed "air", but wood and metal are in there.
Sigh. You can tell I haven't brush-painted for a year.
Nechtan :}
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An excellent tale! I'm amazed at your persistence. I'd have given up the moment I spilled something, I think, and chalked up to my not having been meant to master the skill.
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