Best Defence [Thurs, Period 2]

[wrongkindofsith]

Your teacher was actually here today, yay!

Cara also had the Danger Shop set to the movie theatre sim. Also, yay?

"By all accounts Cassandra did am excellent job last week." At least according to the squirrels she'd bribed for details later. "So much so that you can relax this week and watch a movie instead." And not just because she wanted to watch it again. That would be silly.

Japanese Art, Friday, Period Two

[shiroi_tiger]

Today's setup - still on the low table with cushions for sitting on - involved paper, water, brushes, and solid sticks of black ink resting in little stone dishes. There were once again flowers on the table, but more as centerpieces than as materials to work on.

"Today," Nathan said, "we'll be doing what probably comes most readily to mind when somebody thinks of an art class. We'll be painting. We'll be painting with one color, mind, in a method known as sumi-e. Think of it as... calligraphy that forms a picture, rather than words. The art of painting and of calligraphy evolved hand-in-hand, and so many of the brush strokes are even similar between one and the other. Each stroke has a purpose, is set down deliberately to create the whole of the painting or the writing, and there's no taking it back or covering it up once it's been set down."

And really, this was Nathan's best idea for covering calligraphy without having to also teach everybody how to write in Japanese.

"It's the loading of the brush, or fude, that can be time-consuming, as well as the grinding of the sumi," he gestured toward the ink sticks, "to create ink. We'll start with the grinding, and then we'll load our fude and go through some basic strokes."

Because really, basic strokes were about all he had learned, as well. Nathan reached for the ink sticks and the little trays they were in, and then demonstrated how to make ink by adding water to the tray and grinding the ink stick into it. He then loaded the brush, a process that started with a fairly diluted ink mixture, but which added more pigment several times, so that there was a gradient of ink held within the brush itself. And a lot of it, too. A person ought to be able to get a fairly decent number of strokes in before needing to re-load the brush.

As he explained this, he laid a few strokes down, demonstrating the way the gradient of ink on the paper was affected by the way it had been loaded into the brush, and a few of the different shapes one could achieve by moving the brush in different directions, or pressing more or less of it against the paper.

By the time he was done, he had painted some maple leaves.

"Traditionally, sumi-e paintings are done without reference, but since I'm assuming we're all beginners here and none of you knew we were going to be painting when you came in today, there are some flowers for you to refer to if you care to."