Color Painting Art » How-to

Learn to Write Chinese Characters, Numeric 1-to-10

ColorPaintingArt — Thu, 11 Mar 2010 16:17:27 +0000

Learn to write Chinese characters for numeric 1-10 is not as difficult as many has thought. Doesn’t require you to have any prerequisite knowledge, not even calligraphy paintings. No brush and black water ink color. All you need to use is just a marker pen or any basic writing stationary you use daily in office, home, or school. There are easy to learn and any Chinese will recognize what you want to message them by writing with a pen on a white piece of paper.

There are some basic rules; always get the basic stroke and directions correct. Generally, directions of basic strokes to make Chinese words are:-

Left to right, top to bottom, sometime end with a vertical hook.
Dash-dot in the directions from top to rightward or leftward.
Descending strokes from top to diagonally left with a straight ending. And
Trailing strokes from top to diagonally right with a slight curve ending.

Okay, straight to the point to learn how to write Chinese characters 1 to 10.

Learn to write Chinese Character 1 (One). The simplest of all. Consist of a horizontal strokes from left to right.

Chinese Character 1, One

Learn to write Chinese Character 2 (Two). A short and a longer strokes at the bottom. Both left to right direction.

Chinese Character, Two, 2

Learn to write Chinese Character 3 (Three). Quiet similar to Chinese character 2, but with a short middle strokes horizontally.

Chinese Character, Three, 3

Learn to write Chinese Character 4 (Four). Looks like a small square, and within consist of 2 dash-dots in opposite direction. Total five strokes to make a word.

Chinese Character, Four, 4

Learn to write Chinese Character 5 (Five). Try to maintain the horizontal strokes to be straight, and stroke with vertical direction to slightly lean towards right.

Chinese Character, Five, 5

Learn to write Chinese Character 6 (Six). Keep the dash strokes to be short.

Chinese Character, Six, 6

Learn to write Chinese Character 7 (Seven). There are only 2 strokes to make this word. Below is recognized as the simplified way of writing “seven”. To be precise, the horizontal stroke is written slanted slightly up, and the “L” strokes consist of a small hook at the lower ending.

Chinese Character, Seven, 7

Learn to write Chinese Character 8 (Eight). This is easy and the most auspicious character in Chinese culture. Quite similar to the 2 inner strokes in Chinese character four. This character word is more bold, bigger and widely spread out. Consist of 2 strokes writing in opposite directions; left stroke is shorter that the right.

Chinese Character, Eight, 8

Learn to write Chinese Character 9 (Nine). Only consist of 2 strokes. Second strokes has a right-angle bent and end with a hook in right direction.

Chinese Character, Nine, 9

Learn to write Chinese Character 10 (Ten). This is as good as the mathematical symbol “+” (plus). Definitely not the cross use in religious symbol.

Chinese Character, Ten, 10

Additional learning to describe hundredth, thousandth, and tenth thousand.

Learn to write Chinese Character 100th (Hundredth). This is a bad writings, especially stroke #2 and #3. It is still recognize as a Chinese character “100th”, but in an unrefined manner. It consist of 6 strokes, with 2 faults you should not follow. Strokes #2 should not budge out to the third strokes. And strokes #3 should have a nicer right turn, instead of the crooked corner.

Chinese Character, Hundredth, 100th

Learn to write Chinese Character 1000th (Thousandth). This is easy. Seems like just an additional strokes on top of the Chinese character “ten”. If you look closely, the order of writings this 3 strokes is not the same.

Chinese Character, Thousandth, 1000th

Learn to write Chinese Character 10,000th (Tenth Thousand). This is very unique for the Chinese to name tenth thousand in just a single character. Compare 13 English alphabets with only 3 simple Chinese writing strokes. Do you see the beauty in this word?

Chinese Character, Tenth Thousand, 10000th

3 Basic Methods to Dry Oil Painting

ColorPaintingArt — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 14:45:58 +0000

As far as I have understand about oil paintings and other choices of color painting media, the duration to completely dry an oil painting is longer than one can expect. Unlike acrylic paint, it dry much faster. The slow drying process for oil color could be an advantage to allow artists to work on it for many sessions. On the other hand, it could be frustrating for the final wait of drying oil painting before you able to frame it up.

You would had been done your artwork with painstaking attention, yet drying is another pressing issues for beginners who uses oil color. Waiting time may take even weeks to dry. So what takes oil painting so long time to dry?

For simple fact that oil do not dry by evaporation. The drying of oils is the result of an oxidative reaction, chemically equivalent to slow, flameless combustion. The thicker the coat of paint, the longer the waiting time will be. Having said that, there are 3 basic methods to shorten drying process. Namely, paint with thin layers, use paints ground in linseed oil, and use drying additives.

Painting thin layers allows oxidation to permeate into oil layers easier, than thick or multiple layers on top of one another. Thus, shorter time is achieved and it also an added advantage for painting more layers on dryer oil surface.
Linseed oil is made from the seeds of the flax plant. It is available in refined and cold-pressed oil. Beside a better and faster drying oil, it also has adds gloss and transparency to paints. It dries very thoroughly, making it’s ideal for under-painting and initial layers in a painting.
Cobalt Driers are extremely powerful oxidizing agent. The adverse effect of using this addictive may affect the color of mixtures. So it is advisable to use it sparely. If used in excess they can ruin a painting. Most experienced painters would agree that not more than 5 drops of cobalt drier should be used per each 2 1/2 fluid Oz of any given medium. Basically Cobalt Driers are diluted in the oil painting medium if you are using one. It is harder to control the amount of drier, if directly into the blobs of paint on the palette. In short, Cobalt Driers are used to improve and speed the drying rate of oil colors.

Whatever the methods to increase the rate of drying oil painting, I would say having good patience is still the key factor in learning any art disciplines.

The Technical Rules of Painting in Oil, Alla Prima

ColorPaintingArt — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 11:32:12 +0000

There are two ways of approaching your painting. The first is known as ‘alla prima’ or direct painting, when the canvas is completed in one session. The second technique is slower because each layer must be dry before the next coat is applied. This means a drying time of several days or more. Famous impressionist artist, Claude Monet, was essentially an ‘alla prima’ painter, but if the composition was not satisfactory he would bring the canvas back to the studio and continue working.

Familiarize yourself with the palette by mixing the colors together. Begin by making up as many greens as you can from the two blues and two yellows. Then dull down each mixed green by adding small amounts of the two reds, and watch the results carefully.

There are a number of important factors to observe when using oils, which are outlined below alongside some handy hints.

1. When squeezed from the tube, oil colors are too thick for the first layer of painting (the ‘lay-in’), so it is necessary to this them with turpentine. It is a good idea to buy a double dipper to attach to your palette.

2. The rule of painting in oil is ‘fat over lean’. The first layers of your pictures should be thinned with a little turpentine, this w ill allow the color to dry more quickly.

3. As you build up your layers the paint film can be thicker, and the medium can be added to help manipulate the colors.

4. Thin colors dry quicker that ‘fat’ colors, which contain more oil. It is important that the paint films gradually thicken towards the upper layer.

5. whether you choose the ‘alla prima’ method or wait for each layer to dry, it is important not to cover a tacky surface with new paint – the surface must either be completely fresh or completely dry. Painting over a tacky surface will result in cracking.

What is a double dipper for oil painting accessories? It is two small containers jointed together, that is able to clip on to the edge of color palette. One is to contain pure turpentine to dilute the first layers whilst the other has an equal quality of linseed oil and turpentine, linseed oil by itself makes the paint too greasy; too much turpentine creates a matt effect.

Van Gogh’s Technique on “Starry Night”, Oil Painting on Canvas

ColorPaintingArt — Sun, 04 Oct 2009 12:48:32 +0000

One of the most popular oil paintings by Van Gogh’s “Starry Night”; greatest works during Vincent was taken to the asylum at Saint-Remy. Since 1941, this artwork has been in the permanent collection of the Museum of Modern Art in New York City. Dimension 73 x 92 cm (28¾ x 36¼ Inches). The painting depicts the view outside his sanitarium room window at night, although it was painted from memory during the day.

Below described how he define his painting technique derive by his expressive thoughts, with details of repeating lines, feelings, speed and with details of the blue sky, glittering stars, and circling of lights round the moon.

His painting achieved its final maturity as he himself was being subjected to frequent and increasingly nervous attacks. He reached a stage of expressive desperation that made him shout out in line and color all his feelings of bitterness and reject any sort of restraint that might impose more order, more reflection, more patience. It seems as though he sensed the end was near, and he painted at speed, throwing himself furiously into his work, producing an amazing number of paintings, particularly when one considers how often he was incapacitated by illness. This detail from his best known work of the period reminds us of “the cry of anguish” that Vincent himself described: the clouds, the stars and the moon cut through the dense and deep blue sky, accompanied by the rotating haloes, like meteors bearing threateningly down on the earth. Color is associated with obsessively repeated lines that transform reality into an apocalyptic vision. Van Gogh’s soul explodes in a scream and it seems as though his entire life experience has been poured into the painting: the bitterness that he felt about all the things he would have liked to have done, but was not allowed to do, the admission of his solitude and the certainty that only art could recompense him for all his disappointments. Yet again, it is Vincent himself who best summed it up: “When all sound is still one hears the voice of God beneath the stars.”

Drop by to check out my store here, featuring Van Gogh’s reproductions by the talented Chinese artist from Fujian Province.

How To Choose The Right Size For Oil Painting

ColorPaintingArt — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 03:36:02 +0000

An oil painting artwork to produce the ‘wow’ effect within enclosed premises. It should make the painting say more or express a different feeling, then merely looking at the real print or photograph. Being said this much, the choice of size doesn’t mean that the bigger is better. Here, I have pointed out some guides to select the right size :-

Format of the oil paintings to narrow a focused the subject in a composition. The choice is whether a vertical portrait or a horizontal landscape format fits better. One can visualize a single figure in the portrait doesn’t favorably fit into a horizontal landscape format, the focus subject may, however, distracted by the excess of ‘emptiness’ on both side.
The size and shape of the wall that you will hang your oil paintings. Vertically tall and narrow wall doesn’t blend so well with a oil painting that is in landscape format. And for a large elongated wall, a larger piece of art is therefore, necessary to avoid looking like a postage stamp on the wall.
Visibility of portrait oil paintings within enclosed premises. The further the painting frame that you are going to view, the bigger the size is required for better visibility. Small art portrait will only ‘lost’ in a large room.
Size of your furniture over which your portrait oil painting will be displayed. Ideally for portrait format, the width is half the measurement of the furniture below, such as a couch or a king size bed. Or if your chosen oil painting is in landscape form, the requirement will be three-quarter of the width of your furniture below.

One of the most practical way to visualise the appropriate canvas dimension is to use brown paper or old news paper; measure and cut it into the right canvas size, use double sided adhesive tape, and paste it on the wall you want it to hang. Now, walk backwards till you can see the entier room from left to right. If nothing seem to be noticeable, it simply tells that the simulated ‘painting’ size has unsignaficantly change the entire room.