If you have any questions, please email us !
Learn About the Artists and check out our Ink Brush Art Supplies!
If you have any questions, please email us !
Learn About the Artists and check out our Ink Brush
Art Supplies!
" I have to tell you how HONORED I was to see myself mentioned on your
website! That was a thrill! I have been telling everyone about your website
because until now there was no place to direct people who were interested in
this style of painting.
I was SO EXCITED to hear you practiced Tai Qi and also study Taoist
teachings. I began learning about Chinese ink because I was trying to find
an alternative to the ink I was using for my comic strip. I did not suspect
that I would find myself walking into a new world which would make my life
so much deeper!
I have been only begun reading Lao Tzu and Zhuangzi. I've read a lot of
books about the Zen monk painters in Japan, --really, I will read anything I
can find! At the moment I am especially interested in the role breathing
plays in the whole process.
I'm not sure if I told you that in 1999 I wrote a whole novel with a
paintbrush. I had been trying for a long time to write this novel and I
didn't like the computer because it was too fast, and I could change things
too easily and there was a separation between my fingers and the words.
When I thought of trying to use a paintbrush to help me proceed slowly,
people thought I was crazy and I had to agree with them! But the story
really started to flow! The final draft was over 700 pages and from there I
copied it and shaped it until it was finally done. And it did well and it
got good reviews! I don't recommend my book to people because it is on the
scary side. Kind of a sad story with a lot of violence. I was surprised at
myself for writing that kind of story but I had such a good time doing it!
Really, I owe it all to the brush. There is something about using a brush
that is extraordinary. It is like a living thing.
On ebay I have been saying this style of painting is like Tai Qi but
with a brush, hoping to encourage people who would consider learning Tai Qi
but would not consider trying to make brush strokes because they are
convinced they are not artistic enough. There are so many people who believe
they could never do it because they are not "artistic", who believe that
making a "good painting" is the reason one paints. They don't know it's the
process, and that when it's working it's like being able to fly and time
travel and turn invisible all at once! When I teach writing I talk about
this a lot.
One thing that would be so nice to offer people would be a good beginners
book on this style of painting. Leslie Tseng-Tseng Yu's book "Chinese
Painting In Four Seasons" is a paperback I like a lot because it is simple
and clear and yet hints at the deeper mystery that is part of this kind of
art. I don't know if it's still in print. The copy I have was published by
Spectrum Books in 1981. And I have just found a copy of The Mustard Seed
Garden! I have been looking for this book forever. I have read about it many
times but never found it until two weeks ago. The copy I have is translated
by Mai-Mai Sze and published by Princeton University Press as part of the
Bollingen series. Mine was published in 1992. Anyway, I bet if you could
find a beginners book on painting to offer on your website people would LOVE
IT!
One other thing-- I can't find much information on how to grind the
colored inks. There is very little written about it in the books I have.
Perhaps a word or two about this with your description of the colored inks
you are offering could help people."
---------- Lynda Barry Feb 19, 2002
"Finding the "Four Treasures" has been one
of the most important things in my life. And selling my artwork on ebay has been so
wonderful for me because I am not very fond of galleries. They make artwork too expensive
and out of reach for the average people who need it most of all. They make it seem like
painting is something for professional artists only! It is for everyone! I think a lot of
people would love to make paintings, and write poems and stories, and sing and dance and
do all of the things we call "the arts" but I think they have been made afraid
by this idea that only professionals should do these things. It is one of the reasons
people feel so broken into pieces. They have lost the courage to do the things that bring
the feeling of wholeness. This is a tragedy! When I teach I talk about how writing and
painting and singing and dancing are expressions of the same thing. We were born with it.
Everyone was born with it! If you have children then you know about that beautiful
fountain of spirit they have. Someone once said that human beings are like backwards
flowers-- We are born in full bloom and slowly unripen into a hard bud. It doesn't have to
be this way. Chinese brush painting is one of the many beautiful paths back to blooming.
When I first began to sell my work on ebay I had people
who told me it would lower the value of my work. I have had shows in galleries and sold
work for a lot of money but I never felt happy about it. It seemed like the only buyers
were rich people who just liked to buy and buy for no deep reason. When I started to sell
pictures on ebay I felt so liberated! I would encourage anyone to try it.
PLEASE DO take some pictures of the mounting process to share
with us on your website. I was so amazed at how different my pictures looked when I
mounted them. There is a depth that I couldn't see before. The whites become so white and
the blacks so black and the greys seem infinite. "
---------- Lynda Barry Feb 04, 2002