My Traditional Baimiao Paintings (Line Drawings )

Chinese painting is also called line drawing. It is a linear art. Line is the skeleton of a Chinese Baimiao painting. It makes Chinese painting special and different from other paintings of other cultures.

Line is the foundation of a Chinese painting. Chinese Baimiao painting is a line drawing with Chinese ink and Chinese brush; it is one of the steps of Chinese Gongbi painting. If we color it, it will become a Chinese Gongbi; if we do not color it, it is an independent line drawing art.      

Chinese Baimiao painting is painted with lines using Chinese ink only. It is simple and summarized. Every line must be able to be seen clearly. Even though a strand of hair must be expressed clearly.         

When we paint a Baimiao painting, we must be responsible for every line. We must paint it the same as we write Chinese calligraphy. To “write” every line through the process: beginning, going on and stopping; just as we write Chinese characters: to make every line as we write every stroke, to “write” different lines with different skills of Chinese calligraphy.

There are at least 18 kinds of lines used on Chinese Baimiao painting.   

Since lines are the skeleton of Chinese painting and Baimiao is the foundation of Chinese painting, and one of the steps of Chinese Gongbi painting, every Chinese painting student must learn it as a beginning and required course in the Chinese Paintings School at any Academy of Fine Arts.

My first course at the Chinese Painting School at China Central Academy of Arts was Chinese Baimiao. Then the first course of the Graduate School and Chinese Painting School at Chinese National Academy of Arts was also Chinese Baimiao.

Baimiao painitng is the key of a Chinese Gongbi Painting. If lines are not qualified, it is no meaning to color it.   
Now I would like to share some of my Baimiao assignments in the schools in Beijing and I do hope they will give you a basic impression on Chinese Baimiao and it characteristics.

Sincerely
Shirley Yiping Zhang
Nov 14, 2015
shirley@ebridge.cn
www.ebridge.cn