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Chinese Brushwork

Materials

• Bamboo mounted compound brush
• Flat goat-hair hake brush
• Underglazes
• White stoneware
• Satin white glaze
• Gloss clear glaze

Glaze Painting Overview

The painting itself is layered between a satin white base glaze and a glossy clear glaze, both of which must fit well with the clay body. Only one glaze firing is required. After firing, the image looks as though it’s trapped in glass. The painting stains the translucent glossy glaze, making an integrated surface that has more visual depth than paintings done over a matt slip.

Painting directly onto a base glaze also allows for easy erasing with a palette knife or a bamboo skewer. Since glaze particles are fine enough to lift away cleanly, the top layer of a tinted glaze or an individual section can be pulled away, revealing fine lines of white glaze. In contrast, engobes or slips leave ragged edges when the top painting is removed.

Commercial underglazes work like tubes of liquid watercolors. Paint with the underglazes straight from the jar. As you clean your brush between strokes, enough water remains for loading and blending the color.

This technique can be adapted for oxidation or reduction firing and for temperature ranges from earthenware to stoneware. To maintain optimal clarity of color, use a white clay, zinc-free glazes, and fire the pieces in an electric kiln.

Brushes

The main component of brush painting is the special technique of mixing and blending color directly in an absorbent, natural hair, compound brush. Chinese bamboo mounted brushes come to perfect points that can be reshaped to create special effects or strokes. I use a variety of sizes and hair compositions. The round bamboo handle allows the brush to twirl and dance or be gripped tightly for miniscule detail work. The hair bundle is arranged in the ferrule with the very absorbent core hair and stiff hairs for spring at the center. Softer, smoother, oilier hair surrounds the core to retain moisture and direct the paint to the point. Hair varies by quality of absorption and color from goat to weasel, deer, fox, or horse. Flat goat hair hake brushes are used for washes and applying glaze. Many brushes marketed to potters are only good for base loaded grass and calligraphy marks. They do not have the springy quality that is necessary for bone and vertical stroke. Expect to pay about $25 for the compound brush.

Example Steps

To begin, practice on rice paper with ink to get to know your brushes, loads, and strokes. Also, test on examples of your materials and try the stroke techniques before completing entire pieces.

Start with an image like the one of the egret and moon demonstrated here then move on to images of your own. Glaze a slab tile with the satin white glaze. Allow a space for the moon in the clay frame. Cover the moon area with a paper resist and wash in the sky and ground using a hake brush (figure 1).

Paint the moon in using the moon load with white, yellow, and black. The clean side of the tip faces the interior of the moon shape and the black side is swept in a circle around the exterior to meet itself. This is a vertical stroke using a large brush equal to the size of the radius of the circle. This creates a dimensional dot. It’s used for any fleshy shapes with fullness like eyes or fruit (figure 2).

Create the neck of the egret using a bamboo load with gray at the center and black edges. By applying pressure down and then lifting up part way, the head is formed and extended into the neck of the bird with one fluid vertical stroke. This defines the plumbing pipe shape of the neck that distinguishes an egret from a goose or a swan (figure 3). Each bird has a distinctive quality, usually it’s the shape of the beak or plumage, but for egrets, it’s their neck at rest.

The body is a side stroke with a moon load. The clean side of the tip faces the interior of the body (figure 4).

The beak and eye are placed carefully using a three-color load of white, yellow, and black on a small brush and vertical strokes (figure 5).

Feathers are formed with the grass stroke. Dry the clean brush hair on a cloth and twist it to a gnarled head. Drag the splayed hairs through a wet, diluted, gray for a base load of just the tips of the brush. Place, then lift the brush in the same soft motion (figure 6). Define the legs last; scrape through the blue wash to reveal the white glaze, then use linked bone strokes and a bamboo load. Place the legs carefully to balance the weight of the completed bird (figure 7).

Lastly, use calligraphy strokes to refine the image and apply detail work in the form of dian made with the brush tip. Correct imperfect marks and add lines to the feathers, rocks, and the grass (figure 8).Then go back and do white scratch work to place highlights and apply white dian (figure 9).

Apply the top, sealing, clear glossy glaze with a hake brush in one clean swift stroke. Do not rub or hesitate as this will catch and lift the painting off instead of coating it (figure 10). Tip: You can also use a roller to apply the clear glaze.

Use a dark glaze to create the frame around the image and then it is ready to be glaze fired in an electric kiln (figure 11).

Elizabeth Priddy is a potter, artist, and teacher working in Beaufort, North Carolina. She specializes in brush painted ceramics. For more information, visit herwebsite at http://elizabethpriddy.com.