Chinese Calligraphy Horses

Day 22 practiced drawing horses in Chinese ink. I love the power of running horses and after studying the strokes and watching a YouTube video by a Chinese-style horse painting master who was adept at capturing the essence of a horse running, thought I'd give it a try. First attempt a whole picture, but as a kid I was entranced by horses so drew them a fair bit ... straight knee-less legs and always side views, but they were horses. This month of accepting this painting challenge to create some Asian art form every day has really helped me improve. A lot of Asian paintings rely on the fluid simplicity of the line to capture the essence of the object. While it's not my first choice in art form, it's actually important to establish those simple lines before putting in the detail like in Western paintings. This month has been amazing for challenging new art styles and finally getting a brush to paper to begin learning to paint. It's been exciting!

So here's one of my first goes at Chinese inked horses. I used newspaper because why waste good quality paper for first learning techniques?

Racing Horses
Chinese ink on newspaper