20. Happy children painting Er denotes children, Xi is happiness and Tu is painting, happy children paintings   I have two Chinese chops/stamps that are rather different, one has a saying, “kind people have longevity” and another is “innocent like a child”. The former stamp I use on paintings that have to do with longevity and the latter stamp I use [...] 19. Yi Bi Hua Recently at “Jijen Zhuan” (art gallery), there was an exhibition that I went to, the artist’s works were very interesting, similar to one of the styles I have tired, too bad I did not get a chance to know him as he also enjoys learning about “wenzi” and from there one can derive “yibi hua”. [...] 18. Painting of Chinese words (II) Lets talk about Wenzi Hua some more…   Not long ago I wrote a piece called, “Wenzi Hua” and talked about the Chinese character for “facial hair” or “beard”. Actually on that day I also did a wenzi hua painting for Mr. He Weichen, consisting of two characters, “Da Jia” (which can mean everyone or a large [...] 17. Painting of Chinese words Wenzi - a single syllabic character (the radical) is called “wen”, the double syllabic character is called “zi”. Hua is painting, Wenzi Hua – painting of Chinese characters/words.   I recently had an exhibition at Jijen Juang (an art gallery), Mr. He Weichen came by in the afternoon to pass me some photographs and encouraged me to [...] 16. Pictorial Calligraphy Tuhua are pictures and wenzi, are words, a single syllabic character (the radical) is called “wen”, the double syllabic character is called “zi”. Tuhua Wenzi is Pictorial Calligraphy.   Wenzi is the symbolic form of language. Early man made “wa wa” sounds, similar to babies and monkeys today, they only know to open their mouths and make [...] 15. Dots in Chinese brush paintings “Se” is to explain, “Shui” is water, “Mo” is Chinese ink, “Hua” are paintings and “Dian” are dots. To explain the dots in Chinese ink-wash paintings.   [The enclosed painting is in monochrome ink of a lady under a large tree. The leaves of the tree are made up of big splashes of ink dots. The lady [...] 14. A Traditional Ode “Bai Miao” is the plain line style of Chinese drawing. It may also be a name of one of the Miao tribes in southern China near Yunan. “Ming Yao” are traditional folk songs.   A lot of artists use “Li Sao” (The Lament, by Qu Yun from the 3rd century BCE) as the title of their abstract [...] 13. An artist’s daily homework Hua Jia means artist, Re Li is daily homework. The daily homework of an artist.   Quite a number of my friends have asked me, “how do you do homework?” [what do you do for practice?], Do you sketch everyday, do you do on sight sketches? Or do you paint the “plum, orchid, bamboo and chrysanthemums”? [...] 12. Banquet on a spring night Chun Ye is a spring night, Yen is a banquet, Tao Li Yuen is a garden or orchard of peach and pears, Shi is and introduction. So the title is “An introduction to the banquet on a spring night at the peach and pear orchard”, it is also the title of one of Li Bai’s [...] 11. The humble hut Lou Shi Ming is the name of a simple essay, Ji Yi Sen Yuan means “but the meaning behind it is deep”. It is also the name of a grass hut, deep in the mountains where a scholar lived. The simple hut with deep meaning.   In the classic, “Guwen Guanzhi” (Collected Ancient Prose), there is an [...]