Sumi-'e or Japanese brush stroke Painting, borrows or finds its roots from Chinese brush stroke painting. While both disciplines find commonality in the use of brush and ink and the impressionist manner by which both convey life as seen by the artist, sumi'e works as a picture haiku - capturing the essence of an experience in a few short phrases. My path started from Alex Lim's Chinese brushpainting classes at the Ayala Museum and progressed to the Kawai method on Tuesday nights with a few Japanese ladies who graciously passed on the learning to those patient enough to learn. It was a good six months before I completed my 7 basic strokes on rice paper. I am attempting to complete a series of silk paintings which espouse some of the basic strokes, but veer away from the traditional in terms of colors. The silk paintings are all prepared in the traditional manner on raw silk and painted using sumi (black ink) and Holbein and other Japanese watercolors...
