flowers and insects painting lessons

sumi-e Painting Workshop – Flowers

🎨 Discover the elegance of traditional Chinese ink painting and learn to capture the spirit of flowers with expressive brushwork.

🎋 Bamboo – strength & vitality
🌸 Plum Blossom – purity & resilience
🌿 Orchid – grace & delicacy
🌺 Lotus – clarity & freedom

📍 4 lessons × 2 hours each
📌 You will learn:

• The five shades of ink & water control

• Brush techniques (dry/wet, pressure, flowing lines)

• Rendering leaves, branches & blossoms

• Creating four completed flower artworks

✨ No previous experience required – only your love for art!

Total 4  lessons

September 17-October 8

Every Wednesday 18:30-20:30
Each lesson is two hours per week

4 classes of Sumi-e (each 2 hr long)for beginners , you will learn how to paint with ink, and course materials will be provided.  The emphasis is on the process!  The Class will be introduced to the “Four Treasures” (The ink stick, the ink stone, brush and paper) and each class will begin with a demonstration and then guided instruction on how to paint “The Four Gentlemen” (The lessons introduce the student to the four basic strokes groups).

The Four Gentlemen teach the foundational brushstrokes of Sumi-e:

“The Four Gentlemen” (四君子 junzi) in Chinese brush painting refer to four plants: plum (梅 mei), orchid (兰 lan), bamboo (竹 zhu), and chrysanthemum (菊 ju). Those four plants have become the basis of Chinese art because of their beauty and characters.

The plum blossoms are cold-resistant flowers that bloom in the coldest time of the year. It is delicate yet hardy, as it blooms through ice to herald the spring.  It serves as a metaphor for inner beauty and humble display under adverse conditions.

The orchids, though fragile in form, are highly valued for their delicate fragrance and always associated with elegance.

The bamboo is tough and upright.  It is the symbol of strength, both physical and mental, as it will bend and sway in the severest of gales but does not break.  Its hollow trunk means humility.

The chrysanthemum is beautiful and colourful, while it often blooms in autumn when other flowers are fading away, which symbolizes the virtue to withstand all adversities. It is tranquil and harmonious with others, but also dignified and indomitable.

In Chinese Arts, the plum, the orchid, the bamboo and the chrysanthemum either appear individually or as a set. When they are displayed together they symbolize the four seasons, the plum blossom for winter, the orchid for spring, the bamboo for summer and the chrysanthemum for autumn and you find them quite often in people’s living rooms, offices and hotel lobbies.

The Four Gentlemen have been used in Chinese brush painting since the Song Dynasty (960 – 1279) and they were later also used by artists in Korea, Japan, Vietnam and some other Asian countries.