Matting and Sumi-e

It's been a busy week--yesterday was my last matting and framing class, and today was my first sumi-e brush painting class.

The matting class worked out surprisingly well, considering that I screwed up my first mat for each of my pictures. In the end, though, I ended up with two pretty photos that would have probably cost me hundreds of dollars to have custom matted and framed.

And the really tricky one, painted on a ceiling tile:

My sumi-e class was fun, but unfortunately got a little long for me. It's a fun idea, and I did find it easier than regular painting. Next week I believe that we'll get to start using some color, which should be fun. This week we concentrated on painting peonies, which would have been much easier if I had more than a passing acquaintance with what peonies look like. I remembered them being a big, showy flower and otherwise went off my instructors demonstration paintings.

After a few pages of practice, I managed to make some decent flowers. Next week, I believe the plans is baby chicks--we'll see how that goes!