Manuals for Lively Inspiration

By Sandie Osborne

Part 3: Previously, we discussed the tools and the energy of the practice of Chinese painting. Here we present sources, principles of composition, techniques, and perception so you can make a painting, a first step toward your album, a record of cultivation.

The best way to learn a painting practice, as with taijiquan, is with a teacher whose skill is credible and is transmitted to you through demonstration and sincerity. But this may not be in your fortune, or you may only have brief direct experience with a master. To enhance or develop a practice, the student of painting or any practice may need to rely on manuals. Painting manuals became popular in the late Ming dynasty, a particularly significant period of art reference standards, and when the practice began to be a pastime for people of leisure (an upscaling class of travelers and literati, as well as simple Daoists, who might be disposed to calligraphy, the marriage of painting and poetry, the grandparent of those landscapes with inscriptions). In prosperous times, painting was no longer just an endeavor of elite scholars and poets, but an indulgence of the more or less idle, quite possibly wives and concubines. Hence the popularity of manuals. Not the first, but one of the most famous, the Mustard Seed Garden Manual, from 1679, is still readily available on its own, and is excerpted in a popular book in English by Mai-Mai Sze, “The Way of Chinese Painting — Its Ideas and Techniques,” first published in 1956. Literati (scholars) wrote about painting much earlier, but not in such a practical way. While the early art critics extolled virtues of styles, and critiqued the insights of the classic painters and calligraphers, the newer manuals illustrated the motifs and techniques for an audience who already knew how to hold and move a brush in accordance with established and accepted cosmic principles. The Chinese generally learned how to write

by copying calligraphy; to extend that skill to imagery was a logical extension.

I approached a Chinese gentleman painter not long ago, seeking a new teacher after an overseas move took me away from a beloved mentor. The new acquaintance studied the brushstrokes of a couple of my existing works, and said, “Just get the Mustard Seed Manual and work your way through it. That’s what I did.” You might also scour YouTube for video tutorials which show technique. But like learning taiji from a video, you may succeed only if you have had some transmitted instruction from a human being first. You cannot learn taiji from simply reading the Taiji Classics, perhaps akin to Xie He’s Six Principles of painting, though the texts will inform and enhance your practice.

A bit more sophisticated than my beginner’s novelty kit, manuals of traditional origin and the currently published show how to paint symbols and motifs: birds, flowers, rocks, mountains, water, human figures, elements of nature. You can pick a motif and concentrate on it. Symbolic motifs are characteristic of Chinese painting. Dictionaries of the symbolic meanings might help you construct a more meaningful painting. Zheng Baiqiao of the 18th century painted nothing but bamboo, orchids, and rocks, satisfying symbols, through his whole life. Today easily obtained manuals go beyond the classics, and may focus on insects or vegetables, flowers and mountains, and even such specific topics like “How to Paint Lifelike Camels” or “Cute Animals.” In addition to manuals, you may want to collect albums, museum catalogs, and art history books to inspire your painting. Once you become familiar with the way of the brush, you will appreciate even more the classics, and be able to distinguish the great from the mediocre, and assess the various contemporary styles which either honor or break the models of the past. A collection of a single painter’s oeuvre, or of figures or landscapes, will speak and sing, bringing the outdoors in, circulating what your eye sees on a scroll or out your window and the way the life force may be transmitted to paper. Regarding that life force, rarely do you see a dead thing in a traditional Chinese painting. I once was captivated in the Smithsonian by a huge Flemish oil still life of a rustic pantry: a gorgeous execution with flowers, fruits and vegetables, cooking implements, arrayed on oiled wooden board, in rich lighted detail—including a dead rabbit drooped on the table. Occasionally in a Chinese still life, you will see a fish or shrimp or crab, even a chicken, foodstuff, but I don’t recall ever seeing a dead mammal. Wild birds and water buffalo, flowers and trees are depicted with vitality, just as brushed waterfalls and

mountains convey the qi of the earth. Actually, there is no such thing as a “still” life in a Chinese painting. The painting should radiate energy and honor life.

Styles of painting

Notwithstanding some modern Chinese art, there are two basic traditional styles—xie yi (spontaneous) and gong bi (highly detailed, elaborate, disciplined and structured.) A xie yi painting can be completed in less than an hour, in one sitting, like a session of qigong. You cannot go back and correct or modify it. Although sometimes you might transform an unfortunate ink splash into a bird or a tree. Gong bi has some of the concentrating appeal of adult coloring books, albeit with your own carefully drawn and colored design. A gong bi painting can take weeks, coloring the outlined image with layers of pigment and water, using two brushes.

Basic strokes and techniques

The ink brush strokes of Chinese painting, more functional than application of color or rendering dimension, are the basic language of the xie yi artist. They are based in calligraphy strokes (which is partly why one “writes and reads” a Chinese painting). Practicing a brush stroke is a basic exercise of controlled and connected lines and dots, like stances and steps in taiji. There is a kind of “magic paper” for both calligraphy and image practice, a grid and ground for strokes; a water-loaded brush is used, reminiscent of the wax and film “magic slates” we used as children to make marks and disappear them, repeatedly. When the wet mark dries, it vanishes on the magic paper so you can start all over. I like to use paper toweling or old newsprint to practice and test marks with ink or color in my brush. Sometimes these blotters become appealing spontaneous works of abstract art themselves.

A basic how-to manual will illustrate the various lines and dots: long and short, thick and thin, with abrupt or trailing or reversing ends and beginnings. Varying pressure on the brush through a stroke, using the tip or the side, will produce different effects. The amount of moisture, and the density of ink or color will produce graded effects. Closely observe a painting to identify these qualities. Chinese art has generally been more focused on line—stroke— to build images, as opposed to approximating light and shade for a 3-D effect.

He Xie’s Six Principles

“Spirit Resonance,” or vitality, and seems to translate to the nervous energy transmitted from the artist into the work. The overall energy of a work of art.

“Bone Method,” or the way of using the brush. This refers not only to texture and brush stroke, but to the close link between handwriting and personality. In his day, the art of calligraphy was inseparable from painting.

“Correspondence to the Object,” or the depicting of form, which would include shape and line.

“Suitability to Type,” or the application of color, including layers, value and tone.

“Division and Planning,” or placing and arrangement, corresponding to composition, space and depth.

“Transmission by Copying,” or the copying of models, not only from life but also the works of antiquity.

— WIKIPEDIA.COM

Composition: Balance with Contrast, Perspective

The fundamental aim in Chinese painting is to achieve harmony through balance and contrast. To create balance, try to divide the blank space of your paper into a magic square, nine squares equally arranged within a larger square. The corners of the central square are the best focal points; the outer horizontal end points of the square are the best beginning and ending points. This is similar to contemporary western grid theory, which is based on the rule of thirds. In calligraphy a similar “squaring” is used but it radiates from a center point in the eight directions like a bagua. One grid for area, another for direction or distance.

Yin/yang balance is achieved with a gathering or scattering of elements, contrasts of dark/ light/, clear/blurring, showing/ hiding, large/small, long /short, curved/straight, still/moving. Yin and yang. Consider these elements in painted images when “reading” or “writing” a painting. Because Chinese painting traditionally depends more on energetic line to create form, perspective is not linear, but diffuse. Images may “float” on a plain background. If there

is a detailed sea, there will not be a clouded sky; flowers will not be displayed against a cluttered background. The vanishing point is an element in western art; in Chinese art, the images tend to be arranged on a surface and distinguished by contrast and the flow of qi, not a linear depth achieved by lines converging to a single point. As in other energy practices, structure is important; in painting you might charcoal it in, a warm-up for the painting to be gently dusted off after you execute the brush work. As taichi is generally performed in a limited space, as opposed to a race from a starting point to and end, so is the Chinese painting a sort of freeze frame. You get one chance, unless you are accomplished at recovery. But you can make 10,000 paintings!

Dao of Creativity

Brush painting is actively participating in creation, and perhaps the xie yi style, the spontaneous, might better meld the manifest world and its artistic representation. When Laozi says you can know the world without going out your door, he might have been thinking of the scholar at his table, wielding a brush and revealing his vision of nature. The xie ye painter —the most Daoist— engages in deep inward contemplation and then quickly paints his vision. To paint anything, one must study the structure, see bones, life, qi. But as you delve into this practice, you may discover an apposite reaction. With an imaginary brush in mind, you will begin to observe the living tree, its structure, its qi revealed. How would you paint this energy? In my early days of this practice (which I really should do more), I started to see real objects as if they were painted; the real world began to reveal its qi, its form, its color in a way it hadn’t before, through a different sort of perception achieved through a practice. A mirrored perception of reality in my mind now persists, and sometimes I don’t feel the need or desire to paint it at all. (Or perhaps it is those 18,000 photos on my phone). Perhaps as a form of cultivation, I don’t really need to do anything at all. Just let the qi flow.

My teacher once told me to experiment, try anything. He had lineage, training, and history, practiced qigong and taiji, is a generous, open and cheerful man despite having come of age in the Cultural Revolution. He also painted in oil. I would like to ask him if the monk Shi Tao, a late Ming/early Qing painter was correct when he said “the method which consists in not following any method is the perfect method.”

I leave it up to you.

Bibliography

1) The Way of Chinese Painting, Mai-mai Sze, 1956, Random House

2) Art by the Book, Painting Manuals and the Leisure Life in Late Ming China, J.P. Park, 2012,University of Washington Perss

3) The Chinese Literati on Painting: Susan Bush, 1971, Harvard University Press

4) CAS WIlliams etc

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Poetry Corner

Send in your poetry submissions and art to daodogpress@gmail.com. Send high-resolution images as attachments and copy in the body of the email.

The Nature In Me

By Rachel Hamilton

I watched the river flow Where it was to end up it did not know It trusted it would flow where it should be It didn’t fight or struggle it was light and free

I watched a tree waving in the wind It bent but did not break again and again It was smart enough to surrender to the wind In the end it was still standing a win

Tell me why after all I see Do I let life be a struggle for me I plan and plan my dream seems further away I live in the past and future but not today

I no longer force I just let go I raise up my hands I just don’t know Where will my journey lead me today I let nature show me the way I now choose to live as nature flow with this day I live in my heart nature leads my way I let go and claim I just don’t know I trust the process let nature lead where I should go.

Karma

By C.L. Babcook

The ghosts of the past come forward By means of our insincere actions Haunting the present because of the past.

Unresolved actions, painful memories That need to be addressed, But rarely are.

Few can review their past With eyes of clarity. Too many sorrows, too many fears.

The ripple effect of tragedy As we move ever closer to Dao

Lady Yin & Lord Yang

By Ray Vespe Lady Yin of the Winter Spirit Soulful Kneader and Shaper Of Life’s soft raw dough Standing next to the deep Well Even in her coldest and dampest Of dark moonlit nights She always remembers Her loving Summer Lord Yang And… Lord Yang of the Summer Spirit Soulful Baker and Keeper Of Life’s solid whole Loaves Sitting next to the flaming Hearth Even in His hottest and driest Of bright sunlit days He never forgets His loving Winter Lady Yin And… They both rejoice together When joining once again At the Common Boundary Of Spring and Autumn Equinoxes When blessing the Bread And… They both kneel together When crossing once again At the Familiar Turning Of Dawn and Dusk When sharing the Bread And… They both dance together When reversing once again Upon Earth’s still Ground At the warming Valley Waters Where Yin is becoming Yang Beneath Heaven’s clear Sky At the cooling Mountain Fires When Yang is becoming Yin In their endless Transforming

Author’s Note: This poem was created for, and concluded, my keynote address at the 15th Annual Taoist Gathering at the Taoist Center in Oakland last October. After preparing the address, I was reflecting on Yin and Yang relationships and the words Lady and Lord came into my awareness. I looked up their etymological definitions in the dictionary, and lo and behold and much to my surprise, discovered that the root meaning of lady is “kneader of bread” and Lord is “keeper of loaves”! This poem naturally unfolded from that truly amazing and delightful moment of discovery.

A Brush with the Tao — Hu Ke Ming’s Calla

By Sandie Osborne

Incense is wafting A cup of wine or tea is set I fill my three-bin water bowl I gather my brushes I lay out my felt I am thinking about what to paint, been reading Peter Swann

I search for my favorite copy book “100 Flowers by Hu Ke Ming” my teacher’s teacher’s teacher, it is said Lineage in painting is important too I pick the calla lily

I rip/tear/cut a sheet from my throwaway practice roll of rice paper

I grind ink while contemplating Hu Ke Ming’s calla. I select my wolf brush, after 2 years becoming supple I feel its spirit

I mix ink and water on my plate I trace/follow/mimic Hu Ke Ming’s calla steps using all the techniques passed down

I stroke and stroke push and pull

My painting looks nothing like HKM’s calla

I start all over again.

Book Review

Daoist Morning and Evening Altar Recitations

By Josh Paynter and Jack Schaefer

Parting Clouds Daoist Education A translation of the 玄門早晚壇功課經 (Xuanmen zaowan tan gongke jing)

This work is a complete translation of the Morning and Evening Altar Recitations, aka “The Gongke”. The Gongke is the collection of liturgical scriptures recited at the altar at every Quanzhen Daoist Temple. These recitations occur in the early morning and in the evening, and can be as simple as a sole chanter or as complicated as the entire body of resident monks and nuns. There can be a simple accompaniment of a wooden fish bell, or the ornate accompaniment of the Daoist orchestra. Whether simple or complex, at the heart of these performances is the text itself. The corpus of texts is a fascinating journey through Daoist doctrine and practice. Prayers of purification, hagiographies of special deities, prayers of commitment, cosmology, meditation, theory, and much more all converge in this collection. It can be said that this is a pocket sized or mini Daoist Canon.

Josh and Jack set about translating this as a response to a deep need to connect to the tradition and the most common practices as experienced in daily life at the temples. As Daoism continues to take root in the West, it is becoming more mature in its presence. The relationship to lineages in China is becoming the new norm. As such, there is a need to align with those practices that describe traditional lineage Daoism. The Gongke, and its recitation, is one such defining text. By having access to the translation and the original Chinese and pinyin pronunciation (all provided in this book), the English-speaking person can now engage and understand this practice and the textual depth and meaning within.

Together, Josh and Jack, 22nd generation Long Men priests are the main teachers and founders of Parting Clouds Daoist Education. Parting Clouds is a community that has been recognized as a temple/ community by Zhang Mingxin, the Abbess of Qingcheng’s Jianfu gong. This translation is the first in the Parting Clouds Daoist Resources series. More core practical texts and translations are upcoming from Parting Clouds Press.

SUBJECT: Taoist Philosophy / Western Taoism • ISBN-13: 978-1-68707-363-1(paperback) • COST: $29.99 • PAGES: 178 pages/paperback

Temple of the Celestial Cloud Esoteric Daoist Mysticism

The following books have been written by Professor Jerry Alan Johnson and contain translated texts from ancient Zhen Yi Daoist Mystisicm and are introduced for the first time in English.

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Daoist Magic Tools. This particular training manual provides information originating from the Taiqing (Great Clarity) Daoist tradition, and includes secret methods of writing magical talismans and speaking sacred Words of Power via Breath Incantations. This particular Taiqing Daoist Manual provides for four special categories of magical talismans, as well as their specific stroke orders, and their essential activation incantations. Included in this special training manual are: The special categories of magical talismans traditionally used for the “Suppression of Demon Spirits” and for “Blessing the Home;” which are to be posted up on the wall or main pillar of the house like a “Public Notice.” These special Taiqing Talismans must both be written with Black Pine Soot Ink and The Empty Vessel — Page 18

Cinnabar on Yellow Talisman Paper. The special categories of magical talismans traditionally used for “Summoning Spirits” and for “Treating Diseases.” These special Taiqing Talismans must be written with Red Cinnabar Ink on standard Yellow Talisman Paper. These four special categories of Taiqing Talismans are extremely important, and essential for all Daoist disciples to study; therefore this special instruction manual is presented here as an essential companion to the Daoist Magical Talismans textbook. $175

Daoist Transformation Magic. Transformation Skills of Daoist Sorcery, Two Types of Magical Transformation Skill, The Magical Transformation of Man, Observing the Present Meditation, Psychometry, Clairaudience, Transferring Thoughts, Clairvoyance, Perceiving a Person’s Destiny, Seeing Spirits and Having Visions, Dream Magic, Dream Magic Training, Herbs Used To Induce Lucid Dreaming, Mind Magic, Illusionary Magic, Invisibility, Three Types of Invisibility Skills, Suspended Animation, Walking Through Walls, Soul Travel, Teleportation, Bilocation, Shape-Shifting Magic, Methods of Shape-Shifting, The Magical Transformation of External Things, Defense Magic, Healing Magic, Sex Magic, Materialization, Weather Magic, Divination Magic, Corpse Magic, Transferring a Soul, Stealing the Soul of a Coma Victim, Rituals Used In Corpse Magic In Order to Obtain a Spirit Helper, Energy, Spirit, and Soul Projection, Qi and Thought Projection, Shadow Magic Training,Three Types of Soul Projection, Five Phases of Soul Travel, Soul Projection Training, Imagination Techniques, Respiration Techniques, Mantra Sound Techniques, Advanced Soul Projection and Shape-Shifting Techniques, Communicating in the Spirit World. $85

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