Sumie is East Asian brush painting, the same kind of painting done in China, but it's a
Japanese term and it means basically writing with ink, but it's come to be known as painting
with ink.
Painters are the only people that really see things because you have to see things clearly
and in detail in order to paint it.
You may not paint it in detail, but you may, you need to understand the concept of the object,
how it was formed, how it works, how it moves, and so forth, before you could actually paint it.
I'm trying to capture the energy and sort of the life spirit of the object, no matter
what the object is, whether it's a bird or a plant or a flower or a rock or a mountain.
And there's energy at all of these things.
Well this, this is a finished painting of a lace cap hydrangea, and you could see these
flower-like red-pill objects, they're not actually flowers, they're false flowers, and
their function is to attract the bees, so it's a very nice arrangement for the hydrangea
and the bees.
They're inspired by nature itself, and nature is a commanding presence wherever we go, and
once you look and see, and look closely, you see different things that you might want to
capture.
This is a lotus, with a lotus leaf, a lotus flower on the top, two stems, this is a young
leaf being formed, there's a little dragonfly on this branch of the grass, wild grass, a
statement in calligraphy together with my name in it, but the statement says, ink painting
evokes the scent of the lotus.
One of the interesting things about the painting is that it's all ink, except for some tones
in the petals of the flower and the color of the dragonfly, rest of it is just various
shades of ink.
When you're involved in a painting, you're not always happy with what you're doing, and
it's only at the end, if it turns out right, that you get some pleasure in it.
They say that learn from your mistakes, and I learn a lot when I paint.
