Award winning artist Qu Lei Lei, who himself has kept sketchbooks since childhood, provides all the essential Chinese techniques you need to produce finished sketches of faces and figures, birds and animals and the world of nature. Lei Lei introduces the sketcher's art from from the Chinese perspective and focuses on the sketch as personal fulfilment for the artist, echoing the Oriental practice of drawing and painting as valued meditation in itself.
Full practical guidance is given on how to create your sketch, from choosing and using materials on the move to mixing the right shade of ink and creating a series of brush strokes suitable for sketching. With the natural world covered in full, Lei Lei pulls out key features - water, trees and the profiles of landscapes - and focuses on the techniques required to enable you to capture their different varieties. With features on birds, animals and people, Lei Lei includes a masterclass on how to capture the play of a favourite pet, as well as pointers on how to pin down the spirit of living creatures.
Within each chapter spreads explain the Taoist symbolism of the sketcher's subject; from revealing the spiritual meaning of Oriental flowers, to showing how to create 'chi', the essence of living energy, in a sketch of a landscape, to revealing the essence of a person, the book reveals the spirituality of Chinese sketching and shows how you can use it as a powerful means to self-development. With over 100 of Lei Lei's expert tips gathered from years of sketching people and places worldwide, this is the ideal beginner's workbook for those new to Oriental art and sketching.