PM Schlüssel

There is something akin to walking into a room with potential in Ink painting. All you have to begin with is the most basic equipment: a brush, some ink, and paper. But those simple materials? They possess unlimited possibilities. It is the beauty of an ink painting course that it walks you through the fundamentals, without putting you into a box. You will soon understand that you should not get everything right. It is all about letting your brush flow, experimenting with the possibilities of the ink, and teaching yourself to talk with each stroke. For quick course info, get the info on our page.

Initially, it is like a weird game of control and spontaneity. The brush is cumbersome in your hand. The ink gets everywhere you do not want. But that’s the fun. There’s freedom in the mess. You will not be required to make a flawless portrait or copy an image. You will be concerned instead with capturing an essence. You can learn to imply, not to tell, whether you are attempting to capture the calmness of a tree or the dynamism of a river, ink painting teaches you to hint at, not to tell. It is about letting the imagination of the viewer fill in the blanks.

The course does not drag you in the myriad of techniques. It is not a matter of a strict sequence of actions. It is about letting the ink and the brush take you where you have to go. You will know how to push the brush, all right, but you will know how to release as well. The ink is of its own flow, of its own mind. It is even unpredictable at times, and that is a part of magic. It is not about making the ink do what it does, but about accepting the mess and seeing beauty in it.

The more you paint, the more you will come to see that ink painting is a suggestive art. Movement, texture, and light can be created in a few strokes. It is not about clogging the corners of the page in detail–it is about letting the space breathe. You will learn during each lesson that sometimes it is better to do less. One stroke of the brush can say more than a dozen lines when it is placed in the right position. It is as though you are writing poetry with your brush and you leave it just a little so that the viewer can feel the meaning without typing it all down in words.

The thing which is remarkable is that ink painting not only makes you different in the way you paint, but it makes you different in the way you view the world. You begin to observe the shapes of the trees, the shadows as they play in the sidewalk, and how light plays upon water. You will start knowing how to translate these moments into your art, the way to capture the moment in a couple of strokes, quickening, intentional. The more you paint the more you have a voice. The better your brush speaks your language.