Just finished another set of homemade coasters, this time as a housewarming gift for friends of ours.  The ones I made for my own home were made from decorative papers, and one was my own drawing. This time, I did little Chinese ink paintings to make into coasters. 

 After the paintings were finished, I gathered up the supplies to make the coasters.  I have a box of 3.75"x3.75" white tiles left from the last set I made.  I also cut up pieces of thin, sticky back cork for the bottom. I cut the cork a little smaller than the tiles so it doesn't show from the top. 

 

After attaching the cork to the tiles, it was time to fix the drawings to the front.  I brushed a nice, even coat of Mod Podge adhesive to the front of the tile, and carefully laid the drawing on top.  With a large, flat paintbrush, I smoothed down the paintings from the middle outwards to set it in place, and then I put a clean sheet of paper over the top of it and used the brayer to really glue it down.  After the paintings had some time to dry on the coasters, I brushed another coat of Mod Podge over the top to seal it.  You have to be careful here, because some of the ink smeared.  I used black Chinese ink, which was pretty waterproof. I also used Chinese watercolors for the colored parts, which was not so waterproof, and I got a little bit of smearing.  I had to be extra careful not to brush over and over, and cause more damage.  Once that layer had dried, I painted one more layer over the top with no fear of any more smearing.  I left them to dry over night, and then sprayed them with one more layer of a clear, waterproof varnish. And voila! Nice, new coasters.

Chinese Painting Workshop

This past weekend at the Scottish National Gallery, they had a Chinese Ink Painting workshop which I was really excited to attend.  I did Chinese painting in college and I adored it, and was thrilled to try it again.  The class was originally for October 12, but it was full, so they ran a second class on the 26th, which I was lucky to get into. 

We had the same problem at my college, the class was only offered once a year and it always filled up right away.  We had a professor from China who was a famous artist there.  Our supplies all came from China, which I still have...beautiful brushes, bottled ink, stick ink, ink stone, Chinese watercolors and rice paper.  Unfortunately, all my stuff is back at my parents house in the US, there was only so much I could bring with me overseas.  

There is a Chinese grocery store that I go to a lot here, (I love making my own wontons and dumplings and miso soup) and they have a small selection of art supplies, so today I went in and bought some ink and a brush to work with until I can get my supplies from home. 

 

I really love the smell of Chinese ink...and oil paint.  Stinky art supplies are the best! They smell like art :)

So here are some of my practice drawings from the class. We were working on plum trees and blossoms, and we had to learn all the brush strokes for flowers, branches, and how to fill them in. 

                                                                                                       

 And then we were given the good rice paper and got to paint the whole composition. 

 Plum branch and blossoms, ink and watercolor on rice paper, 13"x13".