Botanicals 2015 Artist Shaoqiang Chen | Blossom of Hydrangea

In the spring season, when I took my family to the Maymont Park (in Richmond, VA), I beheld the blossom of white color hydrangea on the roadside. At that moment, I perceived noble and elegant characteristics from these flowers. In particular, as the bright white color spherical flowers shining in front of me, the poetry of Song dynasty poet Zhang Yan’s “Jade Butterfly- Sing about Hydrangea” suddenly flashed in my mind: “As these flowers blossom, the place is full of harmony; and the Spring is very much in the air”. I felt that this beautiful scene came from a fairyland and so I wanted to depict the elegant view by my “Heaven Style” painting method.

To express white flower petals, two methods have been used in Chinese painting history: leave it blank and contrasted by darker objects around it, or paint white color on class-style rice paper (brown color paper). In Ming and Qing dynasty, the ink painting Masters Xu Wei and Chen Chun liked to use the first method a lot. But I feel that second method could well express the noble and graceful flavor in this case. In particular, I would like to emphasize the contrasts between flowers and leaves. Therefore, I decided to use white colors on classic style rice paper to depict the flowers. In terms of painting process, I first used small scale regular calligraphy script lines to outline the petals. Then I filled it out with several layers of white colors. Around white flowers, I created the leaves by mixing ink, yellow and dark blue. The dark color leaves and the white petal thus generated a sharp color contrast and visual impact. I also paid attention to the variability of ink among the leaves. I made the scene live by adding butterflies done with meticulous detail strokes. The work was completed by inscribing the poet Zhang Yan’s poetry “Jade Butterfly- Sing about Hydrangea”.