Hand-Tinted Cyanotype Illustrations

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H is for Hong Kong: A Primer in Pictures

Illustration Style: Cyanotype

Elizabeth Briel's original illustrations for H is for Hong Kong represent an early form of photography known as cyanotype.

Cyanotype prints were developed in 1842 by Sir John Herschel, an astronomer who needed a way to copy his notes. The process he created used a mixture of water, chemicals and sunlight to make a blue copy of his notes and drawings. Several years later, this process was picked up by architects and engineers who created the first "blueprints".

A beginners guide to the cyanotype process.
Creating "blueprint" images through the cyanotype process is fairly simple. It requires a few special chemicals, water, paper and sunlight. Cyanotype artists mix two chemicals (potassium ferricyanide and ferric ammonium citrate) with water.

He or she then prepares a canvas, which may be paper, card stock or fabric. To prepare the canvas, the artist brushes the chemical solution over the canvas and allows it to dry in a dark room. Objects, such as leaves or ferns, or photograph negatives are placed on the canvas.

The artist then exposes the canvas to sunlight. Within a few minutes any portion of the canvas exposed to sunlight will begin to turn blue. Sections partially colored will be lighter blue and sections completely covered will be white. When the blue color is as dark as the artist wants it to be, he or she will rinse the canvas in water. The canvas, with its blue and white representation of the object, can then be dried and enjoyed!

Each image in H is for Hong Kong began as a photograph. Elizabeth Briel transformed them into blue prints and then took her beautiful prints a step further. She hand colored the images to create brilliant, original watercolor-like illustrations for our pages.

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Chinese Peasant Art Illustrations

Everyday Life: Through Chinese Peasant Art

Illustration Style: Chinese Peasant Art

In Everyday Life, we proudly present artwork from peasant artists in Jinshan, China.

This form of artwork developed in the 1950's. Chairman Mao declared that the people should paint. He approved of artisitc expression and provided training and materials for peasants. Many of the first painters were older women, as they also practiced other traditional arts such as weaving, paper cutting and embroidery. In time, however, the love of painting spread through villages and attracted men and women of different ages. Today, peasant artists paint in their kitchens, in their barns and in village art studios. Many of them work on agricultural farms during daylight hours and paint after sundown.

Peasant art is wonderfully, if unnaturally, bright and lively, showing country life as the artist would like it to be rather than the way it actually is. Ordinary events of everyday life, such as farming, harvest festivals, children swimming in summer, and families playing in winter, are celebrated in an array of unusually vibrant colors. Exagerated colors and unrealistic perspective create a charming, almost child-like quality in these stunning paintings.

To create bright, lively pictures, the farmers mix tempera paint with chalk. They paint on rice paper - thin, delicate paper made from material inside the trunk of a rice paper tree.

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Chinese Classical Brush Painting Illustrations

Hiss! Pop! Boom!: Celebrating Chinese New Year

Illustration Style: Chinese Brush Painting & Calligraphy

Classical Brush Painting
Chinese brush paintings decorate each page of Hiss! Pop! Boom!. The elegant art form has been practiced in China for over 6,000 years.

Traditional Chinese artists paint human figures, landscapes, birds and flowers. Painters use their brushes and paints to show how the bird's feathers feel silky, how the waterfall pours down the mountain, and how the court lady's steps are graceful and elegant.

An artist will sometimes complement his or her painting by writing a poem next to the picture. Written in calligraphy, the poem may explain the painting's theme, share the artist's reason for painting the picture, or reveal the name of the person receiving the painting.

A Beginners Guide to Chinese Calligraphy
Chinese calligraphy is the art of writing Chinese characters with a brush. Each character requires a certain number of brush strokes written in a specific order. Calligraphers have followed the same rules for thousands of years. Still, just as with handwriting and drawing, every person's calligraphy looks a little different.

Chinese calligraphers use four tools, which they call The Four Treasures of the Study. The first tool, the brush, is made by sliding animal hair into a bamboo or wooden tube. Stiff wolf hair makes a brush with a hard, precise tip. Soft, white goat hair and black rabbit hair hold more ink and make the calligrapher's brush strokes look dense and heavy.

The second tool, the ink stick, is made by burning pine sap or oil and mixing the soot with glue. This sticky mixture is pressed into molds and allowed to dry, becoming hard sticks of dry ink.

Calligraphers make liquid ink by rubbing the ink sticks, clean water and a little salt against hard, smooth ink stones. The best ink stones are carved from river rocks and are handed down from generation to generation.

Before paper was invented, calligraphers wrote on strips of dried bamboo or silk. Today, calligraphers use rice paper- thin, delicate paper made, not from rice, but from material inside the trunk of a rice paper tree.

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Chinese Paper Cut Art Illustrations

My Mom is a Dragon: And My Dad Is A Boar

Illustration Style: Chinese Paper Cut Art

Chinese noblewomen began creating paper cut art during the Han dynasty (206 B.C. - 221 A.D.). To pass time, ladies of the court would cut pictures of flowers and animals from paper, a newly invented, delicate material. They used these precious paper decorations to brighten their hair and clothes. They also offered them to each other as gifts.

Over many centuries, as papermaking skills spread, girls throughout China learned to snip intricate pictures from paper. In addition to sewing and cooking, families expected girls to be able to decorate a home with paper cut art.

Today, paper cut art is still used as decoration, especially on windows and lanterns. It is given as gifts and used in embroidery patterns. If you visit China, peer down at a lady's feet. You may find a paper cut flower pattern sewn onto a silk slipper.

Paper cut artists use small, sharp scissors, or a knife, to cut through the fragile paper. Each paper cut picture is unique, depending on the mood, skill and region of the artist. The style of paper cut art featured in My Mom is a Dragon is from the Nanjing Province of China.

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