Sasa's Sketchbook 3

A whisper of Spring.

Here are some more 'red envelopes' for Roberto and Zyzanna . I picked a traditional Chinese motif as a starting point but made changes to it while painting. Especially the round ones in the bottom were difficult, I didn't do a pencil sketch first so had to change the plan quite a lot to fit the image inside the circle. Also, I did those last and started to have hard time concentrating and made a lot of mistakes. Peony Bird & plum tree   Phoenix & sea Phoenix & peony Also a bit closer look of my Chinese ink painting brushes - and my feline art buddy Nunu. (I am so embarrassed about the quality of the photos, I wish I had patience to learn to take photos like Paula .)

I celebrated Chinese New Year by painting some 'red envelopes'. In China red envelopes are New Year's gifts, people put some money in and give them to children, also bosses can give them to their subordinates. I really enjoyed painting these detailed images with tiny brush and gold paint, in addition to this snake I painted a peony, a plum tree, and two phoenix envelopes.

Move Trike In China people often use tricycles for moving too. Sometimes the pile is several meters high: sofas, bookshelves, tables... I started this sketch last November when I was visiting Beijing to finalize my own move but it took an IF challenge to get it finished. I guess this will be the last tricycle sketch for now since they are hard to spot in London... Beijing was full of  inspiration on wheels, I documented only a fraction of them, the one I especially wish I had drawn was a pop corn trike, but here are the ones I did draw: Beijing Tricycles on Flickr