Art Supplies for Chinese Brush Painting

Basic Supplies:

Brushes: a big white hair or brown hair bamboo brush used for loading various strokes and wash feature. If you have natural goat hair watercolour brush which is pointed round shape, you may use it if it is hard for you to find a bamboo brush.

A skinny brown hair pointed brush for details development. You may use watercolour sable brush which is pointed round brush and can be easily found in your local art supplies stores.

Rice paper: Absorbent rice paper which may be called as Xuan paper, or raw rice paper, or Sumi Paper, etc. You may get rice paper as a single sheet or in roll pack.

Black ink: Chinese ink, or Japanese ink or Korean ink. Please do not use stationary ink as it made from chemical material and may turn to purple after it dries out.

Paint: Chinese painting colour, or Japanese painting colour, in 12-tube pack or more, some may be sold in a small tray with filled cream paint in it. Usually it contains basic colours: White, Gamboges Yellow, Vermillion Red, Cinnabar Red, Carmine Red, Rouge Red, Burnt Sienna, Green #3, Blue #3, Phthalo blue, Indigo Blue and Coal Black. Any additional colours are always welcomed.

If you can’t find the above paint, you may use watercolour paint to practice. Please be notified that some of the feature may not be the same as you expected.

Painting Pad: Wool made painting carpet is the professional quality product. However you may also use white felt which is cheaper and easy to get from art supply stores, or fabric stores.

Palette: A simple white plastic or pottery palette with wells and open space for mixing colours. Or you may use several white trays, a small one for ink, and a big one for mixing colours

Water container: two containers will be ideal, one for cleaning the brush and one for bringing wash feature for practice.

Paper towel: for blotting a wet brush or testing stroke.

You may get these art supplies from local art supply stores, online stores or local China town art stores or book stores.

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