Posted on by Ruisi

An older painting I did in the art style of Zhang Da Qian— watercolor and acrylic

This piece was actually the result of an assignment in my high school art class! We were meant to take direct inspiration from a famous artist, and as I was curious to further explore Chinese watercolor painting (which I tried before at Chinese school), my search led me to the artist Zhang Da Qian. 
I was perhaps slightly ambitious here–the painting itself is approximately 22” x 29.5”, so it took quite some time to add in the detailing. It’s certainly not perfect, but this project has given me the motivation to continue painting larger and more detailed pieces (maybe with oil paint)!

Posted on by Ruisi

Bonsai, Part 1!

On January 14th this year, I sowed four different types of tree seeds in my pursuit of growing bonsai from seed. I don’t really have a green thumb, but since we can’t have pets in our dorms, I thought that growing a tree that would in effect grow and age with me would be a nice pastime.

I used scarification, which involves removing part of the seed shell prior to soaking them, for two of the four types (Delonix regia and Pinus aristata), curious to see if it would help the seeds to germinate faster.

Well, as of today, January 25th, a few of the scarified seeds have sprouted! We have 4 little sprouts now, and if all goes well, the others will too. Considering that the original instructions said that the seeds take on average 3 to 5 weeks to germinate, I’m amazed by how quickly these four have grown.