Plus, golly, he made me laugh:) He spoke in Chinese and a translator moved him into French but by acciendent I found he spoke English. Five of the workshopees were determindly mystic and kept banging on about Chai, Yin, Yang and so forth. They asked questions about breathing; do you do this on the in-breath, do you exhale with his mark?
He dismissed it all. Chi is in the imagination, breathe from your toes, the rest is supersition. Keep your forearm horizontal, work from the wrist, keep the brush vertical.
Oh and... the water should be 'pure', not tap water - mineral - because this affects the quality of the ink - which should be ground with care and patience to avoid the scratches [which I always get because I soak my sticks and then grind them furiously] [I quite like the scratches, actually]
Forgot how schooled I am in the ideaogram. Some science magazine/journal my father gave me to read as a girl used to use ideograms to upgrade Chinese writing - so 'feedback' and other concepts were expressed. I was charmed by them and used to copy them out. Of course they are quite easy to read, they are pictures of the concept.
Today they put some drawings up and asked what we thought they represented. Clearly they were transport, carts, cars etc. Sadly the mystics interpreted them as wind forces and so on.. I guess you can say wind was implicit in the concept? Anyway, no-one likes a smart arse; I got out quick at the end.
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