Autumn Years Spring 2023

Mei says that her teacher advised her that with Chinese brush art, don’t use too many colors. Noting that that Tenn “is not afraid of color,” she says he seems to prefer one color to be dominant.

The desks sport brush kits, spray bottles and sea sponges. A student’s fingers twirl a brush tip to restore its point. Tenn’s place at the table has brushes that are either fan-style, or rounded with small or medium points, some with flat ends and some bulky round ones. One is an ordinary toothbrush, used to splat ter color for an interesting effect. He has a small, paint-stained terrycloth towel on which some of his brushes rest, and where he sometimes wipes his paint smeared fingers. One of Tenn’s paint brushes has been used so much that the enamel has been worn off part of the handle. Mei picks up a rounded brush, show ing the Chinese characters on it. Those indicate what the brush is good for when you paint: making bamboo, an orchid or water. She advises that before you buy a brush, dip it in water, then use it on a paper towel to see if you like it. She demonstrates by holding down a paper towel with her left hand and using her right hand in a wiggly motion so that the brush tip makes a calligraphy or bam boo-leaf type stroke. Students’ hands are in motion, copy ing Tenn’s pictures. One was from a lake in Harriman Park, so he coaches one student to paint the tree from the bot tom up. His advice is to have a good tip on the brush, one that holds enough wa ter. Doing a demonstration, he touches his brush tip to his palette to pick up just

enough color for the trees. One tech nique he showed for indicating grass was to use the end of the brush handle to swoop color up from the shoreline. He points out where to place the trees so that they don’t interrupt the eye’s view of the sky. He says to one student, “good, that’s better now. Now add contrast.” He uses a student’s library card to scrape color away to create a white space, repeating his advice on specific paint colors: “no white, no black, no green.” Watching as he brings out his stu dents’ talent, Mei notes that the color that comes from the indigo plant is much stronger than the blue in the plant itself—an allegory to explain that some times a student becomes better than the teacher and you can’t be jealous of the student. Tenn does like to see what stu dents can accomplish. He even accomplishes more paintings when traveling. He has a miniature wa tercolor kit, a packed grid of thumbnail sized tins, a little palette and bits of pa per. Mei says on a 16-hour flight he had

Love in Spring, Mei Lu.

for plein air painting, and the family might have a picnic, but finding water was sometimes a problem. In New Jer sey, there was a time when they went to Cooper’s Pond in Bergenfield to paint, until the restrooms were closed, which meant they couldn’t get water. However, whether standing or sitting around the table, the students have jam jars or old Chinese-soup plastic containers full of water supplied from the nearby kitchen. Their desk space is dominated by their artist boards and color-smeared pal ettes edged by paint hues including blue, yellow, red, violet or orange. Colors are ready to be applied with brushes, paper towels, bits of fabric or palette knives.

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AUTUMN YEARS I SPRING 2023