Patrice Bruzas' "Let it Loose Sumi Landscape Painting" demo at the Seattle DANIEL SMITH Store

Patrice Bruzas' "Let it Loose Sumi Landscape Painting" demo at the Seattle DANIEL SMITH Store

Last Saturday, the FREE Art demonstration at the DANIEL SMITH Seattle Store was “Let it Loose Sumi Painting Landscape Painting” with Patrice Bruzas.  Patrice told us that she loves Sumi Painting “because it’s so spontaneous” and “when you get into collaging, you add so much more.”  Patrice begins with traditional Sumi-e then adds collage elements such as silk and tissue papers, torn up Sumi paintings and even special fused glass that she makes herself.  In her website she describes her “Collage works [as] little jewels that are typically developed from handmade paper combined with sumi and fused glass and other organic materials meant to stir the soul of the viewer.”

 
For the Sumi demo, Patrice painted a Sound view shoreline with some San Jaun Islands in the distance on Sumi paper using Sumi Ink Stick and Sumi Ink Stone with a Sumi Brush.  Once she finished and dried the painting with a blow dryer to set the ink (Sumi ink is permanent when dried) then studied her painting to decide what parts of the landscape composition she liked.  Then Patrice mounted the painting using a homemade cornstarch paste on to board (not sure what kind) so that she can begin adding the collage elements. 
 
When deciding what to add and where, Patrice told us “over, under, around, and through” is important when doing collage, and “repeat shapes, repeat color”.  Then she said that; “I look at it and think…ooooh, do I want to put some of this in…or that….?”  Watching Patrice work over her piece you can see how it very process oriented with her decisions based on her reactions to what she is doing.
 
One of the questions that was asked was “when starting out with Sumi Painting, can you use cheaper paper to learn the brush strokes?”  Patrice answered “No, if you use another paper you won’t learn how it [the brush] works with Sumi paper [instead] use your practice paper for custom wrapping paper.”
 
Some of the Sumi-e tips Patrice shared with us were:
“Sumi style of painting you work from the front to the back”
“You leave beautiful white spaces – leave a place for your eyes.”
“When you paint Sumi, you use your whole arm, shoulder too and breath…you don’t flick your wrist.”
 
Thank you Patrice!
 
Every Day, Express Yourself  with ART….
 
~Deborah Burns
 
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