早春圖之六 Mountain in Early Spring 6

More dark tone is added to the left front rocks, and some more details are pitched in on the left side to bring the painting towards a sense of completion. As I sat back and looked at what I had done so far, I realized I needed to work more details into the painting as found in the original. Lots of things are beyond my grasp... So, I said to myself I might as well put the project aside for a while and come back to it as I recuperate a little later.
I still have to work on the clouds and water. Finally I have to dye the whole paper to light orange color as close as possible to the color of original painting on silk cloth.

早春圖之五 Mountain in Early Spring 5

More dark tone is added to the rocks on the front right. Then, as I looked more carefully to the middle right section of the original painting, I found houses constructed along the cliff, in the shape of small village... There are two fishing boats anchoring on either side of the rocky landscape, to give the impression that fishermen are dwelling here....

早春圖之四 Mountain in Early Spring 4

One unique feature of Guo's landscape painting, as I quickly found out, is his drawings of so many pine trees--some near, some halfway up the cliff, some on the very top of the mountain, to the right and to the left, here and there. It has become such a challenge to draw them and give them life. Sometime along the way I felt so frustrated and almost to the point of giving up the whole project. Alas, I chose to go on a little bit to see if I could repair a little of my sense of hopelessness.

早春圖之三 Mountain in Early Spring 3

Then work more to the right middle portion, thus trying to give a sense of connection of the whole landscape from top to bottom.

早春圖之二 Mountain in Early Spring 2

I started from the top as I had done last time, but I quickly moved to the lower portion of the painting to pitch in some more shades and tones to give some three dimensional effects.

郭熙 （北宋）早春圖 之一 Mountain in Early Spring 1

In this second emulation assignment, I chose Guo Xi of North Sung Dynasty landscape painting "Early Spring". Different from last assignment I started off by making a general outline of the landscape with faint brush strokes from top to bottom.
It was done on the morning of August 8, 2011.