Drawing Zhuangzi with colored pencils
Deep Dives
Explore related topics with these Wikipedia articles, rewritten for enjoyable reading:
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Zhuangzi (book)
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The article directly illustrates stories from Zhuangzi's inner chapters. Understanding the text's structure, authorship debates, and philosophical context would deepen appreciation of the specific parables being illustrated.
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Hui Shi
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Huizi (Hui Shi) appears as Zhuangzi's intellectual sparring partner in multiple stories in this article. He was a real philosopher of the School of Names, and understanding his paradoxes and relationship with Zhuangzi enriches these dialogues.
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Wu wei
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The Butcher Ding story and the themes of uselessness, effortless action, and 'going by spirit' throughout these parables embody the Taoist concept of wu wei. This philosophical foundation explains why the 'useless' tree and giant gourd stories matter.
I am very sick and unable to do a lot of things that used to give me joy. Housebound, mostly bedbound except for medical appointments… so I decided to lean back into traditional art. I choose colored pencils, a medium that I actually never worked with because I associated with kids drawings, But that I now see has a lot of potential. I bought a box of Derwent lightfast. Not the cheapest but wow what an amazing quality. I started out by drawing from bird photos my son makes. This I did first a while and I worked with a book a video tutorials until I felt I was skilled up enough (6 months). Then I turned to a project where I could use my imagination (you also do that while copying photos, but not as much).
I embarked on a bit more ambitious but still contained project, namely illustrating some select stories from Zhuangzi’s inner chapters, composed in the 4 th c bc. Here’s the completed project. I will refer to Zhuangzi but also discuss my process and thoughts.
The Peng/kun
In the northern darkness there is a fish and his name is Kun. The Kun is so huge don’t know how many thousand li he measures. He changes and becomes a bird whose name is Peng. The back of the Peng measures I don’t know how many thousand li across, and when he rises up and flies off, his wings are like clouds all over the sky. When the sea begins to move, this bird sets off for the southern darkness, which is the Lake of Heaven.
I used marker pens to enhance this image and some others. The tricky aspects of pencils is you must layer them. It’s a mistake to just use a lot of pressure and push as hard as possible. Even if you don’t blend colors you must go easy and very lightly make a layer, then on top another one until the desired saturation is obtained. So it is a slow medium you cannot rush. Ideal for me now.
The giant gourd
...Huizi said to Zhuangzi, “The king of Wei gave me some seeds of a huge gourd. I planted them, and when they grew up, the fruit was big enough to hold five piculs. I tried using it for a water container, but it was so heavy I couldn’t lift it. I
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