"Painting for me is a spiritual process. I enjoy watching color flow from one corner of the painting to the other. One by one, each stroke reveals the next, connecting heart to arm, to hand, to fingers, and then onto the paper. It’s like a life force passing from me to the picture." - Lian Zhen

You would think painting a squirrel would be a straightforward undertaking for a seasoned watercolorist like myself. However, doing it Chinese-style is no easy task. I am not a big squirrel fan in the first place, so when I saw my instructor, Lian Zhen, effortlessly paint an image of a cute little squirrel. I tried to follow his instruction. I used the same Chinese paper, brushes, and ink, but I only managed to paint something resembling an angry weasel.

" I hate squirrels", I told him, as he studied my work.

" Ah, yes," said the Chinese master, "yet something in your painting should call you."

"What if my squirrel doesn’t call me?" I asked, sloshing ink around like a mongoose attacking a snake.

"Then you call me", he quipped with a smile. He took the brush from my hand and showed me how to complete the painting in a couple of strokes. My second effort was better-- not much--but at least it did look more squirrelly (so to speak).

Lian Zhen spent the first day teaching us, in his exuberant fashion, how to paint in the Chinese "spontaneous" style. The second day we learned Chinese "detailed" style. We worked in simple media, using liquid ink and "Marie’s" Chinese watercolors, which are more opaque than traditional watercolors. We used Chinese brushes that had the ability to contain more water and pigment than their Western counterparts. They also worked better on raw rice papers that had strong absorption and blending capabilities. For spontaneous style, we used Shuan paper, a very thin absorbent paper that has the ability to spread paint like no other. For the detailed work we used "mature" Shuan paper, sized to give it a shimmering sparkle.

Lian began the five-day workshop with a booksigning, autographing his each book with a spontaneous painting alongside his signature. I purchased his famed Chinese Painting Techniques For Exquisite Watercolors (North Light Books) and asked him to paint a Great Blue Heron on the inside cover. He began by first spattering a few drops of color, then blowing the liquid across the paper in a short burst. Picking up his brush, he fashioned the bird’s beak, head, body, feathers, and feet with bold decisive brushstrokes, creating in seconds, something it had taken him years to perfect.

Lian started painting in China when he was ten years old. In 1985 he immigrated to the United States where he subsequently received a Bachelor of Arts Degree from University of California at Berkeley in 1992, followed by a Master of Architecture Degree from MIT in 1996.

He never stopped painting through his tough years of study at Berkeley and MIT and selling his art allowed him to earn his way through college. . As a result he developed quite a following for his work, enough so that he began teaching art full time by the 1990s, while working on his first book, Chinese Painting Techniques for Exquisite Watercolors. The book, published by North Light Books in 2000, brought him to the attention of the art world. Now in its third printing, this remarkable publication has sold over 50,000 copies worldwide.

His second North Light book Chinese Watercolor Techniques - Painting Animals was published in 2004, and the self-published Spirit of Life, in 2003, assured him a steady stream of clients. So popular are his classes that the energetic Lian his teaches five-day intensive workshops 25 weeks a year around the globe.

There are several things that set Lian Zhen’s work apart from other painters. First, he uses only three colors in his watercolor work-- Van Gogh Permanent Red, Winsor Newton Antwerp Blue, and Van Gogh Azo Yellow. He uses a "pouring" technique, first mixing colors individually with water in little bowls, until they are of a medium value. Then he pours on the paint in stages, in strategic areas, and spreads it around by blowing, using his fingers, and with brushes.

This "all at once" painting technique allows a marvelous blending of colors that he further refines with a mixture of spattering, feathering, finger painting, blowing, and brushwork.

He sells most of his work at his workshops along with his books, and painting demos on VCD that can be played on the computer with CD-Rom, or DVD-Rom.

Lian’s workshops usually consist of two days of Chinese painting and three days of watercolor classes. During this time, students are encouraged to follow his directions on a consistent basis, to ensure results. That might sound easy, but it isn’t. Chinese painting, even with great direction, is very difficult to master in a couple of sessions. It requires great dexterity with brushstrokes foreign to even those professionals.

Chinese paint was difficult for me to master because of it’s puzzling nature. It seems thick and opaque like gouache, but behaves in a transparent manner when laid down on Chinese paper.

"Not to worry," Lian commented as he watched me floundering with fishes and flummoxed by florals. "Worst mistake you can make is to take painting too seriously. Just have a good time with it. Remember, not everyone can be a master, but everyone can have fun."

I did enjoy myself, even though it required a great deal of concentration and dedication to style and substance. Oddly enough those who did the best work were not the more experienced artists like myself, but less seasoned beginners who jumped right in, never at odds with styles that required us to "pour" on paint, or use black ink in a landscape, seascape, or floral.

Lian showed us how to load a brush with four different colors and paint in large strokes of multicolored hues that magically became petals and leaves. He taught us how to use washes of Chinese paint, layering them in total opposition to what we’d been taught in watercolor, putting down indigo first, then pthalo blue, then rouge, then yellow, to make a rainbow-colored turtle.

Using wallpaper paste (yes, wallpaper paste), our teacher adhered the finished painting it to a double thick piece of Shuan paper, then stretched it on a board using artist tape. When completely dry, he told us it was ready be matted and framed.

The next three days of class were devoted to watercolor, Lian-style. He demonstrated an angelfish painting first. I found his personal expression of movement, flow, and color, more than a little amazing. Using quick and decisive strokes, he instinctively knew where to put the paint, how much of it to apply, and when to stop painting. You knew you were watching someone who had studied not only the look of the fish, but the feel of it, as well.

While he worked on the painting, he stopped to banter with us, imparting little gems of wisdom.

"See the eye of the fish?" he said. "The fish comes alive only after you paint the eye," he said. "Leave a tiny white highlight in it and he’ll look like he’s breathing."

He also concentrated a good part of class time on composition and drawing.

"The basics of good painting are most important," Lian told the class. "It’s just like learning to use a computer. You have to know how to type first, before you can use a computer. So, you have to know how to draw first, before you can create a masterful work."

His class demonstrations included how to save "failed" paintings, deftly transforming throwaways into "keepers". Using the correct application of color, in portions substantial enough to make a difference, he changed my feeble-colored washes into stunning creations of dark and light contrasts. Then he softened the painting by blending the hard edges together with a small piece of wet paper towel, pulling the color together.

Even though he was present in a conscious sense as he painted, you could see that he was operating on a whole other level as he placed each brush stroke exactly where it needed to be. His ability to focus completely on the painting, yet explain the process as he worked, even joking with us from time to time, was quite extraordinary.

"Painting for me is a spiritual process," he told me after class. "I enjoy watching color flow from one corner of the painting to the other. One by one, each stroke reveals the next, connecting heart to arm, to hand, to fingers, and then onto the paper. It’s like a life force passing from me to the picture. "

The unique look of a Lian Zhen work is unforgettable. Certainly it has put him on the map as someone whose work is important enough to collect, and whose workshops are a "must" for watercolorists.

For more information about Lian Zhen’s workshops, books, background, and VCDs, see his website at www.lianspaintings.com . Also check out his upcoming October 2005 21-day Visual and Sketching China Tour, which includes the cities of Beijing, Shanghai, a four-day Yangtze River Cruise and much more.