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the Stems
    The stem of a flower has a series of short branches at the top and a long stem down to the root with a graceful curve.
1. Load a small brush with the medium light paint and hold your hand in position #1.
2. Paint a short curve from the bottom of the flower.
3. At the end of the curve, paint another short curve in the opposite direction.
4. At the end of the second curve, paint another curve in the opposite direction and run it all the way down to the root of the plant.

    The stems can be relatively straight or more curving, depending on the location of the flower in relation to the leaves.
    Arranging Leaves, Flowers, Stems
    Now you can put the different parts together to paint a full orchid plant.
1. Plan an orchid design. You might use the arrangement of leaves that you have already practiced.

2. Paint the leaves.
3. Plan and paint an odd number of flowers between the leaves, such as in the composition above.
4. For the stems, load the small brush with medium light paint and hold your hand in position #1.
5. Paint the stems for the blossoms:
For the left blossom, start at the top, curve up, and come down to the root.
For the right top blossom, start at the heart and make a nice curve to the left down to the root.
For the right bottom blossom, start at the heart and swing around and down in a curve to the root.
    Try other designs, leaf arrangements, and flower angles of your own. Remember to use odd numbers! It’s a game of three of one thing and five of another.
    Painting a Bud
    Where you have a small space between leaves, you can put in a bud instead of a full flower. An orchid bud looks like a flower with shorter petals.

1. Load the large brush with the medium light mix of paint.
2. Paint the bud as two pale commas, using the same strokes as for the short petals.
    Usually the Hsu orchid, where all the blossoms are on one stem, has a bud on the stem near the root, as it is the last to bloom. Above are some variations on buds, at different degrees of opening.
    Using Rice Paper
    After you have painted all the parts that make up the orchid plant on newsprint, practice on rice paper. See how the paint oozes out differently on the rice paper. Rice paper has a smooth side and a rough side. You will find that it is easier to control the paint on the smooth side. Remember to tap the brush on a paper towel to remove excess water before making a stroke on rice paper.

Painting
Bamboo

    Bamboo is the most familiar subject in Chinese culture and art. It belongs to two sets of classic subjects: the Four Gentlemen and also the Three Friends of Winter, which are bamboo, plum blossom, and pine. Bamboo expresses the will to survive. Its stalks resist strong winds; they bend but never break. The wind whistling through bamboo is called the music of the gods.
    This chapter follows the traditional style of using black and grays to paint bamboo. The strokes have been perfected over many centuries until they show the true spirit of bamboo. This style began when some talented old master painters showed their art. Their paintings were so admired that other artists copied them because they thought they showed the best way to paint bamboo.

    Brush Styles
    Bamboo can be painted in either boned or boneless styles or in a mix of the two. The favorite style, which we will use, is to do the entire painting in boneless style.

    Viewing Bamboo
    There are many species of bamboo and over 100 varieties. Leaves can grow upward from the stalk or downward in clusters off small branches. The most traditional style is the one with clusters of leaves. Bamboo is painted blowing in the wind, in front of the moon, or with snow on its leaves. When it rains, bamboo leaves curl up to let the rain drip off.
    Painting Bamboo Stalks
    The strokes used for painting bamboo are some of the same basic strokes you learned earlier in the character for “eternity.”

    The bamboo stalk is made mainly by using the basic bone stroke in a vertical direction. The Chinese