Chinese Silk Painting

Chinese Silk Painting

The 4707th Chinese New Year is nearly upon us. The year of the Tiger or "Geng Yin" as it is known, begins on February the 14th 2010 coinciding this year with Valentines Day. This article discusses how to prepare for the New Year - to create a happy and harmonious luck-filled year ahead. It also provides guidance on designing your home using Chinese style and philosophy to create a calm, energising space for you and your loved ones to live.

Our Top Ten Tips for a Prosperous Year of the Tiger

Make sure your home is thoroughly cleaned before Chinese New Year as no cleaning or sweeping should be done during New Year celebration week. You will be sweeping your good fortune straight out the front door.
Ensure all cleaning tools, materials and products are safely stored away, out of sight.
Do not buy any new books over the celebration week. The word "book" is a homonym for the word "lose"
Do not buy any new shoes over the celebration week. The word "shoes" is a homonym for the word "rough."
End this year, the year of the Ox, in the black with finances straight and you will end the year of the Tiger in the same way.
Do not tell ghost stories or stories of woe.
Wear red for luck.
Eat sweets to invite a sweeter year.
Open doors and windows, inviting in good luck for the year.
Put away sharp objects, knives and scissors as these are seen as bringers of bad luck and do not go to the hairdressers - all your good luck may be cut off.

Following these simple guidelines should assist you in welcoming luck and good fortune into your home, throughout the year of the Tiger but to encourage still more, adopt the Chinese interior décor style based on the principles of energy flow, nature and simplicity of form.

Chinese Interior Design - Guide to Designing Your Home

Energy Flow

Energy flow is a key consideration when decorating in the Chinese style and it is important for the stability of the home and workplace that both yin and yang energies are allowed to flow freely.

To facilitate this freedom of energetic movement, ensure that all clutter is tidied away or better still, disposed of. This will enable new energies to circulate, bringing good fortune your way.

Attraction

Based on the belief that like attracts like, another key to Chinese interior décor is to display prominently, your most beautiful and valuable objects. These pieces should be given centre stage, becoming focal points in a room that is otherwise, free from clutter as well as calming, light and airy.

Colour schemes

Colour is a very important consideration when decorating in the Chinese style as colours, each have their own meanings and interpretations. The colour Green represents calm and appeasement. The colour Blue, perhaps the most widely used colour in the Chinese home, represents the gentility and refinement of the homeowner and the colour Red symbolises fortune, power and the Sun. It is a particularly auspicious colour to be wearing during the year of the Tiger and you should consider any redecoration in a red theme. It is no accident that most Chinese restaurants are decorated with reds.

Chinese Soft Furnishings

Having decided upon your colour palette, you should then turn your attention to the walls, curtains and soft furnishings. The use of silk wallpapers and throws and curtains with silkscreen printing, painting or embroidery are very much favoured in Chinese interior design, lending an air of sophistication to the home.

Decorative and functional screens are commonly used within oriental décor as room dividers or to create a feeling of intimacy. They can also be used to hide away any clutter, presenting a clean light and airy feel. Oriental screens are typically brightly coloured with intricate designs and wonderful textures.

Chinese Style Furniture

Ancient Chinese furniture pieces are very rare and expensive but their popularity has led to today's furniture manufacturers copying their designs and creating a range of newly crafted pieces that are both affordable and more readily available. Most of these newer pieces have adopted similar designs and adhere closely to the original concepts. However some have subtle differences that make them better suited to the modern home.

Chinese furniture was traditionally manufactured using strong, durable hardwoods. The styles would vary subtly over time making it sometimes quite difficult to distinguish between pieces from different eras. These slight variations though are what lend an element of challenge to the formation of any collection.

One very popular treatment used in the manufacture of classical Chinese furniture was that of lacquering. This painstaking process involves sealing the wood with many thin layers of high gloss varnish. The varnish was originally derived from the 'varnish tree', a tree indigenous to China. Its resin was extracted and mixed with iron oxides to colour it red or more frequently, black. Several thin layers of this lacquer were then applied evenly over the woods surface resulting is a very hard, water resistant shell like covering. The flawless beauty of the finished article is what prompted King George IV to amass a huge collection that can be seen, on public display today, in Brighton's Pavilion.

Puji Ltd are a contemporary furniture company based in North London. We stock a beautiful range of modern Chinese furniture and eastern inspired accessories to create a tranquil and stylish home environment. All of our products are available to buy online or from our North London Showroom.

Is it possible to get a tattoo that looks like say a chinese silk painting or watercolour painting?

Im looking at getting another tattoo and everything I look at seems so cartoony. I want my tattoo to have a kind of soft pretty look but still have bright colour.
Is there a particular kind of artist I should be looking for?

it's absolutely possible if you chose to go to a talented custom tattoo artist who can do something different than the normal crap tattoo that most artists do. it will definitely take some searching thru portfolios on your part and i would NOT trust an artist who says "yeah, i could do that" if the tattoos in their portfolio don't indicate that they have any special tattooing ability other than what is the normal style.