Digital Mustard Garden: Revitalizing Freehand-ink-painting Teaching through Artistic Participation
Through audience participation, the model generates digital prints, transforming viewers into active participants. By merging classic and contemporary techniques, our installation offers new mediums for exploration and novel ways for audiences to engage with art, promoting a deeper appreciation and understanding of traditional art forms. This interactive approach enables beginners to learn basic ink painting techniques through personalized content, guided by digital technology, making the learning process more accessible and enjoyable.
Fine-art printmaking was revolutionary, involving carving an image or text into a wooden block, inking the surface, and pressing it onto paper or fabric to spread painting knowledge. Among these, the Mustard Seed Garden democratized access to knowledge, allowing for the widespread dissemination of literature and art. The Mustard Seed Garden Manual of Painting, also known as The Chieh-tzu-yüan hua-chuan, was compiled by Kai WANG (c. 1650-c. 1710). It uses intangible cultural heritage print technology, choreographing instructional steps of wash painting, originating from the Song Dynasty. Its comprehensive illustrations and instructions have taught traditional painting techniques for centuries. The manual's historical significance lies in its detailed depiction of aesthetic principles and art methods. Today, digital technology also facilitates its storage and display, helping beginners learn Chinese ink painting effectively.
![]()
In many attempts to integrate digital technology and traditional art, it is essential to consider the combination of individual feelings and interaction forms for visitors. First and foremost, there is a lack of deep exploration into how digital and interactive technologies can be woven with classical art techniques in the creative guidance process. Secondly, the application of advanced algorithms for both the interpretation and creation of traditional art styles has not been extensively pursued. Additionally, the effective use of these technologies in teaching and developing the specific artistic skills inherent to traditional ink art forms has been largely unaddressed. These gaps highlight the potential for a more profound and skill-focused integration of modern technology with traditional artistic practices. To address these gaps, we advocate for the learning of education and interaction in art production and promote social education of visitors in exhibitions. We propose the interactive exhibition space of "Digital Mustard Garden," focusing on three issues: how to promote art learning with creativity, how to increase the interaction with traditional culture, and how to get effective feedback in art learning.
![]()
This study facilitates generation through an interactive system. Based on the training and fine-tuning of Low-Rank Adaptation (LoRA), users generate ink paintings that meet their preferences for preliminary teaching, according to the description of traditional teaching steps. This technique not only fosters a deeper understanding of art creation but also helps audiences and participants move beyond mere replication of paintings. Additionally, an interactive system combines painting image processing with machine learning-based segmentation, starting with generated paintings. These are then converted into drawing steps for detailed segmentation, linking back to the original elements used in image generation. This method provides a systematic approach to understanding the distinctions and nuances between machine-generated and human-created artworks.