By mo ku fa (literally, the boneless method) is meant the application of graduated washes of colour without ink outlines...The lotus flower is a very suitable subject for the mo ku method. The painter may build it up with modulated light-red washes, then paint the seed-case in tender yellow and finally the leaves and stalks in succession. The leaves should be done in broad sweeps with a big brush soaked in light indigo, to be covered with coats of sap green, when dry; leaving only thin lines where the leaf-veins are to be. Like the pillars of a building, the lotus stalk is of paramount importance in composition. It should be painted in one descending stroke, as though one were writing in the grand seal script style, with properly modulated pressure and dynamic force, so that it may have the gracefulness of an angel standing in beauty. If the stalk happens to be too long to be done in one stroke, as it may be in a large scroll, the lower part may be painted in an upward stroke which, being similar to the upper stroke in ink content, will not show any trace where the two ends meet. Tiny dots, representing the prickles, should be stippled with a slight upward "kick" of the brush-tip, up and down both sides of the stalk alternatively. The petals are to be rendered with graded washes of saf-flower red. After one additional coating or two, the painter may start to draw the petal-veins in thin lines, one straight and one curved, in alternate order. The filaments and anthers may be done either in red ochre or in whitish yellow. The addition of duckweeds is optional, depending on the desirability of their presence in the composition. In the same way it is said of the art of calligraphy, "Where expansiveness is required, let there be room enough for a trotting horse; where compactness is required, let no wind pass through.