Tired of painting from rote memory

Painting from rote memory is like painting from ether with a shackle.  Whatever image we have in our head is the carcass of countless times of emulation and practice.  Typically, we are taught a sequence of brushstrokes to describe the object that we are painting.  It can be a flower, an animal, a boulder, whatever.  Thumbing through the Mustard Seed Garden compendia and there's no shortage of such examples.  The inevitable downside of such practices is that we're indoctrinated subconsciously that these are the only correct, or acceptable way to paint.  As a student, it is a marvelous and methodical way to progress, not knowing that creativity and originality can sometimes be the suppressed.  

I ask myself, why don't I try to paint something real.  Not so much as en plein air but at least having some concrete reference points.  So I dig out my photographs of lotus plants and see if any of them fit the bill.

I have plates of dried-up color from past painting sessions that I commandeered for this exercise.  Too lazy to mix new colors.  Afterall this is just a fun practice exercise and color accuracy is not my concern. 

I know the color looks weird and not harmonious, but I'm not painting from ether either.  I am trying to paint what I see and not from a figment of my imagination or whatever rote memory is left with me. 

I'm now eager to try something a little more artistic.

Two lotus leaves reside at the bottom of my paper,

My reference photographs will be a blossom that is tilted to the right in this photograph. 

I like this particular flower because my lotus leaves are too evenly placed, being parallel to each other.  I need that tilted flower to create some motion.  The white petals also contrast with the dark leaves, sort of having a back-and-forth conversation.  The dark leaves are also flanked by light colored leaves just for contrast and perspective. 

I shift the stem of the flower to the extreme left, to accentuate the tilting of the flower.  I am also including a budding new leaf in the painting.  It is an interesting accessory.

The overall mood of the painting is represented by a rather subdued color scheme, aided by the pensive moon.

I do like the tone of this piece of work.  I am going to name it Nocturne.

Purity, Resiliency and Transformation

As I am continuing my doodling, I couldn't help but be reminded of the tidbits of trivia relating to Lotus. 

Lotus plant has many uses, besides its beauty.  Lotus root (actually the rhizome) is often sliced and used in stir fry dishes in Chinese restaurants.  Sometimes the whole rhizome is stuffed with rice and other goodies and steamed and then sliced up before serving. The dried rhizome can be milled to flour and used like corn starch, which can be cooked as a sweet broth with Longan and red prunes, a popular dessert drink.  The nodes of the rhizome when mashed is used to treat nosebleed. 

The lotus seed, or Lianzi (蓮子) is a homonym for the Chinese phrase which means "a succession of sons" (連子) thus is often used as an auspicious garnish in weddings.  The lotus seed heart (germ) is very bitter and is used as a tea or tonic for its "fire lowering" property; in other words, less Yang.

The leaves of the lotus plant are used as wrappings for food preparation.  The popular dim sum dish of Lo Mai Gai or Lotus Leaf Rice is one such example.  Another famous dish, the Begger's Chicken uses the leaves to wrap the whole chicken before encasing it in clay and baked.  The leaves impart a fragrance to the food inside.  

Culturally speaking, Lotus is the national flower of India and Vietnam.  The Guanyin bodhisattva is portrayed as standing or sitting on a lotus bed holding a lotus flower in her hand.  The famous Big Buddha sculpture in Hong Kong shows the Buddha resting on a bed of lotus blossoms.  

Lotus represents the virtues of purity, resiliency and transformation.  It's self-explanatory when such beauty emerges from a muddy bog.  I personally think that any painting of lotus should bear those thoughts in mind.  Whimsical versions of lotus paintings trivialize the reverence of this flower, regardless of how artistic or innovative they might be.  This is just my own cultural bias. 

I suppose one way to adhere to the traditional ways of interpreting the flower is to recall all the rote learning notes from yesteryears.  Don't re-invent the wheel. 

Lines are used to depict petals, with the tip of the petals darkened to emphasize pointed tips.

Side tip brushstrokes are used in this version to describe the petals.  The brush is loaded with white and crimson at the tip of the brush to facilitate the natural transition of the hues.  

Trying out different brushstroke speeds to try to show various personalities.  The brush does not lie. It most definitely will reveal if one is gingerly and methodically laying down a brushstroke or doing it with aplomb and a free spirit. 

In the end I am rewarded with something that when cropped perhaps is worth a spot on my walls.

I have 2 choices,

or 

I settled for the portrait format, although I do like the landscape format too.  It has an interesting perspective of the leaves. 

I have a shadow box which I had intended for displaying my carved calligraphy on spaghetti squash (my blog titled Playtime), but it is too shallow.  I am going to use it for my lotus painting. 

My doodling housed in a shadow box,
 

Unto dust thou shalt return, from mud, thou shalt emerge

I had accumulated a few pages of doodling over the week, and it seemed a waste to commit them to garbage.  I decided to go through them and see if I could mine something usable from them.  With judicious cropping and framing, I was able to assemble a few pieces for my viewing pleasure.  Sort of like a gemologist picking and choosing and evaluating before the polishing. 

This was my least favorite piece.  It was too busy for my taste.  I felt like I was trying to fit all the plots into my story, but I didn't have a clear direction to where the story was going.  I was obfuscated, even after cropping away of extraneous objects. 

After I framed the doodling with a proper mat, the painting took on a different personality.  It appeared prim and proper now. 

I loved this one.  To me it was the simplicity.  For sure the proportion of the lotus leaf and the blossom and the dragonfly seemed not proper and perhaps the shapes were too impressionistic, yet none of that seemed to matter.  Fo me anyways.

I custom built a frame for this painting. I love the way it was dressed.  I forgot to mention that the painting was done on cicada skin Xuan, a very thin and translucent paper and I mounted this paper on canvas, instead of the usual route of mounting on Xuan.  The texture of the canvas came through the paper and to the untrained eye, one might have thought the painting was done on canvas to begin with. This added another layer of nuance to this simple doodling. 

The same three players filled the paper in this painting.  The dragonfly was done in a less impressionistic fashion though.  It showed more details and realism than the previous painting.

Gave it a proper housing,

The lesson I learned was that don't be too quick to write anything off.  A little cosmetic make-up might be all one needed.  

Doodling, feeling the itch

I haven't done any serious painting for quite a while. I passed my time working on my calligraphy piece with back-lighting while I was gravely ill.  It was mechanical and did not involve too many art cells.  I did some monkeying around with the now-you-see-it-now-you-don't fish piece just to amuse and humor myself.  I needed to pick up the brush again before it becomes a stranger to me.

I decided the best way to get my feet wet again was to not take things too seriously.  Doodling would be the ticket.

I had planted some water lilies in the pond behind my house.  I housed them in a container and put mesh on top of the container to keep ducks and geese away from the bulbs.  Thus, waterfowls and flowers were my favorite subject matters.  Unfortunately, my containers were all dug up and disposed of when the pond was dredged to make it deeper. I decided that I would do my doodling on flowers and perhaps a blue heron, since the heron had been visiting the pond for the bull frogs lately.  Lotus would be an interesting alternative to water lily to paint, since it is a favorite subject matter in Chinese painting and I had spent quite a few pieces of Xuan on them, upon the insistence of my teachers.  Learning by rote!  Lotus flowers symbolize the ability to rise above something that might be noxious and not pleasant (mud and dirty water) and still stand tall and blossom into something really elegant.

Different ways of painting the lotus leaf,

The blossom/bud, 

Incidentals like a dragonfly,

Definitely brought back memories.  

Framing my fishes

Instead of the traditional paper on paper mounting, I shall be mounting my painting on clear plastic pane.  The gist of this painting is to play with light.  Had the painting been mounted on paper and presented in a regular picture frame, the work is denied the interaction with any light from behind the painting and therefore defeats my purpose.

Dry mounting with silicone paper shall be the chosen method this time. This is done by using heat to attach silicone paper to the back of the painting.  The silicone acts as a bonding agent in this scenario. 

A mat cutter is used to trim my painting.  This setup assures a straight line and square up cut. 

The exact placement of the painting on the plastic pane is marked on blue protective film that came with the plastic.  This film will be peeled off and discarded after the mounting is done.  It is a convenient way of marking the lines without defacing or having to clean the clear plastic afterwards.

I have remnants of silicone paper that I can piece together to cover the entirety of my painting. Hate to see them go to waste.  My hobby heating iron supplies the heat needed to melt the silicone.  The protective wax paper is removed after the heating process.  A thin film of silicone is revealed on the back of my painting. 

With the silicone ironed onto its back, the painting is now placed face up onto the plastic pane, using the marks that I made on the blue film as a guide.

My heating iron now goes over the top of the painting to melt the silicone that's on the backside.  The discarded wax paper is a used to shield the painting from the iron.  

A couple coats of spray urethane are applied to the mounted painting to help protect it from the elements and also make the transparent border translucent.  My painting will not have a cover glass.

I have made a frame with a slot such that the plastic can be inserted.  It should assume the appearance as a float.

With a light source from behind the painting, it reveals what's behind its back.  Otherwise, it is just a painting of water with a hint of something beneath the surface.

Now you see it, now you don't.

Do you see what I see?

Do you see what I see

In traditional Chinese brush we place a lot of emphasis on not only the quality of the brushstroke, but also on the nuances of the brushstroke.  We would preach and elucidate on the 5 "colors" of ink, them being dry, wet, condensed, diffuse and light. These might seem abstract to someone who is alien to the culture, but in essence they are products of how water and ink interact with the Xuan paper.  By employing the correct kind of paper, employing appropriate dilution of ink and water along with the speed at which the brushstroke is executed, a brushstroke becomes a trove of expressive tidbits. 

Another way of effecting the ways colors or ink are revealed is by manipulating how the pigment or the dye is dispersed or deposited.  Growing up in the tie dye era of the hippie movement, clothing became canvas and the tying altered the landscape of the canvas such that interesting patterns formed as a result.  Mixing oil-based colors/solvents with aqueous ones or employing a colloidal bath we create a kaleidoscope of psychedelic colors and forms, which can be transferred to other surfaces or materials.

In watercolor table salt is sprinkled on the wet color or alcohol is sprayed to create special effects.  Masking fluids or tapes are often employed to manage the voids and the composition.

With Xuan paper I have played with alum solution to help with writing void spaces. It is especially valuable in painting scenes with snow.  I am going to exploit another property of the Xuan paper. Its translucent property.

The translucent property lends to the practice of coloring from the back of the paper.  An example would be to color the foliage of trees yellow on the back of the paper before coloring the usual green on the top side.  The yellow adds a different dimension to the leaves without the distraction of the bright yellow, which is often difficult to manage.

For my current project I am going to kick it up a notch.  I am actually going to add to my painting from the back of the paper.  The hope is that the painting will reveal in different ways depending on how the translucency is affected by different lighting conditions.

I have a painting of the surface of water,

There is a school of fish painted on the back of this paper.  One can see the silhouettes faintly coming through from the backside.  The photo is taken in normal daylight.

Under frontal illumination, one can perceive there's something in the water.  Fish, perhaps?

Under frontal illumination plus back lighting, the presence of fish is definite. 

Back lighting only,

That's what I am talking about...... the difference is dramatic. 

Assembly of Chinese Zodiacs

I started painting rams and used them in my personal greeting card for the Chinese New Year back in 2014. Did it on a whim…thought it was a novel idea especially in a western culture.  I had no ambition to proceed any further.  Somehow it grew to be an annual project, something that I actually looked forward to.  I accomplished my collection of the 12 zodiac animals last year, the horse being my last project. I would like to present my 12 animals here, in chronological orders, starting with the Rat,

 

 

And a group photo