Bamboo Leafs Tutorial and Brush Pronation

As I am forced to deal with how to paint bamboo, I am increasing frustrated by my own ineptness  in rendering a good painting, and the difficulty in explaining the mechanics of the brush stroke, especially with regards to the leafs.

As I thumb through the "How To" books of painting bamboo, there are vast examples of how to paint and group the leafs in an ethereal array.   Sadly, very few of them reveal the underlying brush stroke.

I could only hark back to my days of learning bamboo.....center tip, center tip, fast, sharp strokes.
Fine!  I get all that, but how do I add variety to the shape of the leafs??  My  relentless practice just adds more clones  to my collection, neither rhythmic, nor eclectic.  My teacher just kept saying, watch me, do as I do.

So what does pronation ( and supination) has to do with painting bamboo leafs?

Everything !

When we hold our brush vertical with the plumb line, anything added pressure will force the belly of the brush to sit evenly on both sides of the center line.  Thus a rather symmetrical leaf shall appear.
If we hold the brush with the shaft pointing towards our body, then more of the brush belly would be making contact below the center line.  Thus a leaf with a skewed right flank will take shape.  Conversely if hold the brush with the shaft away from our body, the result is a leaf with a skewed left flank.

This discovery prompted me to think in terms of pronation or supination.  Evidence of those is very apparent in how we wear out the heels of our shoes.    A pronated ankle causes the inside edge of the shoe heel to wear out  (most evident for people afflicted with  Knock Knees), and a supinated ankle wears on the outside edge of the heel.  Supposedly one could tell an introvert from an extrovert just by looking at the heels of their shoes.  Anyways, when the palm is twisted towards our body, that is the supinate position, and pronate is when the palm is twisted away from our torso.  Therefore for a right handed person, a supinate  grasp of the brush will result in a bamboo leaf with the fat side to the right of the vein, and a pronated angle of the brush will have a heftier left side.

The significance of pronation and supination  that if we want bamboo leafs  to look lively and natural, we should paint them as clusters rather than individual leafs.  Let me be more succinct, we are going to paint 4 leafs in a cluster.  As we embark on the first leaf (positioned to the extreme left of the cluster), our brush is in a natural supinated position.  As we move over to the next leaves ( to the right ) the angle of the brush is incrementally decreasing towards vertical plumb ( true center tip ) and progressing towards pronation as we drift to the right side of the cluster.  My assertion is that we should try to paint the leaves as a combination of multiple related, continuous strokes, separated only by lifts of the brush, but no hiccups in flow.

The last picture posted above is an example of painting the leafs in groups of 3 or 4 and allowing pronation to occur naturally, thus the body of our brush strokes exhibit different profiles of the leaves.  As the ink soot leaves the brush the strokes become lighter and dryer.  Exploit this trait to lay down  the fainter brush strokes, which help to create depth.
The following is lifted from a "How To" book on painting bamboo leafs and is just a small sample of the hundreds of possibilities of arranging and writing bamboo leafs.  The problem with this rote learning, as I come to realize, is that we are so bound by these prescribed imagery that what we do at best is regurgitation of a lifeless pose.  What these illustrations do not tell us is the assembly of  dance movements that lead to these poses.  If only we can paint the leafs not as individual blades, but as a community, and allow our wrists to go through the various and natural angles of pronation and supination, to imitate the natural growth sequence of the clusters, then our efforts shall be a rewarded with dynamic strokes.

The embedded video shall illustrate my attempt at painting the bamboo leafs pictured above, and some of the points that I have opined.  Granted the leafs do not look that good (just a frustrated painter, but my theory is still sound ) nonetheless the final product is not without emotional salvage.

Pronate, Supinate, do not Regurgitate ! 

My new mantra.

Goose Me

I had painted the Canada Geese a few times before.  Back in 2003, before I started to actively pursue painting, I did a family portrait of Canada Geese using water color.  In fact I used that painting as my litmus test.  That was the permission I gave myself to find teachers who could show me how to paint.

Eight years later, I want to try my luck again at using Canada Geese as my main characters.  I am intrigued by the long black necks of the geese.  Their necks telegraph so much motions and emotions.   Sometimes agitated, sometimes embracing; sometimes curious, sometimes alarmed; yet always interesting.  I thought their necks represent a perfect challenge to depict using Chinese calligraphy strokes.  I would need to find a way to "write" their necks with meaning and strength.  It is with this intent that I embark on my new journey.

First I worked up a general sketch.  I've done a painting on zebras ( see my Horsing Around with Stripes blog) and I liked the general composition of that painting.  I am going to arrange my birds in that array again.

I worked up another model employing colors that reminded me of patina.  I  defined the bodies as if they were commas, dashes and dots.

Well, that looked interesting but somehow it lacked the wow factor.  I know this was just a quick model, but I can't put my fingers on the missing link.

Xieyi

Xieyi literally means to write with meaning or expression.  The Xieyi style in Chinese Brush painting  prides itself in the artist's command of the brush, thus the aptitude  to "write" the painting with a freehand, allowing utmost expressiveness.

The concept of expressiveness in a brush stroke seems rather subjective and ill-defined.  Allow me to draw an example with the human face.  How could the same face portray happiness, ecstasy, mournfulness, sorrow, despair, resolute, anger, frustration, spite, respect, admiration, solemn, disregard, evasiveness, malice, anticipation, frown,  et cetera, et cetera. 

I am told there are close to 100 muscles controlling our facial expressions.   The permutation of these muscles, either as group or individually, is astronomical.  We need not understand fully which muscles are involved, and yet we definitely know when someone is pissed at us.  The same is true with Xieyi paintings.  Wherein the parameter for being "expressive" is obscure, the observer holds the dictum " I  know it when I see it".

Painting is an expression, our way of communicating with an observer and we all want to be understood.    Our innate fear of failure (to communicate)  makes us afraid to let go of whatever we are able to cling onto, somewhat similar to people in abusive relationships.    Our faithfulness to rote learning and emulating often rob us of spontaneity.  We try hard to be perfect and take solace in mimicking the shape rather than the spirit of the brushstrokes, and there is nothing Xieyi about our work.  This is the shackle that I try to be rid of.

The same painting done with expressive brush strokes.

An honest account of a dragonfly.

Same dragonfly done with  expressiveness...... a little more Xieyi.

A good brush stroke is comparable to good bowing on a string instrument.  When I watch Itzhak Perlman or Yo Yo Ma perform and see them using full bows from tip to frog with their eyes closed, I often wonder how much of that is from muscle memory (rote) and how much is from sensing  the
interplay between the string and the horsehair,  and using these full breaths  to complete their musical sentences.   Their cues on the stroke is no longer visual, but tactile.  In calligraphy equivalence, we say a stroke is "delivered".

 Xieyi does not mean an awkward semblance, but a genuine love-making between a brush and paper.