Have I Cooked My Geese ?

Having tried my hands at modeling my geese as animate objects, I wanted to present them in a more impressionistic light.

My initial impression was obviously to play up the black and white content of my subject matters, but I wanted to treat the bodies of the geese as my void spaces.  Therefore the background needed to be dark to reveal the bodies.

As I looked at the first draft, I immediately felt that the painting was TMI, too much information.  It is true that the strokes were haphazardly written, as I was formulating the construction as it was evolving,  nonetheless the only "impression" I perceived was "garbage".

My vision had gotten a little clearer.  I would like to frame my subjects in

a. A dark background
b. A white body
c. A distinct black and white neck
d. A fuzzy, ink bled lines of the body contour to suggest down feathers

These geese would be sleeping with their heads tucked back.  My premise was that I would have a contrast of a few teardrop bodies vs one such body, the Su (sparse) and Mi(crowded) contrast, and that the necks would be tucked in opposing directions for balance.

Notice that I added blue tint to the contour line to add a little flavor.

Working off this basic blueprint, I tried on a less heavy costume.  My background became a much smaller patch of gray, but I used pencil marks to accentuate the geometric forms of geese with their heads tucked back.  A more minimalistic view.

And I also tried different arrangements, with the bodies painted in.

I was not too thrilled with the results up to this point.  I blamed it on my brush techniques, and a lack of control of my ink bleed.  Being a resourceful person, I tried the unthinkable.

A quick trip to the local art supply, I armed myself with a charcoal pencil and a bunch of charcoal sticks.  For the next couple of weeks, I fretted about how I was going to proceed.  Finally it came.

I did everything ( save the neck  ) with charcoal.  The necks were done with brush and ink and the contour lines was gone over with a moist ink brush to fill in the gray and was allowed to bleed a little. 


The painting was interesting.  That was a polite way of saying  " ah, not that good ".  I would have like the lines to be quite a bit  fuzzier to animate down feathers.  Unfortunately that wasn't the only problem that ailed this painting.  This piece assumed too much of a "graphic" look.  The worst part was that all the contour lines were continuous and unchanging, a big no no in Chinese brush painting, where Bi-Fa is all important. ( I'll delve more into "continuous lines" in my next blog).  I tried to break up these chained lines by darkening the necks and the lower bodies such that a break was more noticeable in the continuum of patches. 

Well that didn't work so well.  Back to the drawing board.

That was my last attempt at my impressionistic geese.   I need to sleep on this for a while and see what happens.  I can't feel anymore.  I just hope that I haven't cooked my geese.