Continuing to act out

Fueled by the recent attempts to romanticize  lotus root harvesters, I re-examined the martial art figure paintings that are pinned on my walls.  I now wanted to create a series of figures.  Not in the vein of the hazy silhouettes of the long-polers, but more like a staged presentation, a group exercise.

Strike the iron while it's hot.

I was trying to avoid the flat line arrangement  by grouping my figures in a semi-circle. Using various clothing combination and shades of  black to break up a otherwise monotonous composition.  I even threw in a female figure in the center for good measure!  She looked almost like a man suffering from gynecomastia, with a horse tail hairdo pinned on.

I don't dislike the painting.  I thought I was able to parlez a sense of movement.  A sense of energy.
Then I realized that my proportions were out of whack.  The figure on the left had too big of a torso, the man next to him looked weird.

My figures didn't carry any hidden symbolism, as the right hand of David purported to. I've seen sketches by fashion designers that really accentuated the waist, the bust, or the limbs.  Was I subconsciously exaggerating particular scales to emphasize certain gestures?   Perhaps.

So I decided to rein in my imagination a little by trying another set of martial art forms.    These new figures were a lot smaller.   By working on a smaller sample, I felt the inevitable urge to be a little more precise, even at the expense of being too logical. 

The arms on the third man from the left was still too long.   But I really liked those long flowing lines.  Such grace.

So what should it be.  How should it be.  Am I allowed certain latitude when painting human forms  or do I have to demonstrate my knowledge in anatomy in order to paint human figures?  In traditional Chinese figure painting, the images were all flat, devoid of any semblance of a three dimensional projection, devoid of any shading.  Does the fact that I am using a Chinese brush on Xuan mean that I have to paint in the traditional style to merit the resulting work? 

Food for thought.

At the end of the day, I am painting for my own amusement.  Yet painting involves exposing myself a little; taking emotional stock,  and I can't do that in a vacuum.  I do react to people's feedback, I'm not immune to that.   I do believe, however, that if a painting moves me, it has to move someone, somewhere.