The Last Leg Of My Journey

It didn't take me that long to sense something is not quite right with my last painting.

 

 

The left and right darkest patches at the bottom seemed stoic, to the point of non-participation, I mused.  I suppose the composition fit in the grand scheme of things; the left side being solid and dense, the right side vague and sparse, so it subscribed to the ying and yang notion of Chinese brush. I just wanted to accentuate the left side even more.  I suppose the vertical contrast set the stage for drama.

 

Since I was rather impatient with this observation, it was more the reason for me to approach this with a little discipline, more so than I normally would.

 

I trimmed a few pieces of the same semi-sized Xuan and painted a few alternatives to the left bottom.

This is too much fun; alternative endings!  Is there a Director' cut?  I must be watching too much Blue-rays.

 

Scene I:  Water Grass

 

 



 

Scene II:  Thorny Branches

 

Scene III: Exaggerated Gradient

 

I then pinned these cutlets to my original painting for evaluation.

 

 

The water grass seemed out of place.  Frivolous.  I didn't like this at all.

 

 

 

I was hoping the thorny branches would garnish the theme of pathos. I do like the effect a lot; much better than the water grass anyways, yet the assembly looked odd.  It was as though that part of the painting was speaking a different tongue.  When everything else was sort of soupy, the branches became real pricks.  It definitely brought out the contrast but the feeling was lost in the translation.

 

 

 

Needless to say the exaggerated gradient arrangement received my nod.  The darkened area collaborated much better with the bend and projected  a proper distance perception.

 

Armed with such analysis, I proceeded to my Director's cut!  The last leg of my journey!

 

 





 

Continuing My Journey

So I've been casting glances at my "Journey" painting, the one with the two riders in it.

To say that I didn't like it would be a lie.  I do like it.

 I don't want to label it as being soulful, but it does have that quality of beckoning to your other senses and to explore beyond what is on the paper.  Yet, something was amiss.  I couldn't put a finger on it but I feel the void.  It is like drinking a cup of hot rum cider with a stuffy nose.  You taste the rum alright, but missed the aroma of the hot cider and spice.   When I caught sight of the image on the tube my brain processed it as two travellers on a ride.  What registered was the swath of land and the hazy diffused light.  It could present itself as tranquil, or lost.  The travellers might be taking in the scenery, or just enduring.  Who knows.  

I have to zoom out my lens, and see if I could capture the rest of the vibes.

Why not change the orientation to portrait.

I positioned the river bend at the extreme bottom of the paper, and the sky opened up in a dramatic way.  Now I could immerse in the picture.

 The immense sky was featureless.  It could use some embellishing.  Cirrus clouds, anvil head clouds, flock of birds, high noon are possibilities.  I settled on a mountain peak.

With this format in mind, I embarked on my own journey again, this time to do the painting in a portrait orientation.

I tried to avoid harsh outlines since the overall mood is one of dust and haze.  I needed the distal end of the river to be blended in with the background.   I painted a rider with really loose definition and
rather diffused brushstrokes, trying hard to just evoke a perception, rather than describing  a discrete object.

Unfortunately I failed to eschew old habits and re-defined my riders with added brushstrokes and rendered them too "solid".  Ah, that is another story.

I decided to show 2 reflections in water this time, one for each rider..

Again these reflections were painted on the back of the paper, as the top layer of the paper fiber worked to add that haze filter effect.

For that sepia look I summoned the help of coffee.  Yes, plain old coffee.  No sugar, no cream.
This natural pigment (if  you want to call it as such) has no gum or binder in it, thus it would not fix to the paper fibers.  Any subsequent attempt to rework an area introduced a new wash basin and gradient for the coffee to migrate, and gathered along the edge of the wet area, drying to a interesting stain mark.  I happen to love this effect.  I thought this is coolest way to elucidate a feature with ambiguous contour, in this case , the reflection of river bank in the water.

This pooling and migrating and concentrating of the coffee helped to create cloud like features in the sky.  I left a cone-shaped void to hint the presence of a snow covered peak. 

 

 

 

That distant mountain top helped to seal the perspective of this unforgiving landscape, making the journey of the intrepid riders more daunting.

Embarking On A Journey

I was tired after power-washing my sidewalk.  My fingers were numb from clutching onto the spray gun trigger for hours. I spread myself out on the sofa, turned on the tube and somehow dozed off.  Drifting in and out of my dream state, I glimpsed at an image on the tube, just long enough to register that as a couple of horseback riders trotting by a river.

A river bank, two riders, landscape and sky merge into non-distinction.  I have my main characters and the setting.  What was my motivation?  How about interpreting 2 intrepid travellers enduring the relentless bleakness?

I proceeded to position the riders on a curving river bank, at least that was how I recalled the frame.
The void provided by the river contrasted with  the vast expanse of land right above it.  The curve provided a sense of movement, whereas the two riders assumed the more sedentary role.  No I was not confused,  that's just how I perceived the arrangement.  It was contrary to what one might think.

I wanted to add a little intrigue by painting in the reflection of a rider in the water. I used ink to tell this story.  I was really interested in seeing how everything evolved from my serendipitous glance, so I wanted to keep things simple for my framework.

The attention grabbing features were the rounding banks, which defined the main stage.  Horizontal lines gave notion of the vast expanse of real estate, dissolving into the sky.  The paper that I chose was the semi-sized Xuan.  I chose it for its translucent appearance, and that it is easier to push the brushstrokes, allowing excess water from the brush to do its thing; forming interesting edges.
In this case the margin of the reflection in the water resembles indistinguishable vegetation.

Having established this framework, one which looked interesting for me, I forged ahead to paint something with a little more detail in it.

I incorporated light burnt sienna into the color palette.  I thought it worked well within my scheme of events.  I thought it portrayed bleakness without being too cold.  I moved the right bank up from the bottom to allow a more distinct impression of the river rounding the bend, thereby creating more movement in my composition.  I tried to create a sense of the horses kicking up dust as the riders travelled, now adding movement to the originally sedentary figures.

I took advantage of the translucent property of the paper by painting the reflection of a rider on the back of the paper and allow the image to come through the front side.  The effect was visually stunning  when looking at the real painting.  The un-brushed surface worked like a semi-transparent veil.  The reflected silhouette seemed vague and real at the same time.    Perhaps I had trained myself to look for this manifestation, to the point that I became hyper-sensitive to it, thus making a big deal of this trick!  Simply delicious!

I added a little dash of blue-green to the sky and the water for the ominous effect, while leaving a patch of void in the center to expand the distance perspective.

It's time again to pin this up and do a more elaborate perusal.