It didn't take me long to lay down my patches. I added windows to the houses on the left, now that there was room to reveal them. The mitred roofs looked fine. This should be easy.
It had different shades of black. The roofs were a little more animated with texture. The painting still carried an air of geometric patterns, but it wasn't cold.
Somehow things still did not seem right. I didn't want to be agnosonosic, but I really had no clue. I just trusted my instincts.
Then it dawned on me.
I amended my mistakes on the left, but I introduced them on the right side now. I had unwittingly painted the houses on a staggered line. In other words, the houses on the right were not along the same curbside. This was all due to the extended eaves.
I shouldn't have drawn eaves the same length on both sides of the roof. If these houses were truly parallel to us, then the left eave and the left truss ( closest to us ) would be much longer than the other. They should have followed the red lines in my diagram.
I didn't want to chalk this up as something that was not emphasized in typical Chinese brush painting. Perspective was really not a vital player. So this exercise had been most enlightening for me.
As I was ruminating all these tidbits of information, my thought process about this painting changed.
My original intent was to depict a narrow street amongst rooftops. My initial zeal was triggered by the repeating patterns. By now I know the painting by heart, especially with the composition. Slowly a feeling emerged. A maturation process was taking place.
Then I left the room. Perhaps to allow my thoughts to brew.
It was evening when I returned and I had not switched on the lights yet so the room was dim, but not dark. I glanced at my Xuan, which I had started to sketch in the blocks. This painting was no longer about geometric shapes, although they were still integral parts. The painting was about a silence of the night. Not desolate, but calm. Not abandoned, but at peace.
I emboldened myself with intense, decisive strokes. The huge black patches now adorned with texture, barely visible but very discernible. I did this in between flipping on and off the light switch just to feel the lighting effect. Little horizontal lines reminiscing of clothing bamboo rods ( instead of clothing lines, apartment dwellers have bamboo staffs hoisted outdoors to hang clothes with) helped to form a connection between the 2 sides of this painting.
This one I can be proud of. I delighted in the metamorphosis of this painting, and it happened serendipitously.
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