All the travelling was fun, but like everything in my life I was rather passive about it. I worry about expenditures, scheduling and travel companions. Well it just happened this time. I wasn't planning on these trips. Something that didn't "just happen" for a while was my painting. I was not motivated. Obviously doing brush painting on the road is not like rendering a pencil sketch. To be honest, my heart really wasn't in it. Strangely enough I don't feel too guilty about the hiatus. Perhaps the stars had planned the absence for me, knowing how passive I am to seek it.
Well someone did nudge me a little lately. Chinese New Year is approaching and I was asked to do demo again, as a program in a couple of the Lunar New Year celebration activities. This will definitely help me get back onto the saddle. The stars will not abandon me!
It is time I fill my brush wash basins with water and cut my Xuan into smaller pieces for my prep works.
This is going to be the year of the dog. I've tried to paint dogs before I embarked on my journeys. I was goofing around and tried painting on photo paper. I quite enjoyed the process and the result wasn't too offending; I was gratified by how vivid the paintings looked. Yet I wanted to attempt a more traditional approach, and most of all, something simple.
In order to do a demo in front of a group, chances are 99 percent of the audience are novices. This is not the time nor place to talk about techniques or aesthetics. The process needs to be result oriented.
It needs to be fun, simple and guarantees a result; a presentable finished product. In this case, the painting of a dog.
I thus gathered my thoughts and turned on my TV. I am one of those lucky people who is not perturbed by noise. The noisier the environment, the better I am able to concentrate. I don't know if this is what happens when one lived in an urban jungle, or the fact the I grew up inhabiting a 500 sq.ft. flat with 6 other family members. I often found myself studying not in the library, but a noisy restaurant; a bowling alley; a mall. Silence scars me. My mind wanders in the absence of stimuli. I hate to admit it, but I sleep with my radio or TV on quite often.
I started to doodle with the TV chattering in the background; trying to reacquaint myself with my brush and my Xuan. The result was disastrous.
I had no control of the brushstrokes. I had no control of the water content of my brush.
I was reminded, and humbled, by the fact that good calligraphic strokes are the basis of Chinese brush painting. If I am still fighting this nightmare how am I going to sail through my demo and how do I expect the general public to do that?
Then I thought I would do something that employs more of a wash than just lines. Everybody can splash, right?
That wasn't too bad. It had spunk.
How about this one?
I was really trying to stay away from painting anything that came close to being a Shih Tzu or a Pekingese because I was trying to get out of the stereotype. I was trying to not paint something banal.
I picked up a couple of New Year's greeting cards from a bookstore while I was travelling.
I am in no position to comment on the technical meritsof these cards, but I must admit that I was a little turned off by the dogs on them. They seemed vapid and without a soul. The same reason I am tepid about my dog paintings in the past blogs. I know this is purely a very subjective opinion from me, but the question I asked myself would be: do I want this animal to be a representation of the auspicious year to come?
Puppies are so cute and I recall this little poodle mutt that I could relate to. Perhaps I should paint something with a emotional content. That is my motivation. Now I have a beacon to guide me.
Well nobody said it was going to be easy. But look at those big eyes and the tongue hanging out!
I might be onto something.
But seriously, I began to work on this feeling that I had.
It's going to the the year of the Dog. Man's Best Friend! A dog is loyal, trustworthy, always of service. I need to be able to sell this as the harbinger of good fortune for the year to come.
I know the sketches looked rather haphazardly done, and they were, but I was really anxious to put down what I felt about the personality of the dog. I could clean up my brushstrokes as I became more comfortable with myself.
Of course the motivation for my painting all these are always on my mind. I have a job to do, and that is to allow an average person to successfully paint a dog. I am challenging myself to paint something that can easily be converted to sort of "painting by numbers" and yet possesses a suggestion of artistic merit. I am sending my hippocampus into overdrive.
What I need is a stencil. A template. Something that is repeatable.
I proceeded to work on this premise. I drew an outline around my animal.
I wanted to explore the feasibility of such a template.
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