A Quorum

Having enjoyed painting my goose amongst water grass, I thought of another painting that I could toy with.  I suppose I am blessed enough to reside in an area where I have ample opportunities to interact with Canada geese, to the extent that some of them would peck on the door to beg for food.  At times there are 4 different families with their offspring borrowing my backyard as their playground.  They are my endearing painting inspirations.

Other members of my family unfortunately do not share my fondness for these birds.  All they can relate to is the odious landmines of geese droppings on the lawn.  I consider them natural fertilizers, and I have yet to catch salmonella.

What I see is a gathering of geese at some wetland.  Bodies of water of varying depths flooding what used to be plowed fields; punctuated by short rows of grass, weed and what not.  Ambiguous silhouettes of hay and implements and dilapidated outhouses dot the frame. Birds are wading on their short stubby legs, swimming, fighting, bathing, less than mellifluous squawking,  veiled by the muslin of saturated water vapor, and the intense amber light of the setting sun, with ribbons of glistening reflections as garnish.  And yes, the hard-to-miss white flickers on their chins and tails as they carry on with their activities.

Such is the setting.

while the paper is still moist I wrote in portions of the trees, such that portions of the tree is visible through the mist

Mother's Day Serendipity

I was invited to do a Chinese Brush demo at a local attraction.  This venue boasts of an authentic Suzhou classical garden and is a destination for a lot of out-of-towners.

Typically I would show people how to hold a brush and why we hold our brush this way.   It's all about the tip and the edge.  I would try to mix good background information with real applications, avoiding topics that are too esoteric.  Don't want my audience to be bored.  My years as a retail pharmacist has honed my ability to discern if a person is drawn in by my topic or not.

I had chosen the topic of landscape painting for this occasion.  I wanted to present to the general public what are some of the attributes of this genre of work.  I used the Chinese Mustard Seed Garden as my reference, since I had to study this text book.  I went through the illustrated examples of composition, as far as grouping rocks, trees, mixed foliage, trees etc and addressed the required proficiency in Gou, Chuen, Ts'a, Ren and Dien.  I also brought prints from painters of the Song dynasty to compare and contrast with the works of a contemporary Zhang Daqian . Obviously not everybody was interested in the fundamentals, and I could tell from their body language.  Interestingly there were a few scholars in the crowd.  I surmised by the questions they asked, and the time and attention they spent at my table.

The day of my demo happened to fall on Mother's Day.  It was especially difficult for moms ( or any parent for that matter ) to spend time exploring a topic when they have their genetic copies tugging at their hems all the time.  I would suggest to you that most of the moms came to the garden as something special to do , on a day that honored them, and not because they were interested in Chinese brush painting.  To honor all the moms in my audience, I threw in a few surprises of attempting to paint a rose, under the pretense of demonstrating what a Chinese brush could do if we can harness its nib to the fullest extent.

Most of the time when I digressed to painting roses, it was because I was trying to salvage interest in my spiel;  (I mean there were times that I really wanted to do something nice for the moms) thus I had to paint fast.  Kids don't have patience.   In any case, quite a few moms received a extemporaneously painted rose as a memento for their visit on Mother's Day.

I was pleasantly surprised that some of these attempts turned out to be nice.  The hastily painted roses were spontaneous, lively, and did not seem rote.  I call that Mother's Day Serendipity.