I revised a couple of my old paintings and since I've recently acquired a new camera lens I was eager to find excuses to put it through its paces.
I am an enthusiast of Chinese Brush Painting and I would like to share my trials and tribulations in learning the craft. I want to document the process, the inspiration and the weird ideas behind my projects and to address some of the nuances related to this dicipline. I hope to create a dialogue and stir up some interest in the art of painting with a Chinese brush on Xuan. In any case, it would be interesting to see my own evolution as time progresses. This is my journal
Tuesday, June 28, 2022
Wednesday, June 15, 2022
Red Cliffs Nostalgia, The Grand Finale
At the onset of the painting I laid out my objectives for this painting, and one of them was to be able to highlight each of the 4 landmarks of the Columbia River Gorge by incorporating them into my fictitious staging of a real historical Chinese naval battle, the Battle of Chibi. The landmarks are of course the Vista House on top of Crown Point, the Multnomah Falls, the Rowena Loops and the Stonehenge replica. I also wanted these 4 subplots to be able to stand on their own rights as a painting by themselves.
Now that the painting is finished, let us delve into these 4 elements.
The Vista House at Crown Point:
The red cliff face is adorned with loads of vertical hemp chuen brushstrokes to give the surface texture. These brushstrokes stand out nicely against the staining done from the back of the paper. The Vista House itself is too big when compared with the real structure. Visually speaking, the building should be perhaps on the scale of 1/50th the height of the cliff. So my Vista House is at least 10 folds too big. I suppose my zeal of wanting to emphasize the structure got the better of me! To my defense, this is a fictitious painting, so accuracy is not a prerequisite and anything goes.
The Multnomah Falls:
Friday, June 3, 2022
How Red Are The Red Cliffs
With the blue section done on the painting, it is time to paint the red cliffs
So how red should the cliffs be? I had not intended for the painting to be a faithful representation of any facts, other than my nostalgic feelings about Su Dongpo's verses. Do these cliffs resemble the red landscape one finds along the highways of Utah? I researched online trying find pictures that show what the Red Cliffs look like today but I failed. It turns out that the exact location of the Battle of Chibi (Red Cliffs) is still a highly debated topic. There is a city called Chibi in China's Hubei province but the photos online does not give any indication about cliffs that are red, other than the huge carvings of the words Chibi in the rocks. I suppose this supports the debate that the term Chibi (Red Cliffs) perhaps got its name from the flames illuminating the cliffs in a reddish color during the naval battle.
I happen to have a photo from the central Oregon desert where the Painted Hills are located and with the help of photoshop I cut and paste my own Red Cliffs composite. Just to get the feel of it, that is.
I am assuming the red color comes from the high concentration of hematite in the rocks. The ferric oxide turns to rust and gives off the red color.
So my red shall be a rusty red. Perhaps I could scrape off some rust somewhere and use that as my organic pigment! A future project perhaps.
I apply my rust color from the back of the Xuan paper, as I did with the blue hues.
I wait for the color from the back of the paper to dry first before working on the front of the paper, reinforcing the namesake of my painting.
In the end the newly finished painting looks like this
I love the feel of the painting. It has an understated elegance to it. I am glad I did not paint everything a solid red color as in my composite. I am absolutely convinced that my current representation is infinitely more poetic, more evocative of "nostalgia".
There is one item that I have a problem. I do not like the shape of the reddish rock on the right. There is a landmark within the Columbia River Gorge area that resembles the painting, and it is located within the Rooster Rock State Park. Unfortunately I find it too much of a monolith in this setting, and seems to have detracted from the description of cliffs; especially when it receives the most "red" in the coloring scheme.