Rusalka, cont'd

I have Rusalka in the water, across from a classical pavilion, under the moon on my fibrous Xuan.  I should be ready to just paint in the night sky and the water and I shall have my Rusalka painting.

Easy enough.

I like the color indigo.  It is deep and mysterious; perfect for my moon lit sky and water.  As I am rummaging through my bin of half used tubes of colors for the indigo label, I am realizing that the painting will be too sparse and crude and might be lacking in emotional content.  I mean I don't have the skills that is necessary to transform  a vast void of sky and water to support my story of the water nymph Rusalka longing for her love.  I desperately need supporting casts to help me stage my painting.

Song to the Moon (google translation):

Moon in the sky deep  I see your light far away.

You wander through the world, Divas in the abode people.

Moon, wait a moment, tell me where my loved ones are.

Tell him, let's hug the moon, that he will hug me on his shoulder, so tha at least for a moment he remembers me in his dreams.

Light him far away, tell him, tell him who's waiting here!  

The human soul dreams of me, let's wake up with that memory!

Moon, don't go out, don't go out!

As I am listening to the soprano detailing the most intimate thoughts of Rusalka, I am led to a more private setting for Rusalka to muse her thoughts.  I need to place Rusalka in a smaller space by framing my painting with incidentals like vegetation.  I shall exaggerate the light reflection from the pavilion and buildings to further close off the space on the right side of the paper.  I shall make the reflections in the water around Rusalka more pronounced, not only to make a better connection with the moon but also to take up more real estate on the water.

I am placing bamboo on the left of the painting.  That gives me a chance to practice my bamboo leaves again.

To the right of the painting, behind the architectural artifacts I am painting in a bamboo grove to tie in with the bamboo on the left.  The brushstrokes are loose and impressionistic and should blend in well with the night sky.  That's the plan anyways.

Dabs of ink form additional objects in the background.

I am now painting in the water with indigo, being careful to leave voids, simulating shiny reflections the water.

I am taking this moment to go over the face of Rusalka, now that I have a background to play off with.

I am portraying Rusalka with half-opened eyes.  I like to think that this is more pensive than a fully closed or open eye.  I am also playing up the light values on her cheeks and her moon lit forehead.

True to my obsession with the sternocleidomastoid muscle, I am making them really dramatic, accompanied by a long neck and dimples from the clavicles.  I just find them very appealing and sexy.

This is what I have so far.  I am going to let the painting dry and reevaluate.  

What jumps out right away is that I need to increase the saturation of the water and sky.

Rusalka

I mentioned that I was listening to" Song To the Moon" from Rusalka when I was painting my rabbits on the moon for our Lunar New Year and somehow I have not been able to clear that image from my thoughts. 

Rusalka as I understand is a character in Slavic folklore and though it has many variations it nonetheless seem to involve spirits of the female gender and it lives in a body of water luring or haunting men, depending on how you look at it.  I suppose it is haunting if the woman died in tragedy and her spirit has not seen salvation or her death has not been avenged.

The Rusalka I referred to in my blog is the protagonist in an opera written by Antonin Dvorak.  The work tells the story about a water nymph Rusalka who falls in love with a mortal prince and bargains with a witch to turn her into a human to accommodate the potential relationship.  The price she pays is that she would be turned into a mute and become a mortal and the prince will die if he does not love Rusalka, who will in turn be damned eternally.  As with all great love stories, tragedy is the only viable conclusion.  Nobody wins in the end, the prince dies and Rusalka is damned.  It makes the song even more haunting.  The libretto of this opera has Rusalka professing her love for the prince to the moon in the opening act and asking the moon to help convey her love.

As I am writing this down, I am reminded of other friendships between the mortals and the immortals that are prevalent in other cultures.  Obviously everyone is familiar with the "Mermaid".

In Chinese culture I can think of at least two very popular folklores that pertain to such a union.  The story of "Goddess Marriage" or "Fairy Couple" (天仙配) is about the marriage of the 7th daughter of the Heavenly Emperor to a mortal who exhibited qualities of scholarship and filial duty.  The interesting thing about this folklore is that it has several different versions, and not all endings are tragic.

In "Legends of the White Snake" (白蛇傳) a folklore that tells the story of how a white python was able to be transformed into a beautiful lady, thus deemed an "unclean spirit" by priests.  The white python marries a mortal and a priest is determined to "exorcise" this mortal's wife, breaking up the union.  This folklore has something similar to Rusalka, in that the relationship between the mortal and immortal is brokered or intervened by a witch, or a priest.  Whilst the story of Rusalka ends in sadness the story of "Legends of the White Snake" has a happy ending.  Perhaps it is a statement that true love gets rewarded and humanity embraces even "unclean spirits".

Enough of a segue, time to paint my thoughts on paper.

My Rusalka is a lady poking her head out of water in a moon lit night, having a pensive moment with the the moon in the backdrop.  Needless to say, this renowned soprano aria "Song to the moon" is playing in the background.  My painting of "Whiter Shade of Pale" introduced me to painting of human forms.  Through those months of paying closer attention to the human body, I have a deeper appreciation of why Da Vinci studied human anatomy.  For me, I find the human neck to be an object of fascination.  I particularly enjoy how the sternocleidomastoid muscle (the 2 big muscles at the sides of our neck) in the neck twists and turns with the head, sometimes highly visible, and other times disappears beneath the skin.  I also enjoy its relationship with the clavicle, and how the depression at the bottom of the neck ebbs and flows with our posture.  A big lovely dimple.

Thus I shall attempt to showcase the neck of my water nymph. Try anyways.

A study drawing

I am using a very fibrous heavy Xuan.  I like the fact that this paper allows the color to float and disperse on it momentarily before fully soaking it in.  Hopefully it will help embody the ambience of a night scene with less than well defined lines; with the visible fibers strands adding to the ambiguity.

I am making a very pronounced presence of the sternocleidomastoid muscle through shading.  I am not too worried about the correct color of the face at this point.  My plan is to correct everything towards the end of the painting and I trust the paper I am using will allow me to make these alterations without ill effects.  

Before I continue on with the rest of my nymph, I am blocking out the ripples in the water by using the alum solution.  I am doing this so that when I paint in the hair and her clothing, I can somehow convey that they are submerged.

I also assign a position for my moon.  After all, this is a painting about Rusalka's song to the moon.  

To set the framework that Rusalka is in the water, contemplating the possibility that she might be residing on land as a mortal,  I am assigning that reference to some classical Chinese architecture.  

Eventually all these incidentals will be swallowed up by the dark night, hopefully.  I am therefore not too concerned about accuracy. I am augmenting the night scene with a few moon lit tree trunks in white.  I am hoping the lights in the buildings will eventually contrast with the dark night sky and make the painting interesting.  I suppose I just want a presence more than anything else.  My goal now is to plot my settings, create a mood and see if things work out or not.

The far shore of the water is painted in

So now I have the nymph, the worldly reference, and the moon.  Next chore is make the night fall!

Mounting my "mosaic" project

My mosaic painting of ducks in a pond is disintegrating just from laying around.  Every time I walk past the painting a little draft follows me, enough to partly lift the painting ever so slightly since it is so light.  The repeated lifting causes more cracking and subsequent cutting loose of small pieces of my painting.  Like shards of glass.

The only remedial step for alleviating the continued deterioration is to mount it.  Dry mounting would be out of the question.  My painting would not be able to withstand any ironing at all.  Traditional wet mounting is the only way out.  

The painting is laid face down on my slab of mounting plastic and copious amount of water is dumped on it to ensure proper soaking, rendering the fibers in the paper less brittle.  My painting wears a dried prune appearance now from all the air pockets.

Normally I would apply and spread my starch solution right away with my stiff brush.  The stiff bristles would push out the air pockets and flatten any creases but I think that brush is too harsh in this instance.

I am resorting to a soft brush to try to smooth out all the air pockets before I even apply the starch.  The stiff brush is left on the sideline; watching. 

More water is sprayed onto the painting to facilitate the smoothing process.  Anybody who has applied window tinting sheets onto a glass pane will understand what I am doing.  The only difference is instead of using a piece of hard plastic with a flat edge for pressing, I am using a soft brush.  The water makes the paper float a bit and it serves as a lubricant and also a sealant to prevent air from re-entering.  

After about 20 minutes of careful brushing and re-wetting with water, all the air pockets are gone.  I have a flat piece of painting that I can apply starch now.  Patience is a virtue. 

The starch application invariably causes the frayed edges of the damaged painting to double up and fold upon itself.  This is not the time to panic.  Instead of using a hard tool like forceps to unfold the tucked in edges, I use a clean brush to unfurl and reposition the frayed edges.

The painting is now ready for starching and backing and mounting.  The mounted piece is glued to a hard surface to dry.  The drying process will make the painting taut and the starch will add stiffness to the paper.

The mounted "mosaic" painting is now next to the painting that inspired it.  I suppose the gaping hole can pass as a void space in the painting, by design, right?

I can honestly say that I've accomplished my resolution for this new year and I am happy about it. I am happy that I am giving Gongbi style technique an honest try, albeit not in the traditional sense.  I am not painting peony, blue bird or lotus flowers, the usual thematic matters.  I am painting water.  However I certainly learned a lot in the process.  I am hoping readers of this blog can learn from my mistakes and methods to mitigate them.  Let's face it, this is still rather esoteric.  I'll chalk this up as a successful experiment, especially when comparing the two paintings side by side.  

Not tedious anymore.

Happy April Fools' Day!