Two finches in a pear tree

Christmas has come and gone but the proverbial Twelve Days of Christmas song somehow keeps playing in my head.

          On the first day of Christmas my true love sent to me a partridge in a pear tree

          On the second day of Christmas my true love sent to me two turtle doves, and a partridge in a                  pear tree

I am reminded by the lyrics of my painting of pear tree flowers.  I have always loved that simple painting and to me it demonstrates the merits of Chinese round brush painting, although one would not associate it with the "traditional" Chinese brush painting.  Everything in that painting was done with discrete calligraphic brushstrokes, as if I was writing multitudes of "dots".  On top of that, it was sort of a plein-air painting.  I sat in the backyard, writing all dots as blossoms from my pear tree.  With that said, I've always felt that something was missing.  It lacked a story.  It lacked a plot.

How about borrowing from the Christmas carol and place a couple of finches in my pear tree.  I don't have partridges in my backyard but I do see finches.

I don't want to make my finches too ostentatious.  The finches I see usually betray their presence by their chirping or by their flickering, seldom by their colors.  The black-head finch, or the yellow-body variety would blend in too much with my painting of pear tree flowers.  I mean, I do want my finches to be sort of obscure, but not to the extent of puzzles like  "Where's Waldo" ( aka Where's Wally ).  I think the red-head finch best fit my purpose.  They use the color of their red head as calling cards, but their bodies blend in pretty well with their surroundings. 

This looks like a good spot to hang out,

 

Then there's this part of the painting that I don't quite like.  I must have been too faithful to what I was observing.  I painted two branches forming a 90 degree angle with each other.

Perfect place to place my other finch, to hide the oops.

My finch is going to be perched with its head turned back, interacting with its playmate below.  I like the pose for the simple reason that it creates movement, and forms connections.

I don't quite like the way the feet look.  The claws are not clasping like a typical bird would.  The claws need to be longer for starters.  I suppose I can try to hide them with flower petals.  I do like the fact that the greyish plumage blends in nicely with the existing painting.  

The finches do transform my painting.

Happy Year of the Dragon

Happy New Year

猛龍過江

https://www.greetingsisland.com/ecard/pqbrwcy0kdcq

Water and dragon

I am running out of time to carry out my tradition of doing a painting for the Chinese New Year.  I do that for self amusement and I also render the painting into a digital greeting card so I can send it out to my friends and family.  Eventually I hope to have a collection of all the 12 Zodiac animals.  

Dragon is the protagonist for the upcoming New Year.  I am reminded of an old saying that proclaims "the water doesn't need to be deep; it will have spiritual energy if a dragon resides in it"  "水不在深, 有龍則靈".  Thus I am ruminating my thoughts around that theme.

Obviously the first thing is to try and paint water.  My hypothesis is that the dragon would be fierce, and it is not going to be doing a free style swim, but more like a butterfly stroke.

So the water should be splashing and churning. 

I am trying to augment the void spaces by drawing in white lines using a white gel pen.

I am not liking it.  Too contrived.

So I am using a little more restraint and patience and also using a rather dry brush to try to work the void spaces now.  I am trying to learn from the last attempt.

So a dry brush is definitely the way to go.  I can control the bleed much better to control the shape of the voids.  I do get the sense of waves crashing.

How about a little color and attitude?  Just go for broke?

Family Zodiac completed

Finally I wrapped up on the Family Zodiac project.

Whether the finished product has artistic value or not is beside the point.  I'm sure it appears to be utilitarian or commercial, but the appeal of the painting is in its meaning.  Obviously I am prejudiced since I understand the nuances.

So the painting follows the doctrines of I Ching, where Tai Chi produces 2 Instruments, represented by the Dragon and the Snake.  The 2 Instruments produces 4 Images, comprised of a Rat, a Rooster, a Hen and a Baby Ox.  These 6 animals happen to be the constituents of the family I am doing the painting for. 

The Snake is fashioned in the shape of the word Loh, our family name, in cursive.

The cosmic swirls emanate from the two complementary/opposing energies, modeled with the proverbial Tai Chi or Ying Yang insignia.  In the swirls one finds a purple haze.  The significance of the purple haze is that it represents imminent auspicious events.  

The recipient of the Zodiac painting is a Rat, thus I was going to print my New Year Rat painting on a piece of white silk as an added memento.  Unfortunately I didn't know what print setting to use so the color came out awful.  I grabbed my brush and color and painted over the printed areas.  That was fun and was easier since all I had to do was to cover up the dreadful colors.  I decided to use gold acrylic for the writing instead of ink.  This actually reminded me of the practice of photo saloons coloring black and white portrait photo prints in the old days.  Perhaps I could find a job doing that.  

Just as I was going to close the books on this project, I remembered that I had made a seal for myself in the past; a toy chop if you will.  I had a friend whose hobby was into clay and ceramics and she had her own electric kiln.  I used some of her clay remnants and fashioned a seal for myself.  It showed the Big Dipper housed in a hulu gourd.  The gourd is omnipresent in our culture, not only as a vessel for storage, but also as a symbol of medicine and an extractor of negative energy.  In short, it is an auspicious object.

For the astute Chinese readers, the seal that I use for a lot of my paintings says 大熊 (great bear).  My dad named his children after the stars in the Big Dipper, the Ursa Major; so we all borne the name of a star in the Ursa Major.  Fortunately my dad did not have more than 7 children.  My siblings and I were all addressed as bears ( as in Great Bear constellation) as a way of endearment.  Our legal name was strictly for the school and government use.  Hence the significance of my using the Big Dipper as a seal.  I am paying homage to my dad and my family.

With the inclusion of this seal, the painting takes on a new meaning and significance, for me anyways.  In the grand scheme of things, I trust it is fitting for using this seal, since we are dealing zodiac topics.  In a backhanded way however, you can accuse me of manufacturing some bravado to an otherwise vapid piece of work;  perhaps.