Thank You Singapore-for my New Dawn

Seeing that my scheme of applying a mask, as if I was working with Photoshop, to my painting could transform my work drastically, I told myself, "Game on, baby!"

I discussed my mischievous intentions with a friend of mine and he accused me of cheating.  

Really?  This had not crossed my mind at all.  Perhaps I had accepted Photoshop as an acceptable post-production in the workflow of taking pictures, and I had embraced the concept of layers and masking.  Perhaps to a purist, this is considered cheating.  I wonder if this is a by-product and necessary evil of digital photography.  Anyways, my conscience is clear.  Novel, perhaps; cheating, no.

My "test subject" is now ready for the experiment.  I am using the same home cooked starch that I use for mounting on paper for this attempt.  I use a soft brush to brush on my rising sun "mask" due to the thin and delicate nature of the cicada skin Xuan.  I really don't want to tear it.

The cicada skin Xuan now sits on top of the starched original painting that was mounted on cement board.  Careful and swift brushing ensures a flat and wrinkle free application.

Newspaper is used to cover the newly starched work and a brush with stiff bristles is pounded on top of the newspaper.  This serves to force a tight bonding of the cicada skin Xuan to the painting underneath and the newspaper also helps to absorb moisture from the wet starch that seeps through the Xuan paper.

This is now allowed to dry at ambient room temperature.  The saturation and transparency will diminish as the drying process continues.

Liquitex gloss medium and varnish is now applied to the dried painting.  The Liquitex helps to restore the brilliancy for the color and acts as a protective coating.  This is especially critical since I will be displaying the work without a glass covering.  I am allowing the liquid to sit on selected spots a while longer before dispersing it to surrounding areas.  The liquid seems to have helped bring out the transparency for the selected areas.

 One can see here how Liquitex brings back the saturation and transparency.

I get the following result after some minor touchups.  This is now allowed to dry.

With matting now,

In the interest of documenting this transformation, I created the following composite,

Nobody likes my newborn baby.  Everybody prefers the third iteration.  They think that is a "real painting" and that it is "prettier".

I, on the other hand, do like the last version very much.  In fact, I would go as far to call that a metamorphosis.  The literal details of the original are distilled to almost a tactile experience.  The sorghum  has fermented.  It is now crude and raw and in your face.  I can feel the sun and its halo of colors.  Or is it my cataract that is clouding up my vision.  I can no longer call my piece a Huangshan sunrise because any discernable landmark is no longer.  It can be universal, wherever trees populate.  Had I not taken the trip to Singapore, I would not have such a revelation. 

So, Thank You Singapore, for my New Dawn.

Sunrise at Huangshan

I recently took a trip to Singapore.  I wanted to experience Lau Pa Sat (old market) and I wasn't disappointed at all.  But that is not the reason for writing this blog.

As I was packed in the middle isle in the back of the belly of a 777, I pretty much had no vantage point of the view outside of the plane.  Well the blinds were all closed anyways so the passengers could spill "Z"s at 40K feet.  So I wasn't missing much. Then one of the passengers sitting by a window raised the window blind.  The cabin was immediately bathed with a streak of reddish amber light, arcing across the walls of the dimmed economy class holding pen, as the plane floats across the thin air.  

The sun was rising.

I stretched my neck and yawed my head, trying to maintain a line of sight to the rising sun outside the window, sidestepping the dark silhouettes of passengers' heads.  I was trying to absorb that image as much as I could.  I know it would be futile for me to take a picture with my phone, I would probably end up with a little amber oval amidst a dark field of heads.  The glow was so encompassing, I felt its presence more than simply seeing it.  

I found my old "run of the mill" piece of Huangshan after I returned home.  A piece that I did years ago, honing my painting skill.  I wanted to revive that painting by making the sun come up from behind those rock formations.

Yes, that encounter with the rising sun from inside a plane had done something to my psyche.  

Normally a painting done on Xuan paper is not meant to be painted over.  Fortunately I was toying with different ways to present paintings done on paper, I mounted my painting on cement board.  I also coated it with a gel medium to protect the surface, since I intended to display that without a glass cover.

That meant I could paint over my original work.  What a novel idea !  (I am sure oil painters do that all the time?)

I started out by "softening" the scene by accentuating the cloud and mist to make the painting less "rigid".

Then I added the sun, with its rays; as any textbook would have shown.

It looked OK, but something was missing.  I didn't "feel" it.  Perhaps it was too "storybook" like.  Too much like a page of illustration.  Who Knows.  I was just having a soliloquy.  Mumbling, actually.

Somehow I thought of Photoshop, a tool that I often use with my photography.  "Layers" to be specific.

What if I created a layer of the rising sun and superimpose that on the original painting.  Hmmmmmmm.

There's only one way to find out.

First I needed to see the effect of a piece of cicada skin Xuan superimposed on my painting.  I needed to know the degree of transparency I was dealt with.  Unlike Photoshop, I would not be able to adjust the transparency of my "layers" here.

Satisfied that the cicada skin Xuan was transparent enough to not totally obscure the painting underneath, I began to prepare my layer for the sun.

Before putting my feet to the fire, I did a dry run.  I took a picture of the top layer "sun" and superimposed it onto my bottom layer of the original painting.

This might actually work!