Sunday, June 9, 2024

Water continued



Time to finish my water mosaic painting which was started back in January.  Perhaps due to the fact that I had committed so much on the painting already, and frankly I got sidetracked with other paintings, I find it difficult to change course or alter significantly what I have done so far.


I am holding tight to my boat's wheel and sail on.  I want to identify a body of glistening water by assigning a bluish color to it


Now I pick out the areas of occasional shimmers by mentally labelling them with my red lines and painting them in blue.  As one can see I am not confining the color within the boundaries of the lines as I should have.  Again I blame this on my "not wanting to lose my train of thought" or "sense of place".  Seems like a valid excuse!


Dark ink is used to fill in the "non-shimmering" areas of the water.  The stark contrast of black ink and color helps to bring the features of the water to life.


The right side of the painting gets a lighter ink treatment.  Again I am not being a good student.  My coloring goes outside of the outlined areas.  In a way this is like a hybrid of Xieyi and Gongi style paintings.  Hmmm.



I am adding a thin white line as an additional border to some of the black in pieces of my mosaic.  It is a subtle effect but somehow I am convinced that it adds to the nuance of the water mosaic.  Perhaps these lines reinforce the interpretation of shimmers on water?



In the end, my hybrid style of Xieyi and Gongbi Water Mosaic.  What a mouthful!



The above painting does not have the added white lines around dark ink.

The one below does have the added white lines.  If nothing else, it seems to have more definition and information.  I think the white lines add to that je ne sais quoi feeling of the painting.  I am just experimenting.  I do believe that some photo-editing software "sharpens" an image by imparting an artificial border of white to fool the eye of perceiving more contrast around the edges.  Perhaps this is the reason behind my saying that there's more definition and information as a result of painting in these white lines.  Serendipity!





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