Don't look a gift horse in the mouth

Yes this is an interesting western proverb.  I had to ask for explanation when I first heard it.  This was not something that was taught in my English classroom when I was in school.

So as the horse grows older, the teeth get longer.  By looking in the mouth of a horse one can tell how old or young the animal is.  In other words, don't scrutinize a gift or be ungrateful; all gifts convey a good will.

I suppose a horse does not have facial wrinkles or nasolabial folds to reveal the age, so the marker rests on teeth.  What else can we describe a horse with?  I myself am quite intimidated by horses.  They are huge and they kick.  Their neck muscles are so strong that they can sideswipe me with ease.  I have actually fallen off a donkey during one of those National Park excursions.  My donkey was having a bad day and bucked me off.  I fell off my ass on my ass, pun intended.  The fall was enough to break the viewfinder of my camera.  Fortunately I was wearing a helmet.  

Yet horses are beautiful animals.  The musculature on a horse is well-placed and in harmonious proportions to the body, unlike the pumped up looks of body builders of our own species.  I want to try to paint them, properly that is. 

When I tried to do figure drawing, my instructor loaned me a pristine copy of an illustrated book on human anatomy, muscle anatomy to be exact.  Apparently it was seldom handled.  Perhaps students did not want to invest the time to study human musculature just so they could paint bodies. That was before the advent of the computer or the internet, unlike these days when all kinds of references are at the fingertip.  I grew up with black and white cabled television with a dinner plate size screen.   Thermal-paper copy machines were the rage; replacing carbon copy papers on the typewriter.  Yes I am a fossil.  The idea of studying human muscles was to help with the articulating of  the human form.  I found out that's how Da Vinci acquired his acumen on human figures.  Strangely enough, the muscles of a human body did not intrigue me that much.  The only muscle that I was interested in was the sternocleidomastoid when it was attached to the clavicle, especially those of the fairer sex.  My friends tell me that is a fetish.  I am not so sure about that.  That's why when I painted Rusalka I was so intent on accentuating that muscle.

I don't need to find a book on equine musculature from the library anymore.  A couple clicks on my computer gets me what is needed.  The following is a photo I plucked from the net, and I labeled the muscles that I was interested in bold letters, for my own consumption.  It is not my intention to infringe on other people's copyrights.  My agenda is to study the shape and placement of these muscles.  To me, these are the interesting attributes of a horse.  If I can pin them down successfully with my brush, then I would have fulfilled my goal of painting a horse properly.

The sternocleidomastoid muscle in a horse is not as pronounced as ours.  Perhaps horses turn their head more as a function of the neck than just the skull.  The massive brachiocephalicus bears out my hunch.  When I see a sweaty horse with a shinny coat I am often only aware of the deltoid, the triceps and the quadriceps.  They cast beautiful shadows on the body.  If the horse is presenting in a frontal view, I see the two balls of pectoral muscles tucked between the two front legs.  To me, these features define a horse.  My task, therefore is to try to manifest these features on paper.

As I have nothing to lose but everything to gain, I am not afraid to experiment a bit.  I shall just wield my brush and see what happens.

How about a different pose, just for the heck of it

I might as well try to study all the muscle groups before I cherry-pick my markers,

Then this crazy idea comes to mind, what if I do the whole animal in charcoal and then use the eraser to highlight the muscles and make their presence felt,

Interesting!

Better yet, what if I try my ink and brush now over this eraser augmented charcoal horse,

Love it.  Raw and spunky, or should I say unbridled.  

I've had fun with my painting exercise.  Will definitely explore this topic again in the future. 

I've heard of lost-wax technique in casting, perhaps this is my lost-charcoal technique!

On my rostrum

I have been invited to conduct several painting classes for our local classic Chinese garden. This came as a genuine surprise to me. While I may be enthusiastic about Chinese brush painting, I certainly do not fit the bill as being erudite. Perhaps it is my affable disposition.

The Garden is situated in Chinatown, a neighborhood that is often associated with negative connotations. For some reason that is beyond my comprehension, Chinatowns invariably seem to be located in run-down areas. In our case, the homeless and drug problems further exacerbate the fragile existence of this place. A fence enclosure provides some distance from the random rocks being hurled at the windows, and visitors to this attraction must be buzzed in. It is not uncommon to encounter homeless individuals relieving themselves on the street in front of visitors, blocking their path.

Despite its small footprint, a mere city block, the Garden was constructed with craftsmen from Suzhou, a city renowned for its formal gardens. Therefore, it is certainly not a copycat or imitation facility. It strives for authenticity. 

My job is to introduce Chinese brush painting to novices.  

I stressed that I won't be conducting any plein air paintings.  The small plot of the Garden means that skyscrapers form the backdrop around the Garden.  Everywhere one looks, one sees city buildings competing with the classic architecture of the Garden, and is most disconcerting.  Thus I am hoping to coax the class into internalizing the features of the Garden and then distill that feeling into a painting.  In other words, compose our own canvas, or in this case, Xuan paper.  Additionally, perhaps more importantly, the painting needs to be able to be finished in an hour, give or take. 

I've taken liberty of utilizing a file photo of the Garden

The photo is probably ideal for plein air setting, but feels non-Chinese, if there is such a thing.

I lifted part of that photo onto my composition, 

Then I incorporated an example of a willow from Mustard Seed Garden.  I intend to borrow from my own journey in Chinese brush, having to study that compendium as part of the rote learning process.

Below is the new layout for the Garden

So this would be the distilled version that I shall attempt to paint.  Simple lines that even a novice can handle.

To translate my thoughts into executable plans, I need to make sure it's feasible, even in haste.  

Nothing fancy, just lines one can write.  

In the mix would be a few examples mixed foliage, as illustrated in the Mustard Seed Garden.

another try,

I think I succeeded in transforming a photograph into something more like a painting, a painting with a Chinese persona.  

The first painting looks a little busy, and the willow is a bit loud and does not yield to the background.

Thus the entire painting looks flat, as if everything is on the same plane.

The second one looks more poetic for sure.  There is contrast in scale and multitude, and a quiet elegance to it.  To fortify the relationship between the lonely willow and the buildings beyond, I am adding a boatman traversing in a boat.  That boat is plucked from the Mustard Seed Garden. The viewer can fill in the blanks with their own version of the story.  Where did the boatman come from, or where was he going to.

Since one of the brushstrokes that I will be covering is D'ian (dot), I decide to work another iteration with the impressionistic portrayal of waterlily, or duckweed, depending on the context. These are simply darker dots written within lighter dots while they are still moist.  

Okay class, here I come. 

Egret taking off

I examined the painting after the paint had dried and decided that the circles were too neat and tidy.  I was hoping that they would be a bit more rambunctious.  They were on the quiet side as they stood.  I also found out that certain colors didn't cover too well.  For example the green or yellow did not adequately masked the blue whereas the copper seemed overpowering.  

My remedy was to introduce some chaos; by drawing some really loose circles with a white gel pen, and by sprinkling fine drops of ink onto the paper.  I was hoping the "noise" made by the obvious, yet subtle fine white lines and the dots of black ink could make the painting more interesting, by distracting from the vapid concentric circles.

 With that out of the way, I worked on the bird.

I had intended to use the grey and white metallic paint from the assortment that I bought but I decided against it after some thought.  I didn't think metallic feathers would be appropriate for egret but more importantly I could use the matte finish of the egret to contrast with the shiny metallic paint. 

Using my Chinese round brush, I started to write in the neck and feathers in the void that was provided by my cutout mask.

Traits of discrete Chinese calligraphy brushstrokes were evident with the feathers and the feet.

I was really eager to see my new baby.  I was just like an expectant parent.  I did not waste anytime wet mounting my new piece.  The wet painting looked so different from the back, without the metallic sheen.  Instead it was bathed in this mysterious vat of colors.  The white bird really stood out, as if it was leaping out of the paper.

Even from the front, the white egret looked so real.  I was really glad that I eschewed the metallic acrylic on the bird.

I decided to make the feathers on the wing less perfect by writing in a torn feather.  No I wasn't being pedantic.  I did it not because I should, but because I could.  It's akin to adding a zit on an otherwise fine portrait of a face.  That was the child in me playing games with my subject. 

The most interesting thing about this painting was that it looked very different under various lighting conditions.  It was like a chameleon.  Or a silk brocade.  The color and the mood changed depending on how the painting was illuminated.

 

Round and round and round

After experimenting with my newly acquired airbrush on my String Theory-themed pieces, I realized it was something I wanted to pursue further. With practice, I’m confident I could master the technique. At the very least, it would provide me with hours of amusement..  

I am fortunate to have a body of water behind my residence, such that the reflections of surrounding foliage on the water are both tantalizing and mesmerizing.  

I’ve decided to paint water with a multitude of colors using my airbrush.

This time, I’m adding a twist by using metallic paint. I associate the shimmer of water with the sparkle of metallic paint, and I hope it will bring a some impressionistic realism.

I have a bottle of gold metallic acrylic paint that I use for my gilded calligraphy on greeting cards. I experimented with it in my airbrush to see if it would work.

However, I quickly realized that the acrylic paint was too thick to aerosolize. It was quite different from trying to airbrush ink or watercolor. I had to dilute it significantly to make it spray. Unfortunately, the resulting spray was too watery, and I worried that the metallic sparkle would be lost.

But I was wrong! The sparkle returned after the paint dried, which was surprisingly fast. Repeated spraying helped build up the color saturation.

Encouraged by my success, I ordered a box of 18 colors metallic acrylic pouring paint from an online store. I thought the pouring paint might be less viscous. Instead of using special solvents, I diluted the paint with plain water. I assumed that the label said the paint was water-based, so I figured water would be an acceptable diluent.  

 

The painting I had in mind was about a white egret taking off from water, which was dotted with circular ripples.  I figured since I had no control of the air brush, I could at least spray round circles, over and over again.  It would be like doodling.  Child's play. This is absolutely contrary to what I was taught in Chinese Brush, in that we tried not to cover up our brushstrokes with repetitions.

I decided I was braving new frontiers (new toy actually) and I would not genuflect to the strict doctrines of traditional Chinese Brush.  I used the thin translucent cicada skin Xuan however.  The paper had a nice natural sheen to it.

I knew where I wanted to position my egret so I cut out a template for my bird.  I used that template to block out any sprays from my air brush.  With that done I proceeded to spray my background with a blue metallic acrylic.

I was using a chopstick to mix and dilute my paint in the paint receptacle.  I didn't want to waste whatever paint that was clinging to my chopstick, so I dapped the paper with the stick to form circles like ripples.  I had this wild idea of modeling my ripples.  I kneaded strings using my scrap Xuan paper and I fashioned them into circles and plotted them on the paper.

Well that was a disaster.  The strings of paper were so light that any spray from the air brush would blow them out of place.  It was an exercise in futility.  Even the cutout mask I made for my egret had to be weighted down.  It took me about 5 seconds to realize how stupid my idea was.  Free-hand spray it would be.  After all the whole idea of doing ripples was so that precision was not called for, taking into account that this was something novel for me.

I kept reaching for different colors from my box of 18, using both the air brush and regular brush (it took time to clean out my air brush after each spray, since the acrylic dries rather quickly and can clot up my sprayer).  I seemed to have painted with aplomb, which in reality I was too naïve to worry about whether the lines were in the right place or not.  The spray was sort of diluted and wet.  The diluted paint made it difficult to see if there was overlap or coverage or how wide the spray pattern was.  After a while nothing mattered anymore.  I could picture myself with a robotic arm, seemingly dancing with a mind of its own.  Gyrating to the cadence of the hiss from the airbrush. 

What made it more difficult, or interesting, was that depending on where the light source was, different colors would manifest.  The photos showed the void left by my mask of the egret.

 

Acid -free Archival

I vented my frustration with the high price of a custom frame in my Tail wagging the dog post.  A keen-eyed reader pointed out some specifics of the price quote that might have escaped my attention.

The word "Preservation" might be the culprit.  

The cover of the frame might be UV blocking non-reflective glass or acrylic.

The mat and backing board were stated to be acid-free archival, which meant resistance to yellowing and degradation.

The whole notion was to preserve the framed material, and this added level of protection was different from a run of the mill picture frame that I could have picked up from the shelves.

The well meaning point was well taken.  In fact the first hurdle I needed to cross in those rare occasions that I would be talking to galleries was that I could not vouch for the fact that my works were done on acid-free archival paper.  None of my various Xuan paper would state that they are acid-free or archival.  In the litigious society that I live in, a wanton affirmation could steer me into false representation.  Thus I couldn't even set foot in the doors of such galleries.   

The fact of the matter was that I was just looking for a flat-bed trailer for hauling, but instead I went for a gilded carriage. 

My bad!!

I have a habit of pinning my scraps and practice works on the wall.  In one forgotten corner of my room I noticed something shocking, quite by chance I might add,

I noticed the bottom of the stack had numerous holes in the paper.

Whereas the scrap immediately on top did not,

The piece of paper on the bottom became food for the silverfish.  

When my house had cedar shingles as roofing I had constant problems with silverfish.  That infestation went away after I switched over to composite roofing.

That leads to a point that I shall make.  When making my starch glue, I've always added a few grains of mothball to the mix.  The camphor in the mothball helped to ward off pests like the silverfish.   The fact that my mounted pieces were not affected albeit hanging at the same place could be a testament to the effectiveness of the mothball.  Perhaps this was my acid-free archival method of preservation. 

I had a student complained that she was getting a headache from the stench of mothball while learning how to do wet mounting.  Perhaps I used too much?  Now that I've run out of mothball, I am using a few drops of tea tree oil instead.

Seems to do the trick, but I don't think I have a silverfish problem anymore to validate my new formula.  

 

String Theory dot 2

After my first run of airbrush on gold speckled Xuan using alum solution, I thought I would try the same thing on regular Xuan.  Un-sized, raw Xuan.  I was really hoping that the alum solution would behave differently on regular Xuan, and that I could paint from the back of that paper, as I had alluded to in my last blog.

My head was no longer occupied with juxtaposing wild ideas of dimensions and gravity and whatnots.  I would just focus of the technical details this time and enjoy my airbrush.  I told myself.

Seeded my regular un-sized Xuan with my gold "strings".

Wrote in my comic strands with alum solution.

Gingerly sprayed the paper with my airbrush.  Holding my breath to see what the paper reveals.  Apparently the crease in the center of the Xuan took center stage.  The bulge created shadows as a result of some of the sprays not being able to reach the paper.  Interesting!

After further spraying to make the color more saturated, this was the result:

The alum solution laden brushstrokes were not as apparent as those done on the gold speckled Xuan.

Instead the painting seemed to be cloaked in enigma.  The shadows from the crease in the center of the paper actually added to the mystical nuance of the painting.  Serendipitously!  I could see a faint, but definite representation of a vortex with a dark center.  Reminded me of whirlpools.  Was that how "strings" act I wonder.  

My reason for trying the dot 2 version on regular un-sized Xuan was to demonstrate what alum solution does to the back of the paper.  The following photo showed the back of this painting.

Closeup of a area on the back of the Xuan, showing marks left by the alum solution from the front of the paper, notice the very distinct white outlines of the brushstrokes.  

The voids were actually brushstrokes done with alum solution and it blocked full seepage of color from the front.  The colored areas were those devoid of alum. 

By over-spraying the void with color again, I was able to overpower the resist property of alum and shaped my cosmos somewhat.

Close examination of the photo showed all the intricate white filaments rendered with alum solution.  One might say that this was soiling.  Reminded me of sweating on shower doors.  

Soiling done deliberately.  

I couldn't conclude this blog without showing the front and back of this painting,

Front

Back

Which side would you display?

The reveal

I had laid the ground work for my String Theory painting.  I got sidetracked by my desire to purchase a custom frame.  That was a bad experience.

I needed something to bring me out of my sulking.

So I got myself a new toy.

Yes, an airbrush!  A hand-held, rechargeable one.  Seems like it would be fun.

Well I am not ashamed to admit that I am willing to put my brushes aside, temporary at least, and give my new toy a run.

What better piece to experiment on than my String Theory?  

 

I've never touched an airbrush before but that makes it more exciting.  I am not spraying enamel or model paint.  I am spraying ink and watercolor essentially so I shouldn't worry about clogging up my toy.  I should be expecting better results than using my brush to write in the background color.

Right away the mist from the sprayer caused the paper to wrinkle.  The wrinkling interestingly enough was along the alum solution brushstrokes.  I believe the difference in absorption between the alum painted and non-alum painted areas was sufficient to cause the paper to wrinkle along those lines.  

My phthalo blue solution was too diluted to reveal the alum solution succinctly, but the tracks were quite visible nonetheless.  Notice my initial attempt to outline where the alum solutions should be written on the upper right hand corner.  In the end I decided it was too cumbersome so I just did everything freehand.

After several passes with my airbrush, the flame like features of my string soup emerged quite interestingly.  At first I was going to spray the whole sheet the same color, but then I liked the bands of clear spaces so I left them blank.  I also mixed in a little green color.  Martians are green, aren.t they?

After the paper had dried, I examined what had manifested.  It had that cosmic look!

The spray was not as uniform as I had envisioned.  That was a lot of fun however.  I could see all those little white filaments inside the big blue torrent.  Streams of hot radiation spewing from black holes.

I am sure I could improve on my spraying technique given sufficient time.

When I turned the gold speckled Xuan over, I did not see any seepage of the alum to the back of the paper.  This was kind of disappointing for me.  Part of the fun of painting with alum solution was to paint on the back side of the paper, taking advantage of the soak-through of alum from the front side.  Ostensibly this gold speckled paper was less permeable to alum solution as I had anticipated.

I employed this painting from the backside technique with my snow scenes.  Such as this one:

I played around with my painting by turning it upside down.  The piece was abstract enough that there was no telling as to which side is north.  

What I perceived now was a crashing wave, on a foaming sea.

Forget my string theory.  After all that contemplating about what the first moments might be like, I was still painting water, unknowingly.  I've gone off the deep end and back again. 

The sea was more convincing anyways and a lot less abstract.  No need to consider green Martians. 

Interesting!