Canada Geese, A Fluted Look

Of the many geese paintings that I've undertaken, one of them was terminally ruined by my introduction of a couple of blemishes...  my "signature" ink splats.  As one of my partners in crime quipped, those are my calling cards!

I thought of concealing them by painting something over them, perhaps a couple more geese in the distance; but their locations are less than ideal.  Perhaps I could transform them into heavenly bodies, but we  only have one sun on this earth, and UFO's would be blasphemous to a serious piece of work [ sarcasm ].  Then I thought of the Oregon rain streaming down my windshield, causing the image to have a fluted glass look.  I decided to surgically remove the splats, flouting conventional wisdom.

I recently had "sliced" up a geese painting into horizontal strips.  I shall attempt a vertical striping this time.

The painting was basically cut up into strips of varying widths running the north south direction.  By disposing the strips with the ink splats on them, I had accomplished my main objective.  My mistakes were gone!  My next move was to position the strips by sliding them up and down to give the painting a different look, but mainly [ and honestly ] to obscure the missing pieces of the landscape span.  I would even take one strip out of sequence and place it at another location just to dramatize the effect. 

As I tried different schematic arrangements, I would document them with photos.  The juxtaposition of the elements elicited an emotional response that is beyond words.  I wonder if music composers feel the same way; by stringing notes together a song is born.  By varying the musical intervals one changes key.

The photo documentation helped me to decide on a final layout for my collage.  The initial rearrangements were fueled by instincts; now the analytical eye was given a chance to participate.  Here are two examples:   by placing a light colored strip in the left field, the dissonance is acute, yet not unpleasant.  It is like playing a minor chord in a major key work.  The second example is the impressionistic flow of water, or mist on the right side of the painting.  The initial pairing truncated the "flow" of that void space, thus interrupted the feel or the energy of that story line.   By aligning the void spaces, I was able to restore the flow.

( flow truncated)

 (flow restored)

I adopted the final layout with the help of my TV monitor.  I displayed the desired version on my screen and used it as my visual template to glue down the final edition.

This exercise allowed me to

1. eliminate the annoying ink splats
2. create "hooks" or "discords" ( depending on one's point of view ) by juxtaposing
3. shift the pair of geese away from the center
4. accentuate the downward and upward flapping motions of the wings
5. create a fluted glass feel to the painting, rendering a  3 dimensional prism effect.

My finished work:

I totally grasped the meaning of "necessity is the mother of invention" now, and I am so thankful for the times that I had to sit inside my truck to stay out of the Oregon wet sunshine, watching rain streaming down the glass.

Goose Me More, Canadian Style

Happy New Year!  2012 is here, let us all stay healthy, body and mind.

I want to start the year off with a flighty agenda.  No, nothing capricious, just trying to pick up  painting Canada Geese again, from where I left off last year.

First allow me to show you an image below:

Before I would comment further on this image, let me also show you a picture that I captured:

As part of my new resolve, I decided to get out more and observe more.  Around Oregon there are innumerable parks, preserves, wetland habitats to keep a person busy all year long.  I decided to take advantage of what the state offers.  This crisp winter morning at the Jackson Bottom Wetlands, I inadvertently came up on a Canada goose and the startled bird took off without uttering a single word.  I was pretty quick with my lens and captured the above picture.

I've been trying to document the neck and postures of the Canada geese, but so far my renderings had been of the static variety.  As I said before, it was the black and white contrast of the bird, and the feasibility of depicting the bird as a calligraphy character that intrigued me.  This is the first time that I am attempting to study the bird in flight.

What struck me was the simplicity of the form.  A V-shaped pair of wings anchored on a bowling pin with black neck and a white band.

We start out with the body,

The neck is a combination of strake A and stroke B.
The letter V describes the wings:

With that interpretation of the bird in flight, and the picture as a reference, I attempted to create my
Chinese Brush painting of the Canada goose.

This one looks like a sea plane;  I had placed the V-assembly too high on the body.

Here is a rendition of the bird with wings in the down stroke.

So what is the deal with the first image I posted on this blog?

If you look closely, you could see pencil tracings on the Xuan paper.  I did that deliberately to illustrate a point.  That painting had a perfect image, a perfect likeliness because I traced it from my photograph.   A few dabs of the brush to delineate feathers and walla.....a Chinese Brush painting of a Canada goose.  This is something that
a person who has gone to the Dark Side would have done.  A stenciled drawing filled with a few half hearted brush strokes passes off as an attempt at Chinese Brush works.  Instant gratification.

It is my sincere hope that by posting the 2 versions of painting, that you will agree with me that there is no quick shortcut to this art form.  There is something tangible in Xieyi brush painting, however subtle that might be.  The energy is just not quite the same when we trace.

Speaking of birds from the North, I had the pleasure of a Tundra Swan (Whistling Swan) visiting my place.  I had mistaken it for a snow goose but thanks to the United States Geological Survey, I learned otherwise.  I am posting the video here for all to see.