Is this a cop-out

The water in my astrological water sign is having a herculean tidal pull on me.  I just can't get the thoughts of water out of my mind.  Something compels me to keep using water as a subject matter for my paintings.

When I started out to paint my algae in the pond work last November I was just toying with alum solution.  I tried to depict the messy blobs of algae with a certain fanfare.  Then I graduated to painting Rusalka, using water as my stage.  For my "tedious project" I was experimenting with my interpretation of the Gongbi style painting.

I am running the risk of being disrespectful to all the Gongbi artists out there.  Here I absolutely need to make a nota bene point, that I know little about the Gongbi discipline.  How dare I pass my work as a Gongbi painting.

By definition, Gongbi style painting demands finesse and patience; qualities that are sorely missing from moi.  Perhaps I can substantiate that statement by showing part of a painting from my friend, who happens to be a skilled Gongbi painter.

I implore you to examine the quality of the lines, the brushstrokes and how smoothly the colors are blended together.  That's Gongbi painting!

Mine is Gongbi-esque at best.  I do not have the patience to study Gongbi style painting properly.  It is always too "tedious" for me.

So what is percolating in my head now is another Gongbi-esque attempt in painting water.  I am starting with the multitude of forms and reflective patches and I am outlining these areas with my brush.  Instead of writing in the fine and disciplined lines like my friend did, I shall attempt to hide my incompetency by pretending those forms and shapes are complex Chinese characters.  Thus I am practicing my calligraphy if you will.

Actually these brushstrokes remind me of Sanskrit or Hebrew alphabets.  Actually they resemble Arabic writings.  I am definitely not trying to be disrespectful to the cultures that I've mentioned above.  I know nothing about their writings or alphabets so perhaps I should not be using them as examples.  But instinctively that's what comes to mind.  I am sorry if I am offending someone.  

Employing the same rhythm and mindset I am writing more lines and forms on the other side of my paper. 

 

I am thinking about composition already.  I need to create a contrast of density.  The haves and have nots. Lets call the left side the "rich" and the right side the "poor".

I am using very light ink for my brushstrokes to write swirls to fill some of the voids.  Light ink is also used to create a contrast with some of the thick black ink-lines.  

The swirls are actually my way of doodling.  Frankly I am at an impasse in deciding what to do with the rest of my water feature.  Thus writing swirls is relaxing and non-committal.  It gives me a respite.  

When I look at the painting now I feel a certain sudden emotion, as if something had struck me.

The painting looks interesting the way it is, without all the other embellishments!  It has a simple, impressionistic, naïve feel to it.  It is in black and white, with so few, and yet so much information.  Our minds are (at least mine is) doing the work of completing this painting.

I am writing in a few more phrases towards the lower right hand corner.  I feel that the sentence from the left needs to be a bit more structured.  That little tail forms a connection with the lines in the upper right hand corner. 

The red smearing is my way of digitally trying to decide where to place my seal.

 

Like a proverbial optimist, I do live in the moment.  I am placing a 24 in x 48 in frame over it just to see what the finished product might look like.

So I started out with the intention of doing another pretend Gongbi painting of water, to writing pretend calligraphy to emulate the wavy undulations on the water surface, to stopping the painting process with the bare minimums of information.  I have escaped all the tedious work of writing in the rest of the water.  All because something feels right for me.  At this particular moment. 

Is this restraint, or a cop-out?

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!

Water

I did something quite different with my "tedious project", and that was trying to paint with a Gongbi style workflow.  That involved drafting a copy of outlined objects and then filling in the blanks with color.  That tedious project had to do with reflections and ripples in a duck pond.  What made that particular project tedious and perhaps unique ( different from your typical everyday Gongbi style paintings of birds and flowers ) was that my painting had a mosaic appearance to it.  Quite impressionistic to say the least.

So I am going to visit that format again and try my luck.  With nothing but ripples this time as my subject matter.  I am hoping to digitize if you will, the analog experience of constantly shimmering ripples.  Forever morphing and yet appearing so orderly as to be cavalries swarming across the surface.

I am starting out by defining the bright areas of the water first.  Typically these are the fronts of the ripples.  Thus these areas might seem random but they actually remind me of U-shaped staples arranged in rows.

There are going to be tons of these bright spots and I really don't want to confuse myself by all these wriggly lines.  After 5 minutes of this I could no longer distinguish which areas are bright and which are dark.  To help my ailing cognitive brain I am cheating by filling in the dark areas as I go.

In a typical Chinese Gongbi style painting, the quality of the brushstroke for lines is of utmost importance.  They need to be evenly applied, like the gold rims around a fine china plate or cup.  My brushstrokes here really do not pass muster.  My excuses are that I am preoccupied with the expressiveness of the shimmering water, and I am eager and anxious to lay down the next piece of the mosaic before I lose my train of thought.

So there is order in my madness.  The red lines in the following photo show my perception and identification of the ripples as they dance on the water. 

This is more tedious than I have anticipated.  Time to pin this up on the wall, allow myself some distance from this mess of untidy lines and reassess this project.

Painting on silk again

My last encounter of painting on silk was fraught with plenty of obstacles.  I was being stubborn and tried to use silk fabric, instead of the "silk" that are sourced from art supply stores.  I had endured a lot of problems just trying to get the silk to take on coloring.  I ended up treating the fabric with copious amount of alum solution to get the job done.

I am older and wiser now, no less adventurous though.  I decide to try for silk again, this time on the "silk" that I can buy from art supplies.  I am still not convinced that this is real silk, because the material feels like nylon stocking or some sort of polyester. Anyways, it is what it is.  

Silk or silk brocade is used quite extensively for the more formal Gongbi style of Chinese brush.  I am not a Gongbi artist per se, but I do like to give it another try, using the motif from my "mosaic" pond painting.  This is perhaps the closest thing to Gongbi-esque painting that I could muster. I really don't enjoy being a fodder for the traditional Gongbi artist, so my preemptive apologies!

I had done a template for myself when I dabbled in my attempt to create a Gongbi-like painting with ducks on a pond.  I am resorting to that template again.

To keep things fresh, I shall do my new painting in a portrait format.  I am cropping the right hand portion of the template with the ducks in it.

I don't quite like the composition of this cropping.  I feel that the right side needs to have more of something.  The original set-up looks fine with the painting in the landscape format, but somehow feels lacking in the vertical sliver.  

Thus I shall be adding in some ripples or reflections.

I am also going to approach this project in an unconventional manner.  I am going to save the line drawing step for the last.  Again, my apologies.

Traditional Gongbi painting begins with the line drawing step.  The line drawing is either a supplied template or an original drawing devised by the artist.  The so-called line drawing is actually brushstrokes of calligraphy.  It has characteristics of full, thin, press and lift associated with writing with a round brush.  The artist then meticulously brushes in the color, often times alternating between a color brush and a water brush together for even and gradual spreading of color gradients. The process is repeated a number of times until the desired saturation, blending and appearance is reached.  Alum solution is often applied between the layers of color to prevent the previous layer from smudging, causing a "dirty" appearance.  Regardless of how saturated the color is, transparency is almost always valued.  Nothing is done in haste. 

In my case I am not dealing with delicate flower petals or shades of landscape.  Mine is just a kaleidoscope of specks of colors that does not require manipulation within each speck.  A simple mosaic.  I feel that my sins can be forgiven if I just apply the color without paying too much attention to how one color blends into another.  I also feel that I have more freedom if I just "marked" the locations of color instead of filling in a space with color.  I can be a little bit "hasty".  Just a little!

I use different colors for the rings of ripples, not only to enrich the palette, but also to account for the assorted colors of the objects that are reflected on the water.

I am adding in a whole much of nondescript ripples, what I would call "noise" to fill in the right side of the painting.  The part of the painting I deemed lacking.

After all my desired features are on the paper, I now write in the line drawing.

I brush on a thin layer of alum solution to the areas that I want to "tune-up" before I add on more or a different color.  

The finished product does look regal and pompous after framing.  This is the miracle delivered by painting on antique gold silk.

Face Up or Face Down?

To the uninitiated, Xuan paper is just a regular piece of white paper to be painted or written on.  The more astute observer would however notice a smooth side and a rough side.

Xuan paper is made from the pulp of plant fibers scooped up on a sieve and the sheets are deposited flat on heated rollers or steel walls to dry.  The side of the paper that faces the roller or wall is smooth, the other side is more fibrous, and therefore rougher.

Technically the smooth side is the "top" side but many artists prefer the rough side to paint on.  It has more "feel".  I can attest to that.  I also like the texture the bottom side provides.  

Printing paper on the other hand are less tolerant if the "wrong" side is used.  I have wasted so much inkjet color by loading my print paper the wrong way.  It is especially easy to do if I was printing on matte photopaper.  The two sides are almost indistinguishable, either by feel or by color.  Only the finished print that comes out from my printer would tell if I fed the paper correctly or not.  Obviously there is no such problem with gloss or semi-gloss paper.  

There is a type of Xuan paper that I like to use and for lack of a proper translation, I'll call it cicada skin paper, or cicada wing paper.  This Xuan paper is very light and transparent and has a slight sheen to it, just like the wings of a cicada. The paper is considered sized or semi-sized, in that it allows color to float on it a little bit without too much bleeding.  It also is able to withstand repeated rubbing without having the top layer of fibers linting up.  Its transparency augments the transparent watercolor and bestows a very delicate feel to the painting.  It is a favorite with artists who do the Gongbi (elaborate) style of Chinese painting.  

I have a couple pieces of dance movement gestures done on such a paper.  I try to use calligraphic brushstrokes to describe the limbs and gestures.  I feel that this approach gives the dance movements more flow and energy.  There is a je ne sais quoi quality of  "writing" versus simply filling in the space with ink or color.

With me the dilemma is not whether I should paint on the paper face up or face down.  As far as I am concerned there is no perceptible difference either way.  My problem is which side of the paper should I be presenting as the top side of my painting.

The cicada paper's thinness and transparency allows the painted image to be visible from both sides of the paper, as if one is looking through a projection slide, or one of those double-faced silk embroidery from Suzhou.  The bottom side of the image can sometimes be a little less saturated or slightly well defined around the edges, but it is this quality that captivates me.

The picture above actually shows the bottom side of the cicada paper with painted image on it.

The painting on the left has the "face up" side showing, whereas the painting on the right is showing the bottom side as the good side.  Can you tell the difference between the two?

The following is a close-up of the painting presented with the "face down" side.  The images are more veiled like, more dreamy.  The limbs are obviously articulated but there are apparent discontinuity in the brushstrokes.  I suppose not all the color comes through from the top side. The blue streaks act like an atmospheric or water current, or even yards of fabric, enveloping the dancers.  I feel that "face down" presentation suits this painting well.  The audience is given more freedom to implement their gestalt. 

The "face up" side of the dancers shows more definition.  The calligraphic brushstroke does wonders with the split leap.  I am just treating the dancers as a words that need to be written, rather than filling in the spaces where their bodies are .  I especially like the effect of flaring on the clothing and all the toe points and all these are achieved with simple calligraphy brushstrokes.

I suppose no competent, upstanding artist would present the bottom side of a painting as the top side.  I don't know which is worse, hanging an abstract painting upside down or doing what I am doing now.  I don't suppose the viewer appreciates being made a fool of.  But for a second rate painter like myself, I need all the help I can get to add drama to my paintings.  I actually considered presenting these two paintings together as a diptych but I really don't want to insult anybody's intelligence, any further than I have to. 

Necessity is the mother of invention.  I am taught well! 

Mounting my "mosaic" project

My mosaic painting of ducks in a pond is disintegrating just from laying around.  Every time I walk past the painting a little draft follows me, enough to partly lift the painting ever so slightly since it is so light.  The repeated lifting causes more cracking and subsequent cutting loose of small pieces of my painting.  Like shards of glass.

The only remedial step for alleviating the continued deterioration is to mount it.  Dry mounting would be out of the question.  My painting would not be able to withstand any ironing at all.  Traditional wet mounting is the only way out.  

The painting is laid face down on my slab of mounting plastic and copious amount of water is dumped on it to ensure proper soaking, rendering the fibers in the paper less brittle.  My painting wears a dried prune appearance now from all the air pockets.

Normally I would apply and spread my starch solution right away with my stiff brush.  The stiff bristles would push out the air pockets and flatten any creases but I think that brush is too harsh in this instance.

I am resorting to a soft brush to try to smooth out all the air pockets before I even apply the starch.  The stiff brush is left on the sideline; watching. 

More water is sprayed onto the painting to facilitate the smoothing process.  Anybody who has applied window tinting sheets onto a glass pane will understand what I am doing.  The only difference is instead of using a piece of hard plastic with a flat edge for pressing, I am using a soft brush.  The water makes the paper float a bit and it serves as a lubricant and also a sealant to prevent air from re-entering.  

After about 20 minutes of careful brushing and re-wetting with water, all the air pockets are gone.  I have a flat piece of painting that I can apply starch now.  Patience is a virtue. 

The starch application invariably causes the frayed edges of the damaged painting to double up and fold upon itself.  This is not the time to panic.  Instead of using a hard tool like forceps to unfold the tucked in edges, I use a clean brush to unfurl and reposition the frayed edges.

The painting is now ready for starching and backing and mounting.  The mounted piece is glued to a hard surface to dry.  The drying process will make the painting taut and the starch will add stiffness to the paper.

The mounted "mosaic" painting is now next to the painting that inspired it.  I suppose the gaping hole can pass as a void space in the painting, by design, right?

I can honestly say that I've accomplished my resolution for this new year and I am happy about it. I am happy that I am giving Gongbi style technique an honest try, albeit not in the traditional sense.  I am not painting peony, blue bird or lotus flowers, the usual thematic matters.  I am painting water.  However I certainly learned a lot in the process.  I am hoping readers of this blog can learn from my mistakes and methods to mitigate them.  Let's face it, this is still rather esoteric.  I'll chalk this up as a successful experiment, especially when comparing the two paintings side by side.  

Not tedious anymore.

Happy April Fools' Day! 

Paint for the waste basket

It's time to put my game on, tackling my mosaic project.  I really can't let a 9 nine old show me up, can I?

I am using a semi-sized Xuan because it is thin enough to facilitate the copying process.  I will need to trace my stencil with a brush only this piece of paper.  I suppose I can trace it out with pencil first to get all the pieces and then cover up the pencil lines with ink brush once the painting is done, but I don't have the patience for it.  The bottom line is I hate to do the same thing twice; tracing my stencil is already a chore for me.

I already do not like what I've done so far.  I suppose I am treating this initial step rather lackadaisically, I am using left over ink/color to do the tracing.  The outlines are of different colors and darkness.  I have not forgotten the proposed silver color for water from the 9 year old kid.

I have this image of a pond with an subdued ambience, interrupted only by flashes of reflected light.  I am going to color in my two ducks first.  I also pick out a few spots to apply the same color as the ducks.  There really are no rules, just a notion.  Perhaps use silver as my flashes of reflected light?  But I don't have any silver color or paint.

Using the same logic, I pick out other pieces of my "mosaic' and address them with different colors.

I am assigning a deeper, darker color to the right half of my composite.

And a lighter color to the rest of the painting.  I suppose I've decided silver is not feasible for my set-up. 

What is glaringly apparent now, aside from the fact that there is not enough tonal difference between the darker and lighter tones, is that the colors are extremely blotchy.  This is beyond any doubt a failure.

I mentioned in my previous writing that I wanted to do this painting using the Gongbi techniques.  One of the hallmark of a Gongbi painting is that alum solution is used to size the paper so that the color flows and mixes freely, without being streaky.  I was assuming that my semi-sized paper would have cut my some slack and present me with a more uniform color field.  This is not the time to see brushstrokes.

I suppose I am doubly disappointed by the fact that this is not my first rodeo with semi-sized Xuan.  I should have know better to pretreat the paper with alum solution so that streaks would be minimized.

My electing to not apply the alum solution first is not entirely baseless.  I recall vividly how the paper of  my summer pond painting became so brittle that I cracked the edge of the paper like an egg shell with barely a nudge from my brush.  That paper was the gold specked Xuan, which is a heavier paper than this translucent semi-sized Xuan.

Hence my hesitation.

There is this saying in doing Gongbi painting, "3 applications of alum and 9 applications of color".  Watercolor gets muddled under repeated applications.  The alum solution is applied in between the repeated coloring process to seal in the original layers and prevent mixing, thus keeping the the palate clean.  The transparent watercolor allows the bottom layers to come through, achieving a visual mixing of colors rather than a physical mishmash.  This "shielding" is sometimes achieved by coloring on the back of the paper, allowing the translucent Xuan to act as a barrier that mitigates mixing of colors. 

Well it is not too late to treat my entire painting with alum solution now.  New color, or tones can be applied over the dried alum treated paper and if done right, should be devoid of streaking. 

I am going over the lighter tone of green again after the alum solution is dried.  The blotches are mostly gone.  What the picture shows actually is just lighting artifacts resulting from a non-flat paper surface.

It is interesting though that the brownish hue is gone, replaced by a greyish green and I am using the original wash.  The two tones of green are even more similar now.  I need to make my dark green areas much darker in order to achieve the separation.

Before I attempt my darker green, I am reminded of the repeated washing of color resulting in the undulating surface of my Xuan.  I am going to iron my paper to get a flat paper surface.  This should help to minimize the pooling of the watercolor at the low points.

Guess what, the paper is too crispy (from the alum solution) to withstand the ironing.  Part of the painting ended up on the bottom of my iron.  There is now a gaping hole in my painting.

The funny thing is, I am not mad at all; just astonished.  I'm astonished that the paper becomes so brittle even after one application of the alum solution.  I suppose I shall be keeping a mental note about this for a long time now, especially when using the thin semi-sized Xuan.  Keep my iron locked up!

I've been told many times that one should proceed to paint with the attitude that one is doing it for the wastebasket.  This is one way to alleviate the pressure that one puts on oneself.  There is nothing to lose!

I believe I am literally doing a painting for the wastebasket.