Putting old latex paint to use

 I was trying to clean up my garage and found some latex paint test samples.  Since the chemicals collecting stations had been shut down due to the Covid situation, I thought I would find some way to use them up.  I wonder if I could paint with them.

Found my old Ram painting at hand and that was as good a guinea pig as any, for my latex paint experiment.

I started out with the ram on the bottom.  The first thing I noticed was the ability for the paint to hide everything.

The second thing I found out was how thick the paint was, and it rendered my soft hair brushes totally limp, with no ability to rebound.  Now I understand why the paint stores sell stiff nylon bristle paint brushes.  I was just glad that I didn't use my "nice" brushes for my experiment and I was also quick to clean my brushes out the moment I was done with one section.

I really wasn't planning on documenting the whole process so I didn't take pictures along the way.  I only had the finished experiment to show here:

I also painted a couple canvas in red and wanted to dry mount a couple of my zodiac animals on them.

I did the Ox painting first and quickly learned that the paper I painted on was too thin and allowed the red from the canvas to shine through.  That was a bummer.

For my Pig, Zhu Bajie, I painted the area where the painting was going to be mounted a cream color, with the same latex paint sample that I painted the rams.  My theory was that if any color was going to filter through the thin paper, it wouldn't be red.

My theory worked, and I received an education on how important the backing is for paintings done on Xuan paper.

It was a fun way to re-purpose some old latex paint, canvas and old paintings. 

Gearing up for painting demo at cultural fair

I was invited to do painting demo at the Cultural Fair again this year.   I was reluctant to give my nod this year, as the organizer was quite sloppy with the arrangements.  Giving notice a week prior is case in point.  But hey, this is not about me, right?  After all, this is a celebration of the Chinese New Year, so I don't want to be the scrooge.  I should feel wanted.

The last couple of years taught me to subscribe to the KISS axiom.  Keep It Simple, Stupid.  The participants could range from 4 years old toddlers to 80 years old seniors.  My presentation should be focused on fun, and result oriented.  My job is not to "teach" painting, but rather as a facilitator so that everybody will have fun and a sense of accomplishment after painting their own pieces.

I'm sticking with the Zhu Bajie character.  Most Chinese would be familiar with him and identify him as the celebrity pig,  and for everyone else, it should be fun to be exposed to a little Chinese trivia.

Obviously I am going to simplify the image I posted on New Year's day.  My plan is to single out the 2 characteristics of the meme;  a snout and a pudgy face.  If a person can nail these two traits, then a pig is born.  The rest of the painting will just be along for the ride and should not significantly affect the outcome of the painting.

So that I can be consistent with my presentation and get guaranteed results, I've devised the following game plan;

I would have participants mark off the paper into roughly thirds.  At the top one-third line start by drawing a oblong circle, representing the snout of the pig.  Under the snout, write in a thick line for the mouth opening, followed by the lower lip.

Next comes eyes

Now we would assign the pudgy cheeks and the brows.  I want the presence of the cheeks to dictate the persona of the pig.  The open mouth and the round cheeks should give off a sense of where this painting is going.

A pair of floppy ears are now attached to the face.  A cap with an ornament (typically jade) tops off the upper contour of the head.

The snout is now associated with nostrils and the skin folds on the ridge.  The nose is no longer two-dimensional.

Eyeballs are now seated, following the notion that they bestow spirit to the being.

The pose is for Zhu to be holding a scroll or banner, bearing an auspicious writing; the Fai Chun.  The tradition of decorating with Fai Chun is quite popular with the Chinese culture, even today.  The calligraphy is typically done on red paper, the color of jubilation.  The words convey blessings and fortune.  The calligraphy is then used to decorate an entry way, such that one's ingress and egress is always blessed.

Now that we have the head finsihed, the rest of the body should just flow.  I shall start on the right shoulder, and a horizontally bent elbow.  Participants will be asked to paint 4 closed bracket signs to emulate fingers.  If I ask them to paint fingers, invariably a roadblock barges in.  People would claim no prior experience of painting digits.  Now closed brackets are a different story.  Everybody, except for the very young, knows what they look like.  Asking the audience to write brackets takes away the fear or hesitation.  The fingers are to be positioned somewhere around the bottom-third marking.

Collar is written in and a robe is draped over the arm, extending to the bottom of the paper.  I don't think the exact proportion matters that much.  For all practical purposes, we are painting a fictional figure to begin with.  Who's to say the arm or fingers are too long or short.  Zhu is however you imagined, as long as it is a pig.

We can now proceed to the left side of Zhu.  Here the fingers are represented as open brackets or a series of the letter C.  A waist belt is fitted and the bottom garment painted in.  Paint in a rectangle to fit between the upper fingers and the lower fingers and we have ourselves a banner.

I do not expect the participants to be able to write the Chinese characters.  I therefore wrote 3 different versions of the Fai Chun myself and took pictures

This is the cliche "Happy New Year"

"Safe Entry and Exit, safe journey"

"The wind suits well, and the rain is all right" ( Everything is going my way)

These calligraphy pieces were then printed on red construction paper.  They were cut up into individual pieces, which would go on the banner in the painting.

So these pieces of red strips are actually the hook for the painting project.  Once the person is finished with his/her painting, they can choose their Fai Chun and glue it in place.

Now all participants will have a finsihed piece to bring home.  A piece that looks polished, and a meaningful memorabilia for the Year of the Pig.  They themselves painted the piece; and that is the only thing that matters.

The pig as an archetype

I ended my last blog with the sketch of a pig mated to a humanoid face.

In pursuing my little project of painting the pig to welcome the impending Year Of The Pig, I was exploring different options to depict the animal.  Legend has it that when the Jade Emperor summoned the animals to seat the Zodiacs, the lazy pig happened to be the 12th animal to show up and thus occupied the last space. So when I thought of the  Zodiac pig I saw the image of a sluggish, harmless pig.  A cute little piglet comes to mind.  After all pet stores have these petite porkers on their inventory, demonstrating the popularity of these critters.  The other pig that comes to mind is the plastic piggy banks that I played with as a kid.  Their appearances are not that different from a real pig so I am basically dealing with the same model.  Finally there is Zhu Bajie.

Zhu Bajie is a legendary fictional character made famous by the novel Journey To The West.  This character has the face of a pig and the body of a human.  The story states that Zhu Bajie was the Marshal Canopy in the Heavens, but he was on the Jade Emperor's gaga list because he committed crimes of passion.  He was thus banished to Earth.  He landed in a pigsty and thus materialized as a human with a pig face, and carried a 9-tooth rake as his implement.  The character Zhu Bajie was one of the three helpers who accompanied Tang Sanzang; the monk who trekked to India in search for sutras.  Zhu Bajie's partner in crime was the famous Monkey King, Sun Wukong.  These characters are no strangers to Chinese people.

What is interesting and intriguing is the fact that Marshal Canopy is actually a Daoist deity associated with the Dipper constellation.  Apparently not a pig.  It was the inadvertent, or incorrect usage of the title Marshal Canopy by the author of Journey To The West that made the label so famous.  Thus Zhu Bajie the pig was forever associated with Marshal Canopy.  Since this iconic character has attained archetypal status in our culture, I decided to borrow the concept of Zhu Bajie the pig as my model.  Obviously I would not portray him as a rake wielding beast, but a proper Marshal donning rich threads and bringing fruits of the  harvest, as an ambassador of abundance and fulfillment.

To reinvent the brand, I borrowed the image of a carved sculpture that I have.  The figure is a rather popular, generic version of a carefree, go-happy peasant, with the typical attire of  a loose robe and bare chest and belly.

He fits the image of a carefree, joyous, obese pig.  With this concept in mind, I worked on the feasibility of a pig face.  I referenced a plethora of examples and studied the ones that were not as cartoonish.

as I became more familiar with the model, there was a commensurate improvement in my brushstrokes

Exploring where the shadows fell, I had better control and luck if I sketched it out first

How about this one, with round eyes and what not.  For some reason I thought this one looked more babyish and too cute?  I suppose I was bound by my notion that the character needed to be some sort of a Marshal.  My character needed to exude the air of a bureaucrat.  Inexplicably I thought the squint eyes were more convincing.

I thought I wound get a handle on the robes and how it drapes and the general morphology of such a figure before I got myself in deep feces.

Here's one with a more formal sleeve, like the ones in the Chinese Opera costumes

All these are pretty spontaneous doodling.  I was having problems with how wet the brush was but I didn't care.   These extemporaneous etudes were stimulating and fun.

Now I marry the pig head to a human body

My Marshal, my pig will be carrying harvested cuttings of grains in his hands in lieu of the 9-tooth rake.

another attempt at modeling, with the stalks of wheat sketched in

Seems like I was a lot more serious now, or I was having a more concrete idea as to what I wanted to paint.  The lines were less tentative, and the shading was more precise.  God knows I must have looked at all the reference images a million times while conducting my research.   All the repeated attempts at painting the same image certainly didn't hurt.  They helped to build a muscle memory in my painting mechanics.

Oink Oink Oink