Waste Basket Diving

If I throw away my booboos before the painting is completed then I am really not honest with myself.  I am an amateur trying to explore the many intricacies of Chinese brush painting and I must capitalize on the opportunity to learn from my mistakes.  To assume that every piece I attempted is worthy of the wall  is a unrealistic fantasy.

I caused big holes to appear in my attempt to paint my "mosaic" piece.  I tried to avoid the mistake of rendering the paper too brittle by the use of alum solution yet I failed.  I think my mistakes could be attributed to the thinness of the paper and my stupid idea of ironing the paper.  Could I be using the wrong alum solution mixture?  I am told the ratio of gum to alum should be 2 to 1.  I seem to recall that my solution has more alum than gum.  I used animal skin gum by the way.  I've been using that on my double Xuan and so far I have not been penalized for using too much alum.  My frayed edges from the gold speckled paper was my first mishap and the first hint of any bad side-effects from my solution. I am convinced now that the more robust double Xuan saved my skin in the past.  

So instead of trashing my "mosaic" piece due to the holes, I am going to continue my project.  

I proceed to make the darker areas much darker than before, to contrast with the lighter areas.

Now I need to work on the ducks, to make them more appealing?  I also need to go over my many wriggly pieces that depict the shimmering water.  The Number 3 Blue Hue (176) is my first target.

I then work on other colors.

Since I do have a fair amount of void space to begin with, the holes caused by the ironing mishap actually could pass under the radar.

I suppose I shall find out more about the appeal of these holes after the painting is mounted.  

I am just glad that I have fulfilled my New Year's resolution at least, by initiating and not giving up on  a tedious project.

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.

Yet another landscape

After my attempt at painting Chibi (the red cliffs) I want to try my luck on another landscape painting, with cliffs or stony features as my main player; again.  Whereas the Chibi painting was sort of dreamy and poetic, I intend for the current production to be more hard and staunch in character.  

For this attempt I am mixing my ink with alum solution to paint on traditional Xuan paper.  The slight bleeding from the brushstrokes allows the paper the stage to express soft strokes.  Alum working as a mordant tends to eliminate that quality by fixing the ink before it has a chance to escape into the microfibers of the paper.  I am looking for harsher brushstrokes to help depict the rocky texture of my intended landscape.

My model comes from the central part of Oregon where it is a little less lush with greenery but more abundant with rocky outcrops and mesas. The Deschutes River and the Crooked River are landmarks that inspire me, so I shall use them as my references and give the Columbia River Gorge a pass.

First item on the list is a rocky structure occupying the left side of the painting.  I suppose I've not found my rhythms yet and the brushstrokes feel very contrived.  Of course the remedy for my shortcoming is to immediately paint the background with diluted ink and loose brushstrokes without the alum as a conspirator, thus the markings are much more relaxed. 

Contrasting with the hard edges of the rocky structure are not only the diluted ink for the distant hills, but also the soft non-discrete foreground, as if the camera is out of focus and the viewer is using the bokeh to frame their image in the head. 

The center portion of my painting is taken up by the sharp, chiseled rocks of the landscape.

The alum/ink mixtures helps to cement the brushstrokes before they have a chance to bleed; offering a stern appearance.

One can see discrete and distinct white margins unmolested by ink due to the fixing property of the alum.  

Previous brushstrokes tainted with alum also function as a resist, and allow subsequent overpainting with other brushstrokes.  Typically this is an absolute no-no but in this application the juxtaposition makes interesting patterns.  We are talking about nuances of brush works on Xuan paper now, so this might not be evident to a casual observer.  I've experimented with painting with alum solution on the back of the paper first to achieve this effect, but that takes a lot of planning and is less spontaneous than mixing the alum with ink.  This is an experimentation anyways, so the jury is still out as far as I am concerned.  

The flat exposed rock face on the right of the painting is done with the folding ribbon chuen brushstroke.  Diluted ink is also applied at strategic locations to emulate vegetation from the crevices; to soften up the harsh edges of the composition.

An assortment of line chuen, akin to the hemp chuen is used to doll up and texturize the non-rocky parts of the landscape.  I mean, if Monet and Van Gogh can employ dots and lines to fashion their works, why can't I, right?  Actually the dot and line chuen technique has been in practice in Chinese brush techniques since antiquity, I am just making light of them.

The dry rubbing technique is a way to create shadows and change up light values.  When paired with a wash, the combined effects are often employed to describe mist or to dissolve and integrate a void space into the painting.

Just as a make-up artist using eye liners and shading to prop up the cheeks and shape the jaw,  I am using vegetation and reflections to depict a river, something that is fluid to contrast with the otherwise harsh features.  Hopefully a story line can emerge!

 

Will Epsom Salt Work

I've used alum solution in my painting quite a bit.  It is affectionately called the Ancient Chinese Secret Solution by me.  Alum is used as a sizing agent for Xuan.  I understand alum is used as a mordant in dying.  I use it to function as a masking fluid by exploiting the fact that alum treated Xuan is less absorbent,  thus the treated area will reveal with a different gradient when stained. 

I typically would paint on the back side of the paper with a alum infused brush.  The brushstroke will reveal a clear margin when a different color is painted over it; as long as that color is not too strong to obscure the margin.

Here's an example of the margin

I've also used this technique to create a blurry image by first painting with alum on the reverse side of the paper, allowing the brushstroke to show through the top side.  I then go over the top side with a darker color, being careful to not totally obscure the original brushstroke on the back side.  The resulting image has that interesting back lit effect and suggests a 3 dimensional perception, especially when viewed from a distance, or by squinting one's eyes.

Here's another example of painting done with alum solution.  Its role in making the paper less absorbent is exploited to the extreme by functioning as a masking fluid.  It was used to paint in the snow.   Obviously it is well suited for high contrast work like this one.

I was contemplating painting a desert scene and I was interested in a novel way to depict the wind generated ridges on the sand dunes.  I didn't want to paint these wavy ridges with hard ink brushstrokes.  I therefore turned to my secret solution and envisioned the clear margins left by such brushstrokes would be more enigmatic and evoke more drama in my painting.

But I ran out of my Ancient Chinese Secret Solution.

I resorted to my daft antics. 

I recall a leftover bag of Epsom salt from when I sprained my ankle.  Epsom salt is magnesium sulfate.  Could I substitute Epsom Salt for Alum, which is aluminum and potassium sulfate.  I recall reading about using copper sulfate as a mordant, so why not magnesium sulfate?

I rolled up my sleeves and went to work.  I prepared a saturated solution of Epsom salt.  My experiment involved painting with the Epsom salt solution in raw and semi-sized Xuan.  I painted on the top side of the paper, and on the back side of the paper to see if the reveal is different.

Here is the result of painting on regular raw Xuan.  The top image is painting the Epsom salt solution on the top side of paper; bottom image is painted on the back side.

Here is the result of painting on semi-sized Xuan.  This paper is less apt to absorb liquid because of the sizing, therefore I wanted to see what effect my concoction will have, if any.

So when applied to the top side of the semi-sized Xuan (top image) Epsom salt seems to have a smidgen of effect.  I think I can make out a semblance of a faint margin.

As you can see, Epsom salt solution failed as a candidate for alum substitution.

I know what will be on my shopping list now. 

Multnomah Falls Impression

After my last attempt, which was a more Xieyi (expressive) interpretation of Multnomah Falls, I decided to carry that momentum a bit further.  I wanted to express motion and spatial relationship with more of a "presence" than descriptions of details.  The following picture was my attempt in this endeavor.

Not everybody has been to the Falls or seen pictures of it.  So I decided to play it up a little.  I used blue streaks to create the upper cliffs.  The streaks were done so that they themselves resemble moving water.

The blue wash was mixed with alum applied side tip fashion onto Xuan.  Alum functions as a sizing
agent, helps to delineate the brush strokes;  makes the brush strokes more vivid in the sea of blue wash.  Thus we have a laminar flow of blue ribbons, rounding the corner to flow into the hour-glass void below.   A grayish overlay is then applied over the blue streaks.  The grey wash was again created by using alum solution as diluent.   This was done to prevent the wash from totally blending into one big flat surface.  I wanted stroke marks to show up a little better, simulating the horizontal crevasses in the cliff wall.    These marks also helped to suggest interruptions in the stream ( even though the grey area is not the stream ) and gave an illusion of  motion.
The actual narrow ribbon of upper fall was again painted with alum first to establish a base layer of resist, to ward off  as much unintended seepage of wash as possible.  At the head of the upper fall, I just held my brush and waited for the color to slowly bleed out to the desired spaces before moving on.   This controlled osmosis when executed alongside of alum sizing will create some artifacts that will indulge your ocular senses.

The hour-glass void represented the lower fall.  Its shape was inspired by the exaggerated proportion of a woman's body.  Imagine Marilyn Monroe coming at you with open arms, donning a black cape.  Get the picture now?

The lower fall is flanked by bold side tip brushstrokes.  This was my interpretation of the near scape of the land.  The hour glass shaped lower fall was again defined by the use of alum.  I was careful to not make the entire structure black.  I took time to make sure I leave some white slivers in them, so they can breathe. 

I wish I had done the bridge in a more Xieyi fashion.  More nonchalant, more expressive.  Right now it looked too stiff.    I was pushing it too much.
There  you have it.  Multnomah Falls, Impression!