Giving context to Once upon a time in the West

 My Once Upon A Time In The West painting has been decorating my wall for a while.

I didn’t hate the painting, but I had the feeling it was missing something. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. Maybe it was too realistic and didn’t give the viewer much room to dream. Beautiful scenery is everywhere, right? It’s like having a great meal without dessert. It doesn’t need to be fancy or extravagant like a flambé or table side white-gloves soufflé service. A few pieces of chocolate would do just fine for me. 

I knew it was so cliché, but placing a couple of Natives on horsebacks might add some context to my painting.

Off I went to a proof of concept rendition of my protagonists,

Satisfied with the sample, I forged ahead with the real attempt.

I picked a location for my horse insertion.  Since the painting had been mounted, the treated paper was making a little fuss in taking on new ink.  The ink tended to bead up and was uncooperative in following the brushstroke.

Added the second horseman,

I could see that my painting was trying to tell a story now,

The black and white painting somewhat camouflaged the figures, especially because I placed the riders in the darker areas of the painting.  

Perhaps they are my Easter eggs?

I decided to add another person to the painting.  I picked a lighter spot this time and the ink seemed to flow a little better. 

The new face of the painting,   I loved the contrast between the more obscure riders and the obvious one, who seemed to have climbed up the hill for the encounter. 

I couldn't help but recall some interesting tidbit about a famous contemporary Chinese artist by the name of  Wu Guanzhong.  He did a drawing of the Suzhou museum (I think),

  

and subsequently altered it a bit by simplifying the composition and added a couple of swallows.

One art critic called this the Mondrian of Mr. Wu's.

The metamorphosis of his painting was dramatic. It transitioned from a plein-air work to something that was quite poetic. Swallows in Chinese culture symbolize loyalty and nurturing. These birds diligently care for their young and return to the same nest year after year. In his painting, the swallows are diminutive and almost imperceptible to casual observers. However, their insignificance magnifies their profound presence in the artwork for those who comprehend the underlying sentiment.

According to one account, people sought to acquire this painting for an astronomical sum of money but it was not for sale.  Some art critic called this work ”Wu’s Mondrian”.  I personally think this is quite unnecessary. I’m not sure if it elevates or demeans his work. He subsequently donated this work to the Hong Kong Museum of Art.  Mr. Wu claimed that this was his most favorite painting.

And, I finally got my after dinner chocolates !

Giving life to the rattler

The next step in my snake painting was to render the markings of the snake.  These markings are visual clues to trick our mind into thinking that this is indeed a snake that we are looking at.  If the markings are done correctly and are distinct enough, perhaps we can even identify the species of the snake.  The grid that I sketched in before assisted me to write in the array of scales in their proper orientations and gave my painting a degree of realism. 

Before applying color to the sketched snake, I needed to establish the light values.  I was taught this while learning how to do landscape in Chinese brush and it served me well over the years.  Light values help to define the medial and lateral sides of the snake, to borrow from medical terminology.  These values also help to locate the light source, thus giving a three dimensional interpretation visually.  The values were applied using a light wash, and then rubbing with the semi-dried belly of the brush to help with the texture. 

I could now color the body of the snake.  Tea was my favorite color to use for this purpose.  Mixing it with vermillion gave me the right hue and the opacity from a little mineral green helped to give off the subtle feel of snake skin.  I also dolled up my snake using little dabs of metallic gold acrylic color.  Camouflaging is the art of survival in nature, but for my painting I needed to snake to parade itself a bit more. The paper itself had built in gold specks in it,  so the additional gold did not seem to distract. 

My project being a Chinese New Year's painting needed the mandatory red color.  There is no better representation of that than a piece of red paper for people to write something auspicious down, as commonly practiced in China and Hong Kong.

So I painted in my piece of red paper.

I placed that piece of red paper under the snake to suggest that the snake deemed it a favorable and safe place to dwell.  I wanted to accentuate the fact that the snake was laying on top of the paper by casting a shadow.  To help me determine the location of such shadow, a fashioned my prop snake using the packing material that I had intended to stamp the snake with and shone a light on it.

Now that I had my shadow painted in, and it did seem to lift the snake off the paper, I needed to write something auspicious on that piece of red paper.

I chose to write in the Chinese word for Bliss.  That word is very popular with such usage, especially for New Year's wishes.

I wrote the word Bliss using the same metallic gold acrylic paint that I dressed the snake with.  I chose to write it in the walking style font rather than the more formal block print font.  I liked the fact that the more cursive style calligraphy fit in better with my coiled snake.