Unto dust thou shalt return, from mud, thou shalt emerge

I had accumulated a few pages of doodling over the week, and it seemed a waste to commit them to garbage.  I decided to go through them and see if I could mine something usable from them.  With judicious cropping and framing, I was able to assemble a few pieces for my viewing pleasure.  Sort of like a gemologist picking and choosing and evaluating before the polishing. 

This was my least favorite piece.  It was too busy for my taste.  I felt like I was trying to fit all the plots into my story, but I didn't have a clear direction to where the story was going.  I was obfuscated, even after cropping away of extraneous objects. 

After I framed the doodling with a proper mat, the painting took on a different personality.  It appeared prim and proper now. 

I loved this one.  To me it was the simplicity.  For sure the proportion of the lotus leaf and the blossom and the dragonfly seemed not proper and perhaps the shapes were too impressionistic, yet none of that seemed to matter.  Fo me anyways.

I custom built a frame for this painting. I love the way it was dressed.  I forgot to mention that the painting was done on cicada skin Xuan, a very thin and translucent paper and I mounted this paper on canvas, instead of the usual route of mounting on Xuan.  The texture of the canvas came through the paper and to the untrained eye, one might have thought the painting was done on canvas to begin with. This added another layer of nuance to this simple doodling. 

The same three players filled the paper in this painting.  The dragonfly was done in a less impressionistic fashion though.  It showed more details and realism than the previous painting.

Gave it a proper housing,

The lesson I learned was that don't be too quick to write anything off.  A little cosmetic make-up might be all one needed.  

Quorum gets framed

I've been glancing at my Quorum piece for a while now hoping to receive some vibes as to what kind of alteration I could make to render the painting more interesting.  Sadly my antenna picked up no such signals.  Does that mean my journey with this piece ends right here?

Fortunately no!  I've also been eyeing this frame that I picked up rather inexpensively.  This must be an abandoned order from a custom frame shop, but looks perfectly fine to me.  I've been hoarding it just for an occasion like this.

I have something to tinker with now.  I think I can trim my Quorum piece to fit this frame.  I am going to mount my Xuan onto canvas first.  I really enjoy the texture of the canvas showing through paper.

Normally I would build my canvas frame but I recall a foul experience when the canvas frame twisted after the mounting process.  Since this is a rather large painting, I decided to take the safe route.  I bought a piece of  two-ply wood veneer and tailor fit it to my frame.

Then I applied exterior wood glue to the veneer

My OCD is coming through a tad.  I was being a bit pedantic and presumed that this is the perfect way of assuring even dispersion and good bonding.  To my horror the glue did not spread well at all.

And it is drying fast after being spread thin.  I haphazardly dabbed all I could and turned the veneer over onto a piece of canvas.

I folded up the edges, pinned them in and put weight on the veneer to prevent it from curling as the glue set.

After the glue is thoroughly dried in a couple of days, I trimmed the excess canvas to the edge of the veneer.

The painting was wetted down with water to relax the fibers

The paper was allowed to air dry to the point when it is considered moist.  This is when all the fibers had relaxed and the paper had regained its tensile strength back so it would not tear as easily during the mounting process.  A dilute solution of starch was used, such that the Xuan could float on the starch a bit and I could brush out any creases and air bubbles.  The lowering of the painting onto the canvas is a two person job and demands a steady hand and nerve of steel.  Disaster beckons if the paper does not align with the canvas, especially with a long piece like this one.  Notice the more saturated tone from the wet paper.

I am thrilled to see the added texture imparted by the canvas to this painting

The taut Xuan paper looked like fabric now

The dried surface lost a little of saturation when dried.  This could be restored by applying gel on the painting to reclaim the vividness and the depth of the color.

Finally, my Quorum gets framed (this picture was taken under halogen track lights, thus the warm color)