Sunrise at Huangshan

I recently took a trip to Singapore.  I wanted to experience Lau Pa Sat (old market) and I wasn't disappointed at all.  But that is not the reason for writing this blog.

As I was packed in the middle isle in the back of the belly of a 777, I pretty much had no vantage point of the view outside of the plane.  Well the blinds were all closed anyways so the passengers could spill "Z"s at 40K feet.  So I wasn't missing much. Then one of the passengers sitting by a window raised the window blind.  The cabin was immediately bathed with a streak of reddish amber light, arcing across the walls of the dimmed economy class holding pen, as the plane floats across the thin air.  

The sun was rising.

I stretched my neck and yawed my head, trying to maintain a line of sight to the rising sun outside the window, sidestepping the dark silhouettes of passengers' heads.  I was trying to absorb that image as much as I could.  I know it would be futile for me to take a picture with my phone, I would probably end up with a little amber oval amidst a dark field of heads.  The glow was so encompassing, I felt its presence more than simply seeing it.  

I found my old "run of the mill" piece of Huangshan after I returned home.  A piece that I did years ago, honing my painting skill.  I wanted to revive that painting by making the sun come up from behind those rock formations.

Yes, that encounter with the rising sun from inside a plane had done something to my psyche.  

Normally a painting done on Xuan paper is not meant to be painted over.  Fortunately I was toying with different ways to present paintings done on paper, I mounted my painting on cement board.  I also coated it with a gel medium to protect the surface, since I intended to display that without a glass cover.

That meant I could paint over my original work.  What a novel idea !  (I am sure oil painters do that all the time?)

I started out by "softening" the scene by accentuating the cloud and mist to make the painting less "rigid".

Then I added the sun, with its rays; as any textbook would have shown.

It looked OK, but something was missing.  I didn't "feel" it.  Perhaps it was too "storybook" like.  Too much like a page of illustration.  Who Knows.  I was just having a soliloquy.  Mumbling, actually.

Somehow I thought of Photoshop, a tool that I often use with my photography.  "Layers" to be specific.

What if I created a layer of the rising sun and superimpose that on the original painting.  Hmmmmmmm.

There's only one way to find out.

First I needed to see the effect of a piece of cicada skin Xuan superimposed on my painting.  I needed to know the degree of transparency I was dealt with.  Unlike Photoshop, I would not be able to adjust the transparency of my "layers" here.

Satisfied that the cicada skin Xuan was transparent enough to not totally obscure the painting underneath, I began to prepare my layer for the sun.

Before putting my feet to the fire, I did a dry run.  I took a picture of the top layer "sun" and superimposed it onto my bottom layer of the original painting.

This might actually work!

 

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! 

Gestures

I don't know why but I've always liked the pose of a ballerina on toes.  Perhaps that stance forces the dancer to assume a good posture, tensing the right muscles to place the center of gravity within the confines of the mere square inches of footprint.  Toeprint in this case.  The pose inexplicably projects energy, or Chi, as I call it.  

Chi is something a Chinese brush artist relishes and reveres.  Our brushstrokes must exemplify Chi.  One can tell if a snake or a worm is dead or alive without them moving.  Perhaps dead things look desiccated and deflated, that's how we know.  Bad brushstrokes lack Chi, they look withered.   

Perhaps I had one too many music box with a twirling ballerina to play with as a kid, that image is seared in my mind.  I would often doodle a ballet dancer.  As I come to find out, there's a fancy term for it.  They call it gesture drawing.

I suppose my Whiter Shade of Pale painting of 16 Vestals is a culmination of different gestures, albeit not of ballerinas.  Even before that painting I've done studies of dance movements and martial arts movements.  

The last two examples are from me playing with silhouettes as in void spaces.  In traditional Chinese brush techniques I was taught that ink has 6 colors (some schools would say 5) and we should strive to achieve them.  We consider Chinese ink as a color, and the 6 colors of ink ( perhaps more appropriately the 6 variations ) is dry, moist, saturated, light, burnt and strangely. white (actually means absence of ink; a void space in the western vernacular ).  Thus a brushstroke with saturated ink may look dry, or moist, or burnt; depending on the manipulation by the artist, and more than one attribute could exist at the same time.  A brushstroke with light ink is therefore not necessarily dry in appearance.  When we speak of the "white" color in ink, we are referring to how the "white" defines or complements the black.  Sort of like the theory about employing "voids" in the western discipline.  Generally speaking, there are often more "whites" or blanks in a Chinese painting. Bodies of water, waterfalls and the sky are usually left blank.  "Whites" are often preferred even with a "saturated" black brushstroke.  White streaks left in a bamboo stem brushstroke help to define texture and adds character.  My teachers often barked at me, " Liu Bai, Liu Bai !" ( Liu means "to save" and Bai means "white", so the phrase means leave room for voids.)  For that reason we don't usually use a white pigment to paint "white" but opt to leave the space blank instead. Some schools will go as far to say that only a Chinese could understand these concepts.  Thus my void silhouettes are actually using dark ink to define an empty space and allow our mind to see what it wants to see.  My "saturated" ink was an example of it looking "moist" in that last silhouette by the way, and the "white" was used to complement the "black".

As I was playing with and shuffling these studies, somehow my silhouette paintings were superimposed on the other line drawings.  One of my silhouette painting was done on a piece of very translucent cicada skin Xuan, and allowed the bottom painting of martial artists to come through.

That gave me an idea of mounting the two paintings together, superimposed.  This is like working with layers in Photoshop.  How exciting!  I only wished I could control the degree of transparency from each layer.  

My silhouette painting would be the top layer, so it goes face down first.  Since the paper is so thin and delicate, wetting it and flattening out the wrinkles was not an exercise for the faint of heart.  I learned throughout the years that I needed to treat it like attaching window tinting.  I had to use copious amount of water to float the paper, so that it could be shifted slightly or flattened.  It was counterintuitive but it worked. 

I used a soft brush to apply starch and squeeze out the wrinkles.

The next step was to pile on my line drawing of people practicing Wushu.

The Wushu piece was done on regular Xuan paper so it was hefty enough to withstand the rigor of a stiffer brush for starching and flattening. 

The above picture shows the Wushu painting starched on top of the silhouette painting.  A blank Xuan paper backing was applied as the last step and the 3 layer sandwich was allowed to dry.

This is how it looked after drying

Interesting!  Ballerina superimposed on martial artists.  Movements galore.  

Serendipity!  I came upon this setup while shuffling my study pieces around.  

I must also give credit to the person who posed for me for the original silhouette study.  It was at a museum's ballroom which was not in use at the time.  Perfect timing for me to sneak a photo.

Since I was doing a silhouette, I lack the proper training to depict any sort of foreshortening, or a leg bent behind the thigh in this case.  So I changed the pose a little for my painting.  I suppose my study was more about form and feel than just about gesture.