I was cutting up some paper for calligraphy, which I was in no mood to do. Why don't I doodle, or just horse around with the brush? Perfect excuse for not doing calligraphy!
Images of a pair of Flamingo dancing came to mind.
Not bad, I thought. Then I decided to add in a few black areas to signal the trailing edge feathers.
Us Chinese have a saying: Painting legs on a snake......................................... messing up a good thing by being redundant and overbearing. The black lines were clearly an afterthought, and not syncing with the rest of the brushstrokes.
In my disgust, I grabbed a whole sheet of 4 ft Xuan and repeated the process, except this time I figured a way to incorporate the black areas a little better.
I don't dislike it. I thought it looks interesting. I could do a better job on the body! I thought the body on the smaller piece looks better.
I decided to anchor the birds a little better by writing in some darker ink brushstrokes, being careful to display calligraphic characteristics, especially with turns and lifts.
