My last encounter of painting on silk was fraught with plenty of obstacles. I was being stubborn and tried to use silk fabric, instead of the "silk" that are sourced from art supply stores. I had endured a lot of problems just trying to get the silk to take on coloring. I ended up treating the fabric with copious amount of alum solution to get the job done.
I am older and wiser now, no less adventurous though. I decide to try for silk again, this time on the "silk" that I can buy from art supplies. I am still not convinced that this is real silk, because the material feels like nylon stocking or some sort of polyester. Anyways, it is what it is.
Silk or silk brocade is used quite extensively for the more formal Gongbi style of Chinese brush. I am not a Gongbi artist per se, but I do like to give it another try, using the motif from my "mosaic" pond painting. This is perhaps the closest thing to Gongbi-esque painting that I could muster. I really don't enjoy being a fodder for the traditional Gongbi artist, so my preemptive apologies!
I had done a template for myself when I dabbled in my attempt to create a Gongbi-like painting with ducks on a pond. I am resorting to that template again.
To keep things fresh, I shall do my new painting in a portrait format. I am cropping the right hand portion of the template with the ducks in it.
I don't quite like the composition of this cropping. I feel that the right side needs to have more of something. The original set-up looks fine with the painting in the landscape format, but somehow feels lacking in the vertical sliver.
Thus I shall be adding in some ripples or reflections.
I am also going to approach this project in an unconventional manner. I am going to save the line drawing step for the last. Again, my apologies.
Traditional Gongbi painting begins with the line drawing step. The line drawing is either a supplied template or an original drawing devised by the artist. The so-called line drawing is actually brushstrokes of calligraphy. It has characteristics of full, thin, press and lift associated with writing with a round brush. The artist then meticulously brushes in the color, often times alternating between a color brush and a water brush together for even and gradual spreading of color gradients. The process is repeated a number of times until the desired saturation, blending and appearance is reached. Alum solution is often applied between the layers of color to prevent the previous layer from smudging, causing a "dirty" appearance. Regardless of how saturated the color is, transparency is almost always valued. Nothing is done in haste.
In my case I am not dealing with delicate flower petals or shades of landscape. Mine is just a kaleidoscope of specks of colors that does not require manipulation within each speck. A simple mosaic. I feel that my sins can be forgiven if I just apply the color without paying too much attention to how one color blends into another. I also feel that I have more freedom if I just "marked" the locations of color instead of filling in a space with color. I can be a little bit "hasty". Just a little!
I use different colors for the rings of ripples, not only to enrich the palette, but also to account for the assorted colors of the objects that are reflected on the water.
I am adding in a whole much of nondescript ripples, what I would call "noise" to fill in the right side of the painting. The part of the painting I deemed lacking.
After all my desired features are on the paper, I now write in the line drawing.
I brush on a thin layer of alum solution to the areas that I want to "tune-up" before I add on more or a different color.
The finished product does look regal and pompous after framing. This is the miracle delivered by painting on antique gold silk.
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