Canada Geese Makeover

I used the painting from my blog "Don't Throw The Baby Out With The Water" as a project.  I darkened the neck areas of the sleeping geese and selectively applied titanium white to some of the white patches to increase the contrast; cropped it to fit a 12x12 canvas and I now have a painting that looked quite different from the original copy.  This one is actually presentable, I mused.  I shall call this one "Canada Geese, Impression".

  after correction

*also note the vertical stripes of sieve markings

   before corrections

I entered this piece in a local juried Visual Arts Showcase event, for no other reason than to see if this type of work will be accepted by the "mainstream".  I've often lamented that I don't know which pigeon hole to shackle myself in.  I therefore entered the painting in the mixed media category.  It is Chinese Brush Ink painting on  Xuan, but mounted on canvas and sealed with Golden Gel Medium.
I entered a total of 4 paintings ( the maximum allowed ) and only two were invited into the Showcase.

  not invited

  not invited

Now that the painting was accepted, I needed to package it a little better for the show.  I thought the 12x12 canvas alone was too austere.

I wanted to build a frame for it.  The local home improvement store has the 1 x 3 poplar stock, which is perfect.  The poplar even has the same color as my painting, so I decided to leave the frame nude with clear urethane coatings.  I wanted to leave a wider moat between the canvas and the frame.  I noticed the strong presence of the vertical stripes of sieve markings* on the Xuan paper, so I decided to make the moat backing along the same vein.  I harvested the dried water iris leaves, which the Canada geese would have frolicked amongst in the summer time and glued them onto the back board.

I didn't like the color of the dried leaves; I thought they were too red and ostentatious.  Toning them down with my own concocted color worked much better.  I was able to retain the lines without robbing them of character.

 

the outside edges of the frame is rounded off a little to soften the lines, making the frame more compatible with the dreamy state of the subject matter

When I presented the finished product to my peers, some of them thought it was gimmicky.  I beg to differ.  I thought I was being faithful to Chinese Brush, exploiting the relationship between ink, brush and paper  and was elated to be able to garnish the work with elements from the natural environment of my geese.  I do particularly like how the theme of vertical line is carried out, albeit in a subtle way.  To the nay sayers, I am just taking Chinese Brush to a more contemporary stage.

  finishd product