Before I rolled up my sleeves, again I sought comments from my friends.
"no emotional content"
"painting had no drama"
"where is everybody, you have all these tables and there should be more people congregating"
At this point I had to clarify my story.
Granted the painting was motivated by lines and circles; geometric forms. This painting however was also inspired by the light, the back lit light to be precise. Since the painting was far from being completed at this point, I asked for their indulgence for later versions.
As for lack of a crowd despite all the tables I think I misled my friends somehow. The people behind the tables were the workers setting up and not patrons. The assumption that I was trying to portray a huge party because of all the tables were not correct. In fact I deliberately painted the lady as the lone person on that pier.
I wanted to contrast the solitary lady with the multitude of tables. I was trying to create an air of abandonment. Not a celebratory event. A single lady walking past all these empty tables and the pathos is amplified by the low setting sun, hinting moments are fleeing and time waits for no one.
I suppose I could paint in the crowd, having each person wearing a different posture to animate a happening open air restaurant, but that would be too much work. But seriously, I subscribe to the notion that tragedy beats comedy any day, anytime. Tearjerkers tear our hearts out and linger a lot longer than any joyous occasion.
Perhaps this is just how my psyche works. This is how my drama works.
I worked on the details of the utensils on the tables. Here we had inverted water glasses, bowls, chopsticks et cetera. I was trying to find a way to demonstrate the transparency of the water glass, along with the refraction of light from the water glass wall and bottom. I agree this part was more like drawing than Chinese brush, so it was especially challenging to try to do that with a brush. Thank goodness for the semi-sized Xuan or I would not have the control that I needed.
What I settled on was the lessons I learned from painting water and mist. Allow the occupied areas to show the void spaces. I made it a personal goal to be able to show whether a water glass was placed in front of a bowl, or behind it. I know I was being frivolous perhaps by paying too much detail to the minute details but I just wanted to challenge myself.
I also wanted to paint the appearance of the plastic table tarps as being translucent.
I did all that at the risk, and the expense of making the painting too much like photography and not enough as a painting. But I loved every minute of it. This exercise really spoke to the obsessive side of my personality. I could also argue that this is what reading a painting meant. There are stories to be told by each brushstroke, and no details are too minute.
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