Don't look a gift horse in the mouth

Yes this is an interesting western proverb.  I had to ask for explanation when I first heard it.  This was not something that was taught in my English classroom when I was in school.

So as the horse grows older, the teeth get longer.  By looking in the mouth of a horse one can tell how old or young the animal is.  In other words, don't scrutinize a gift or be ungrateful; all gifts convey a good will.

I suppose a horse does not have facial wrinkles or nasolabial folds to reveal the age, so the marker rests on teeth.  What else can we describe a horse with?  I myself am quite intimidated by horses.  They are huge and they kick.  Their neck muscles are so strong that they can sideswipe me with ease.  I have actually fallen off a donkey during one of those National Park excursions.  My donkey was having a bad day and bucked me off.  I fell off my ass on my ass, pun intended.  The fall was enough to break the viewfinder of my camera.  Fortunately I was wearing a helmet.  

Yet horses are beautiful animals.  The musculature on a horse is well-placed and in harmonious proportions to the body, unlike the pumped up looks of body builders of our own species.  I want to try to paint them, properly that is. 

When I tried to do figure drawing, my instructor loaned me a pristine copy of an illustrated book on human anatomy, muscle anatomy to be exact.  Apparently it was seldom handled.  Perhaps students did not want to invest the time to study human musculature just so they could paint bodies. That was before the advent of the computer or the internet, unlike these days when all kinds of references are at the fingertip.  I grew up with black and white cabled television with a dinner plate size screen.   Thermal-paper copy machines were the rage; replacing carbon copy papers on the typewriter.  Yes I am a fossil.  The idea of studying human muscles was to help with the articulating of  the human form.  I found out that's how Da Vinci acquired his acumen on human figures.  Strangely enough, the muscles of a human body did not intrigue me that much.  The only muscle that I was interested in was the sternocleidomastoid when it was attached to the clavicle, especially those of the fairer sex.  My friends tell me that is a fetish.  I am not so sure about that.  That's why when I painted Rusalka I was so intent on accentuating that muscle.

I don't need to find a book on equine musculature from the library anymore.  A couple clicks on my computer gets me what is needed.  The following is a photo I plucked from the net, and I labeled the muscles that I was interested in bold letters, for my own consumption.  It is not my intention to infringe on other people's copyrights.  My agenda is to study the shape and placement of these muscles.  To me, these are the interesting attributes of a horse.  If I can pin them down successfully with my brush, then I would have fulfilled my goal of painting a horse properly.

The sternocleidomastoid muscle in a horse is not as pronounced as ours.  Perhaps horses turn their head more as a function of the neck than just the skull.  The massive brachiocephalicus bears out my hunch.  When I see a sweaty horse with a shinny coat I am often only aware of the deltoid, the triceps and the quadriceps.  They cast beautiful shadows on the body.  If the horse is presenting in a frontal view, I see the two balls of pectoral muscles tucked between the two front legs.  To me, these features define a horse.  My task, therefore is to try to manifest these features on paper.

As I have nothing to lose but everything to gain, I am not afraid to experiment a bit.  I shall just wield my brush and see what happens.

How about a different pose, just for the heck of it

I might as well try to study all the muscle groups before I cherry-pick my markers,

Then this crazy idea comes to mind, what if I do the whole animal in charcoal and then use the eraser to highlight the muscles and make their presence felt,

Interesting!

Better yet, what if I try my ink and brush now over this eraser augmented charcoal horse,

Love it.  Raw and spunky, or should I say unbridled.  

I've had fun with my painting exercise.  Will definitely explore this topic again in the future. 

I've heard of lost-wax technique in casting, perhaps this is my lost-charcoal technique!

Rat and Baby Ox

I have done a rat painting before for the Year of the Rat.  I had a rat climbing over a red square Fai Chun with the Chinese word "Blessings" written on it.  Obviously the tone was to show the coming year as an auspicious one because the person in charge, the Rat, has found blessings.  My emphasis was also on the posing of the rat, being cute and all that, finding a ledge to clamber onto the piece of paper with writing on it.  

For this family zodiac project, I am hoping to pose my Rat in an appealing light; smart and inquisitive.  My rat is not going to be timid or secretive.  My rat is poised to explore, to sniff out the surroundings; showing confidence and ready to accept a caressing on the head.  Definitely not something you want to vilify.  Perhaps I am reminiscing about the white mice that my son kept when he was little.  

Painting this rat is pretty straight forward.  I am roughing in a general shape of the animal, paying attention to where I want the eye to be at.  They say the eyes are the windows to a person's soul, the same applies to the rat.  If I can paint the eyes successfully, then nothing else matters.

Using pink to denote the ears and the digits and the nose helps to give reference to the different body parts.  Small dabs of Chinese White bring out the highlighted areas.  Once the mouth is defined, I have the posture of my rat nailed.

Filling in the eye and adjusting for dark values make my rat more "real"?

Putting on whiskers and starting to grow hair on the body of my rodent.

A tiny dab of white becomes the catchlight on the eyeball, and makes all the difference to the spirit of the animal.  It really feels alive now.

Moving on to the next featured character in this project, the baby ox.  I am going to model my ox with the head turned back, to give it movement.

I am lightly sketching out the animal with a pencil, delineating darker values with an ink brush along the way.  This helps me to form a better three dimensional picture of my subject.

I am going to color with my Tea color from a tube this time,  and not from my tea cup as I inadvertently did before. 

I am using Chinese White to help with the highlights again.  Just as I was abscessed with the sternocleidomastoid muscle of Rusalka when I painted her, I am intrigued by Achilles tendons of the ox and I am trying to document them.

My baby ox has a little attitude.  My ox has a tongue sticking out of the mouth.  Could be a playful gesture, could be a satisfying suckling.  Either way it adds interest to a otherwise stoic, academic interpretation of the zodiac animals. 

I am half-way there!

Rusalka-Song to the moon

I am looking at the Rusalka painting with bamboo added on the left edge of the paper.  I do like the brushstrokes of the bamboo leaves and take comfort in knowing that I haven't lost that skill.  I would like the bamboo to be a bit more substantial; a bit more prominent, that is.  The bamboo looks puny the way it is.

I believe the expanded bamboo makes the setting more intimate and adds another dimension to the scenery.  The leaves also blend well with the visible fibers of the fibrous Xuan that I am using.   The viewer can accept the presence of the fibers as a matter of fact instead of them being a distraction or imperfection.  I mean one should not object to veins in a slab of marble or markings on a piece of knotted pine stock.  The reason I am making a fuss about this little detail is that a gallery personnel  actually tried to document the locations of the visible fibers on a painting of mine  during the check-in process.  I was told this is for their protection; to avoid being blamed for "defacing" the painting.  I honestly don't know if this is a case of being ignorant or an abundance of caution.  Perhaps this only happens in a litigious society like ours.  Who is one being pedantic now?

I am adding a blue ring to the moon, making it more cartoonish.  I think it makes a bigger impact to my painting this way.  The moon is part of the title and needs a little flair. 

The shadows and reflections off the front of the pavilion is darkened and made more saturated, to offer more drama to the lights.

The huge light area just beneath the shore seems out of place, almost like a dissonant chord.  I would interpret that as an anomaly of the water and draws attention away the painting.   I desperately need to tone it down.   

A few strokes of purple color seems to ameliorate the problem.  That patch is a lot less intrusive and could pass for the reflection of the night sky on the water.

I am increasing the saturation of the color to render a more retrospective feel to the painting.  The light values on the face of Rusalka is further tuned to account for the direction of the moon, with special attention given to the forehead, the tip of the nose, the chins and most importantly, the sternocleidomastoid muscles.   The highlights of shimmers of water around Rusalka is done at an angle to give an illusion of proximity, effectively placing her closer to the viewer than parallel lines would suggest.

I feel like I am designing a set for the stage rather than doing a painting.

Rusalka, cont'd

I have Rusalka in the water, across from a classical pavilion, under the moon on my fibrous Xuan.  I should be ready to just paint in the night sky and the water and I shall have my Rusalka painting.

Easy enough.

I like the color indigo.  It is deep and mysterious; perfect for my moon lit sky and water.  As I am rummaging through my bin of half used tubes of colors for the indigo label, I am realizing that the painting will be too sparse and crude and might be lacking in emotional content.  I mean I don't have the skills that is necessary to transform  a vast void of sky and water to support my story of the water nymph Rusalka longing for her love.  I desperately need supporting casts to help me stage my painting.

Song to the Moon (google translation):

Moon in the sky deep  I see your light far away.

You wander through the world, Divas in the abode people.

Moon, wait a moment, tell me where my loved ones are.

Tell him, let's hug the moon, that he will hug me on his shoulder, so tha at least for a moment he remembers me in his dreams.

Light him far away, tell him, tell him who's waiting here!  

The human soul dreams of me, let's wake up with that memory!

Moon, don't go out, don't go out!

As I am listening to the soprano detailing the most intimate thoughts of Rusalka, I am led to a more private setting for Rusalka to muse her thoughts.  I need to place Rusalka in a smaller space by framing my painting with incidentals like vegetation.  I shall exaggerate the light reflection from the pavilion and buildings to further close off the space on the right side of the paper.  I shall make the reflections in the water around Rusalka more pronounced, not only to make a better connection with the moon but also to take up more real estate on the water.

I am placing bamboo on the left of the painting.  That gives me a chance to practice my bamboo leaves again.

To the right of the painting, behind the architectural artifacts I am painting in a bamboo grove to tie in with the bamboo on the left.  The brushstrokes are loose and impressionistic and should blend in well with the night sky.  That's the plan anyways.

Dabs of ink form additional objects in the background.

I am now painting in the water with indigo, being careful to leave voids, simulating shiny reflections the water.

I am taking this moment to go over the face of Rusalka, now that I have a background to play off with.

I am portraying Rusalka with half-opened eyes.  I like to think that this is more pensive than a fully closed or open eye.  I am also playing up the light values on her cheeks and her moon lit forehead.

True to my obsession with the sternocleidomastoid muscle, I am making them really dramatic, accompanied by a long neck and dimples from the clavicles.  I just find them very appealing and sexy.

This is what I have so far.  I am going to let the painting dry and reevaluate.  

What jumps out right away is that I need to increase the saturation of the water and sky.

Rusalka

I mentioned that I was listening to" Song To the Moon" from Rusalka when I was painting my rabbits on the moon for our Lunar New Year and somehow I have not been able to clear that image from my thoughts. 

Rusalka as I understand is a character in Slavic folklore and though it has many variations it nonetheless seem to involve spirits of the female gender and it lives in a body of water luring or haunting men, depending on how you look at it.  I suppose it is haunting if the woman died in tragedy and her spirit has not seen salvation or her death has not been avenged.

The Rusalka I referred to in my blog is the protagonist in an opera written by Antonin Dvorak.  The work tells the story about a water nymph Rusalka who falls in love with a mortal prince and bargains with a witch to turn her into a human to accommodate the potential relationship.  The price she pays is that she would be turned into a mute and become a mortal and the prince will die if he does not love Rusalka, who will in turn be damned eternally.  As with all great love stories, tragedy is the only viable conclusion.  Nobody wins in the end, the prince dies and Rusalka is damned.  It makes the song even more haunting.  The libretto of this opera has Rusalka professing her love for the prince to the moon in the opening act and asking the moon to help convey her love.

As I am writing this down, I am reminded of other friendships between the mortals and the immortals that are prevalent in other cultures.  Obviously everyone is familiar with the "Mermaid".

In Chinese culture I can think of at least two very popular folklores that pertain to such a union.  The story of "Goddess Marriage" or "Fairy Couple" (天仙配) is about the marriage of the 7th daughter of the Heavenly Emperor to a mortal who exhibited qualities of scholarship and filial duty.  The interesting thing about this folklore is that it has several different versions, and not all endings are tragic.

In "Legends of the White Snake" (白蛇傳) a folklore that tells the story of how a white python was able to be transformed into a beautiful lady, thus deemed an "unclean spirit" by priests.  The white python marries a mortal and a priest is determined to "exorcise" this mortal's wife, breaking up the union.  This folklore has something similar to Rusalka, in that the relationship between the mortal and immortal is brokered or intervened by a witch, or a priest.  Whilst the story of Rusalka ends in sadness the story of "Legends of the White Snake" has a happy ending.  Perhaps it is a statement that true love gets rewarded and humanity embraces even "unclean spirits".

Enough of a segue, time to paint my thoughts on paper.

My Rusalka is a lady poking her head out of water in a moon lit night, having a pensive moment with the the moon in the backdrop.  Needless to say, this renowned soprano aria "Song to the moon" is playing in the background.  My painting of "Whiter Shade of Pale" introduced me to painting of human forms.  Through those months of paying closer attention to the human body, I have a deeper appreciation of why Da Vinci studied human anatomy.  For me, I find the human neck to be an object of fascination.  I particularly enjoy how the sternocleidomastoid muscle (the 2 big muscles at the sides of our neck) in the neck twists and turns with the head, sometimes highly visible, and other times disappears beneath the skin.  I also enjoy its relationship with the clavicle, and how the depression at the bottom of the neck ebbs and flows with our posture.  A big lovely dimple.

Thus I shall attempt to showcase the neck of my water nymph. Try anyways.

A study drawing

I am using a very fibrous heavy Xuan.  I like the fact that this paper allows the color to float and disperse on it momentarily before fully soaking it in.  Hopefully it will help embody the ambience of a night scene with less than well defined lines; with the visible fibers strands adding to the ambiguity.

I am making a very pronounced presence of the sternocleidomastoid muscle through shading.  I am not too worried about the correct color of the face at this point.  My plan is to correct everything towards the end of the painting and I trust the paper I am using will allow me to make these alterations without ill effects.  

Before I continue on with the rest of my nymph, I am blocking out the ripples in the water by using the alum solution.  I am doing this so that when I paint in the hair and her clothing, I can somehow convey that they are submerged.

I also assign a position for my moon.  After all, this is a painting about Rusalka's song to the moon.  

To set the framework that Rusalka is in the water, contemplating the possibility that she might be residing on land as a mortal,  I am assigning that reference to some classical Chinese architecture.  

Eventually all these incidentals will be swallowed up by the dark night, hopefully.  I am therefore not too concerned about accuracy. I am augmenting the night scene with a few moon lit tree trunks in white.  I am hoping the lights in the buildings will eventually contrast with the dark night sky and make the painting interesting.  I suppose I just want a presence more than anything else.  My goal now is to plot my settings, create a mood and see if things work out or not.

The far shore of the water is painted in

So now I have the nymph, the worldly reference, and the moon.  Next chore is make the night fall!