Tai Chi Sword Gesture

I am still patting myself on the back for amalgamating two paintings into one with my last project on dance and martial arts poses.  I am just like a little kid, finding joy in something insignificant or irrelevant and being giddy about it.  What is that saying about sloths; their babies are so ugly only their own mothers would love them!  Well I'm that sloth's mother.

On the heel of such success I am going to try another one and see if I could duplicate the results.

I have a painting of a Tai Chi sword artist striking a posture and another silhouette painting of a martial artist so these are candidates of my current project.  I had tried to reveal foreshortening of the hand within a silhouette painting. 

The silhouette painting is going to be the top layer, so it goes down first to be wet mounted.

Next is my Tai Chi sword painting being placed on the silhouette, 

So far so good!  This is now hung to dry.  Still looking good.

Unfortunately the Tai Chi sword layer fades out quite a bit after drying.  It has lost its brilliance. It does not appear to be behind a sheer veil anymore.

The result is interesting, but not as dramatic as the last project.  It dawns on me that the silhouette painting was done on regular unsized Xuan and is thicker than the cicada skin Xuan that I used on the last project.  The thicker paper renders the top layer less transparent, thus obscuring the bottom Tai Chi sword painting.  In addition, that thinner Xuan has a slight sheen on it, making it more veil like.  

I try to remedy that by coloring on the silhouette painting, by coercing the Tai Chi sword to be more visible in the background.  I am afraid to use a brush that is too wet, thereby affecting the starched layers, causing them to wrinkle and separate.  The dry coloring somehow does not agree with the overall mood of the painting.  It feels obtrusive and contrived.  Not the dreamy nor the enigmatic effect as I had hoped for.

Some things just can't be forced.  Lesson learned.  Again. 

Semi-sized vs Unsized Xuan

I was continuing my efforts to emulate Gong Xian's paintings;  I find his Jimo ( accumulating, layering with ink )  technique fascinating.

I started out using a regular Xuan, actually an excellent quality Xuan.  Right away I found myself ill at ease.   

One of my Achilles heels is the fact that I tend to doodle.  Perhaps this is an exaggeration,  but I tend to go over my my brushstrokes over and over again, must be my OCD.   I was hoping by honing my Jimo skill I will learn to be more decisive and discrete with my doodling, but the unsized Xuan caused a lot of bleeding.  It is true that I can still see distinct tracks if I hold up the Xuan against the light, but when viewed under ambient illumination, the  painting looked muddled, or dirty as we say.  I stopped before finishing the painting.

I dug out my semi-sized Xuan stock and tried to paint again.  The semi-sized Xuan is less absorbent.  The ink floats on top of the paper for a while before getting absorbed into the fibers.  Once the ink is dried to touch, I can pile on more ink/color and I can push the original track somewhat, while keeping the original brushstroke more or less intact.

Here is a side by side comparison of the 2 versions.  The one on the left is semi-sized.  The brush marks are better delineated.

I like the semi-sized Xuan much better for this particular exercise, and I took the painting to completion.

Sepia color achieved by using left over from my cup of coffee !!