Beaverton Creek

It had been a cold January.

I resolved to make no resolutions for the new year.  Don't want to disappoint myself.  The inactivity has contributed to the build-up of my love handle.  I really didn't want to be snatched up by Michelin to be their tire model, so I ventured out to my favorite hangout Beaverton Creek, despite the lingering freezing fog.

The sun was actually trying to fight through the fog.  It was interesting to experience the stillness of this crisp morning through the haze, involuntarily wiping my wet nose with the back of my hand.  I was a kid again.

So I've been thinking about painting this experience.  I just couldn't decide on how to convey my feelings.  Eventually I decided on forging ahead with the first stroke to get things rolling.  Too much thinking and plotting actually destroys the spontaneity.  I am hoping that once I started, I would be in a groove.

I wanted to let the color of the painting to set the mood.  I prepared a very weak wash using Label 3 Green and laid down the landscape using the splash ink method.  Splash ink could literally be pouring a dish of pigment onto the painting surface if it is large enough, and guide the flow by using brushes or tilting the surface.  In this case I used a large brush.  This is very therapeutic.  This is Xieyi at its extreme.  Large expressive movements without too much concern for details.

I then prepared different hues by mixing Label 3 Green (173) with Label 3 Blue (493) and ink.  I worked to reveal layers of trees and shore line.  Using yellow I dabbed  in the initial highlights.

I had envisioned a glistening water surface of the creek despite the lack of direct sunlight that day.  I misted my Xuan paper with a solution of gum and alum with a spray bottle, and had hoped that these droplets would work as a resist and not take on pigments, thereby revealing white spots as glistens and voids in the woods.  This effect is usually more pronounced when viewed from the back of the paper.

 backside of Xuan

 front of Xuan    

I am now faced with the dilemma.  Should  I now paint on the back of the Xuan or continue to work on the front.  Working on the back would allow a stage for the alum white specks and would be more true to what my initial concept was.  The back it is !

 Alum white specks

But then the left and the right side of the image would be flipped. 

 

Oh well, it is time to take a break.  I'm going to walk away from this and look at it again in a few days or weeks and gather my thoughts again.

Two Female Nudes

I came across a black chalk painting by the French artist Aristide Maillol ( 1861-1944 ) .  It was a painting of 2 nude females.  What captured my attention was the impressionistic depiction of the female body with firm bold lines and exquisite light values.  As a fan of photography, I wish my photos could exude those qualities.

I studied the painting for a few weeks, and decided I would try to copy the painting, using my understanding of Gou, Chuen, Ts'a, R'an.  I started out with charcoal sticks on Xuan paper, developing my lines and rubbings with charcoal.   I then used the coffee that I was drinking as a pigment to process the lines and shading, to get that sepia look.     Ink was used to further enhance the  lines and the shaded areas. Raw Xuan paper turned out to be a perfect media for this endeavor.
It took on the charcoal nicely, and by paying attention to the stray (excess) charcoal dust, one can incorporate them into a nice gradient when applying the wash.  The thick lines give thickness to the image and help to bring a 3 dimensional feel to the drawing, as was discussed in how to paint contour lines in my landscape blogs.

 

 

I don't want to merely learn from Aristide Maillol's interpretation of the female body, I also want to exploit the translucent property of the Xuan.  My scheme was not to paint the two bodies together as the original work did, but to paint them on separate pieces of Xuan, and then superimpose the images.  The result is quite interesting.  The two bodies seem to be in different dimensions now, and the conversation between them becomes more intriguing.

 

 

Amending the Tree

Riding on the energy and motivation of finishing the tree project, I decided to add to the 70%.

I tidied up the background with hints of vegetation with scattered brush.  I used these, along with titanium white to soften up the dark patches.  A yellow wash is applied to the whole painting after the Xuan has been thoroughly moistened.  Yellow is a very difficult color to handle, but it think it would coordinate the color scheme and give that impression of filtered light.  Dark green dots are placed along strategic branches to exaggerate the layering. I've also darkened some of the branches to appear more as a silhouette but leave others quite faint, to simulate the effect of squinting into bright light and the edges dissolve.

Finally I re-cropped the painting to give it more of vertical bias.  I think this helped to rationalize the overly long lines of the person's back.   Now I need to figure out a way to move the tree away from the center !