Attempting Woodblock

I had grown increasingly dissatisfied with my brushstrokes, and my calligraphy.  I sensed that I was placing too much emphasis on the shape rather than the energy.  I was tracing instead of writing.

I thought doing some woodcut might be a good diversion.
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I had never done woodcut before, but this "First Time" trepidation was exactly the motivation I needed.  I had a piece of scrap pine board left over from frame making.  Perfect material for trial and error.

I thought I would do trees.  Simple lines, and a good challenge to be able to show spatial relationship of the limbs.

I started out by painting 2 trees onto this block of wood.   I wasn't concerned about mirror image or upside down or else.  Que sera sera!   My goal was to have two trees with a few overlapping branches.  My challenge would be to show which limb is in the back.

Initial draft and scribing

 

 

 

Close-up on woodcut

 

 

Since this was my maiden voyage into woodcuts, I was anxious to see if this would fly at all.  I dabbed ink onto the one tree that I had finished so far and laid a piece of Xuan on it.  I used a piece of dry dish washing scrub pad for the rub out since I did not have a roller at my disposal.  The result was better than expected.  I was particularly happy with the wood grain from the pine board showing up.  The beading was probably due to the virgin wood surface, as the ink had not yet soaked into the wood fiber.  I was able to showcase the different ink tones.

Finished board with ink

 

Print made from the woodcut.

 I was not able to achieve the same drama with different ink tones.  The wood fibers were wet now and they seemed to have diffused the ink for me.

I did not like the hanging branch on the right.  It was ostentatiously annoying.  So I lopped it off.   The resulting image is more coherent .  Amazing how a little alteration goes a long ways.

I brushed  concentrated ink onto the left tree and diluted ink onto the other, creating a contrast between the two stands.  I printed on the bamboo paper for calligraphy.  This paper is more absorbent than the regular Xuan.  Instead of using the scrub pad I used my fingers to press down on the paper.  I was able to modulate the pressure at various spots, resulting in a print with varied intensity and emphasis.

I used broken lines to define the spatial arrangement of the limbs.  Branches that are in the back received the broken line treatment (areas circled in red).  This is a technique frequently used in Chinese brush painting.  For further discussion of this topic please refer to my blog on More Than Just Broken Lines dated 3/29/12.

I am quite tickled with my first attempt at woodblock.  I would definitely pursue this further in the days to come.

A Quorum of Geese

It is time to get back to my geese project.

While I was preoccupied with painting my horse, the thought of how to create a geese painting was still churning away in the background.  Unfortunately I am no closer to the goal than a couple of months ago.  I can't keep writing off my hesitance as being pensive, so I decided to face my demon....  out comes the paper and brush.

My theory is that despite the absence of a concrete idea as to how the painting might end up, perhaps I have a subconscious impression of my painting to be.  So I'll be a good listener and hear myself out.

I have chosen a paper that I normally do calligraphy on.  It is more absorbent than the regular Xuan and the brush strokes tend not to bleed.  I was also drawn by its native yellow gold color;  perhaps I could utilize that background color.  This piece of paper is 6 feet wide, I decided to use the whole thing.  I was gearing up for failure already.  My rationale for using the entire 6 ft was that if I screwed up I could start all over without missing a beat. This way I could just paint continuously until there was  no empty space left and I could always crop to size only the desirable sections.  Smart decision !


Armed with such a game plan, I started to lay down a bunch of geese:

Then I decided to take advantage of the paper's yellow color and made the scene as if bathed in the glow.  I used gamboge and cinnabar and mixed in some titanium white for the added blocking effect.  I now wanted the geese to look a little hazy.  I also painted in some smaller, blurry geese to the right, to achieve  a little bit of depth perspective.

I blocked in some landscape for depth perspective.  The darker emphasis is on the left side of the painting,  to contrast with the right.

Tidied up the background.  Showed some highlight on a few select geese,  and called that a wrap, for now.  I might not like some of the individual birds, but I have grown fond of the overall mood of the painting.  I'll hang it up and stare at it for a few weeks and see what else comes to mind. 

I decided to add in the white highlight on the butt of the geese.  I perceived that was also a trade mark, just as the banding on the head.  I wonder if I over did it? 

Oh, did I mention this is a six footer? I wonder how I am going to mount it.  If I use my Xuan-boo method, the warm tone would be restored once I applied the gel;  and I do like that warm fuzzy feeling!

We have a problem

I have been casting that occasional glance at my horse paintings, especially the joie de vivre  piece.
These seemingly casual encounters actually help to form the basis of a non-analytical analysis.  What an oxymoron!  What I meant is that I started to feel instinctively something is good or bad, and that motivates me to pry into the causes for my concerns.

I felt that something is amiss. 

Well let me see what is good first.

I liked the effect of the white margins left by the alum solution.  As I said before, my inclination to use alum is probably due to my inadequacy in my brush strokes, my Gi Bun Gong, and my lack of control of the proper amount of water.  A good painting is a successful interplay of ink, water, paper and brush.  I have used different types of Xuan paper.  Aside from different absorbency and tendency to bleed, some will retain a more distinctive margin in between brush strokes.  Since I am not a connoisseur of Xuan or ink, I only had the pleasure of chance encounters with said products.  I do not know enough to seek out a particular type or brand to acquire.

Anyways I was able to portray the apparent feel of tendons and muscles by giving them definition with white margins in the following example:

The white margins left by alum also helped to add layer and depth in the hairs of the mane and tail:

And of course I love the body language of the horse, enough to name it  joie de vivre.  What gives this painting a sour taste is the neck area of the horse.



I suppose the painting of animals do require a certain understanding of anatomy.  In this particular case the strong neck muscles needed to control that long cervical spine is totally missing in the representation.   What I have depicted is almost like kids playing with sand on the beach, trying to build a sand horse.  Bucketfuls of sand is piled on top of the chest to depict the neck, without regards to how the neck should be attached for articulation.  What I have erected was a column that I called a neck and placed it on top of the body, without accounting for how this column should be rested on the shoulders.  Hence begging the question, should anatomical proportions and placements be exact when doing Chinese brush painting?  According to 6 doctrines prescribed by Xie He (謝赫 ）likeliness only assumed the number 3 position of relative importance.  Can I write off  this miscalculation by saying brush strokes trump proper anatomy?  I don't know.  I wish I know!

From the painting, we can see the white margin left by the original brush stroke of the neck.

In subsequent shading and augmenting the lines, I had changed the contour of the neck column.

This is the result after digitally erasing the extraneous brush strokes outside of the white margin to shape the neck better.  Does this alteration render a better fit for the neck to the shoulders?

 

 

Did this simple change breathed new life into the painting?