Etude-Lotus Leaf Chuen

I've touched upon the techniques of Gou, Chuen, Ts'a  and R'an often employed in Chinese Brush painting, especially in the landscape genre.

One of the Chuen technique is called the Lotus Leaf Chuen;  this is where brush stroke resembling the vein of a lotus leaf is used to describe the topography.  This is commonly employed while painting the foothills of mountain ranges, perhaps depicting a watershed.

I practiced that technique with my students in class and I intend to apply that technique to something tangible at the next lesson.     Recall that I am not a real fan of the rote technique, when we keep repeating and copying props that are from the past.  I therefore wanted to paint a local iconic mountain using that brushstroke and make this technique relevant in today's application.

That means doing homework myself, otherwise I don't have anything concrete to show.

I first laid out the contour lines of this mountain and installed the lotus leaf Chuen around the base of the mountain, where the slope is not as steep.  I then selectively shaded the different areas of the mountain, using these Chuen lines as a guide, paying attention to where the light source might be.  I know this is highly irregular for traditional Chinese Brush.  Emphasis is on line quality and the unwritten meanings and nuances rather than an overt representation of the subject matter.  So I've committed blasphemy.  Perhaps in the name of progress.

The dark background helped to contrast the white snowy peak and pop up the mountain.

Here's a close-up of the lotus leaf Chuen

Pupil of The Eye

I wanted to paint a flight of spiral staircase.

A bunch of concentric circles; well maybe not entirely concentric, but think of it as a bunch of circles of different diameters placed together.  How difficult could it be.

I was asked the reason for picking this subject matter.  It really does not have a whole lot to do with Chinese brush painting.  So why bother.

My short answer was that I wanted to continue to explore the property of the semi-sized Xuan that I was using, and to continue my study of the Jimo (accumulating ink) technique.  

Actually the spirals with radiating spokes of steps and alternating bands of illuminated flat surface against vertical dark balustrade fascinated me.  To me, there existed complexity in this simplistic arrangement, and vice versa.

The schematic was too complicated to paint extemporaneously, so I took my time to sketch it out.  I wanted a reasonable spatial proportion and relationship of the different elements.

 

 

 

 

Next step was to build up the details by writing in the steps.  To help me perceive the perspective better, I painted in the floor at the bottom, designating that as the darkest portion, and began to build my risers from the bottom up.

 

 





I continue to construct until all the steps were in.  I felt like I was installing vanes in a jet engine.

It was time to test the water.  Like a proud parent, I introduced my piece to my cohorts.

I had done a few pieces of works with ink and semi-sized Xuan, namely the roof top piece and the pillars piece.  Those pieces were done in the portrait format.

Why couldn't I turn my painting 90 degrees to the left and make it into a portrait format too.   After all it's just a bunch of circles so the orientation should not matter!  By doing this, I could add to my collection of ink paintings in the portrait format.

To my chagrin, the reception was lukewarm at best.

Is that a pupil of an eye?   Mused someone.

It looked convex to me!  If you were trying to paint stairs, they appear to be poking out the painting rather than looking down  Commented another.

You need to blur out the top levels so the bottom is in focus, so people get what you are painting!  Suggested yet another.

So I monkeyed around with it and dramatized my light values to better illustrate my helical steps.

Still looks like an eye!  There's something wrong with your painting but I couldn't put my finger on it !  That was pretty much the general consensus.

Then the art professor came over and rotated my painting 90 degrees.

Now everybody went Ah!  Much better!

What I thought was a bunch of circles and the orientation didn't matter actually did matter in this instance.  I thought hard and long for my misconception. 

Here is plausible explanation.

When we are looking down a flight of spirals, we are inevitably closest to one point on the rail or banister.  As we gazed downwards, the corresponding points on each ring would seem to stick together.  For example,  when we looked through a tunnel or a huge water pipe, we typically see the
ceiling curving around us, and the floor of the pipe seemed flat, even though it is part of the circle.

By displaying this painting in a portrait format, we took away that point of reference and our brain could not rationalize the anomaly and cried foul.  Order was restored only when we restored that frame of reference.

You just can't fool the eye!  Nor the pupil, for that matter.

Suliao Xuan Ban - The Journey is complete

I submitted my Journey painting for a local exhibition and the jury gave their nods.

That meant I needed to mount the Xuan so it could be presented.

I had always wanted to try something really far rout with this piece of work.

Obviously painting with coffee and cream and tea was unconventional, especially as far as Chinese brush is concerned.  When I needed to mount this painting for presentation, I didn't want to do it the traditional fashion either.  This was in part motivated by the fact that the coffee and tea had no fixative in them and the color tends to move if not careful.

I had wanted to exploit the translucent quality of the Xuan.  I also deplore the glass covered look, the omnipresent glare from the glass.  I am also too cheap in invest in non-glare museum quality glass.  That was my motivation for inventing  the Xuan-Boo ( Xuan on canvas ) to begin with.

The only plausible way to showcase the semi-transparent Xuan was to mount my painting on a piece of glass; tampered glass to be specific.  I toyed with the notion that my painting could be viewed almost like a stained glass window or a double sided silk embroidery.  I had visions of  my work mounted on the surface of glass.  The entire piece would be a float and I would epoxy a platform behind the glass so it could be displayed several inches off the wall surface, allowing ambient and reflected light to dance on my painting.

That won't work; too heavy.

Then I was going to use a heavy gauge plastic, in lieu of tampered glass.  It turned out that anything over three-sixteenth thickness is cast plastic, and costs an arm and a leg.  Besides, even at one-quarter inch thickness, the piece flexes due to the large dimensions, and it was heavy.

I eventually abandoned the frameless float idea and settled for a frame.

My work was still to be mounted on the surface of the plastic.  I mounted another piece of Xuan on the backside of the plastic for proper white balance.   The thickness of the plastic sheet gave the backing an interesting look.

In order to not distract the painting with my traditional red seal, it was suggested that I sign with pencil.

But I really wanted to use my seal.  I am better represented by my chop than a pencil signature!

Who says the chop has to be red?

I used my ink box as the seal mud and stamped my chop in black ( buried in the right bank)  The important thing is, that chop looked great.  For people in the know they would recognize the presence of my seal.  For the less enlightened, it was not obtrusive and it didn't matter.  It was proper and soothing.  It belonged.  I thought.

(close-up of the black chop)

With this set-up, shadow would form behind the painting, behind the frame, and yet one could see it through the plastic. 
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It helped to move the painting to the front.  Now the audience can fully explore the miasma of the atmosphere homogenizing with the land, only to be interrupted by the intrepid riders.

The entire piece was finished with several layers of spray urethane to protect the delicate Xuan from soiling.  At least that was what I hoped.

I am naming this process of mine Suliao Xuan Ban,  Xuan on plastic board.