Stone, Paper, Scissors

I am going to delve more in depth with painting rock(stone) or hills(mountains).  I have discussed this topic briefly in my "Ridge top Explained" and I hope to use more illustrations to explain away the fear of tackling this discipline.

Hills and rocks are the backbones of Chinese landscape painting.  When we consult the bible of classical Chinese Brush Painting, the "Mustard Seed Garden", we would be told that to paint rocks(hills) we have to convey the 3 facets of the rock.  We have to demonstrate that the rock possesses energy(ambiance) to form the backbone of the universe.  The ability to express this quality depends on the artist's expertise in rendering the personality of the rock(hill, mountain).  Thus the Alps would flaunt the soaring chiseled lines that inspire awe, and the Appalachians with its soft and open embrace.  This blog however, is not to discuss how to depict the temperament of the landscape, but rather on how to physically render the lines of a rock(hill, mountain).  By the way, a lot of us who learned to paint the traditional way, learned by the method of rote, and our reference book is the Mustard Seed Garden.

In this art form of traditions, it is prescribed as to how to group together multitudes of rocks (or multitudes of hills, land masses).  It is suggested that aestheticism is attained  if these rules are followed.  Therefore when we paint 5 rocks, it would be most pleasing if we place them according to the bottom arrangement.

The MSG (Mustard Seed Garden..... not monosodium glutamate !!) also stipulates that the contour lines of the rocks(hills, mountains) should be done with stops and rests abundant.  The lines need to show variations in ink tones, speed and direction.  We then adorn the contour lines with "chuen" (rubbing technique, to describe texture) and shading, thus we are able to form the 3 facets of a rock, i.e. a 3 dimensional reveal of the landmass.

To have a clear conceptual picture of a rock(stone, hill, mountain) I used a stack of left over mat boards and cut them into the profile of a hill, hence the title Stone,Paper, Scissors.  As I found out these boards are too much of a match for ordinary scissors, so I cheated by using my Dremel.  Each piece of mat board now represents one slice of this landmass, and the aggregate stack of all these pieces gives you the 3 dimensional form.

  As I carved away with my Dremel, the straight edges represent the center tip strokes of the brush, and the beveled edge exemplifies the side tip stroke.  Thus the outline of each piece is analogous to the "contour line" that we shall paint, and the twist and turn of the cuts, mixed with the straight and beveled edges represent the requirement of varied speed, hesitation, center tip and side-tip strokes.

Now with this contraption,  I can stack these cut-outs in any fashion I wanted  to acquire the desired morphology of the land mass.

By placing a piece of paper ( I used a hardy typing paper instead of the flimsy Xuan) against this stack and rubbing it with charcoal or crayon or just a pencil in this case, I transferred the profile of this structure onto the paper.  Each line that is transcribed represents a "contour line" of our make believe rock(hill).

By selectively erasing all or part of these "contour lines" we now have a drawing that is made up of   longer, more complete "contour lines" that describes the profile, and short, broken lines (which are remnants of the original "contour lines") now helping to highlight or accentuate the characteristics of the mass, and these now become our "chuen lines".

I shall now go over these pencil markings with ink and brush and the resulting image is more reminiscent of what we see in traditional Chinese landscape painting.

The preceding is an attempt to dissect the construction of all the lines that make up a rock(hill, mountain) and to entertain the relationship of "contour line" and "chuen line" when applied to the subject matter.  Obviously we do not paint this way, but this is a good tool for forming a mental image of what we are trying to accomplish on paper.  Thus for the novice, the brush strokes have at least a purpose and methodology to it, hence Bi-Fa.  And of course for the viewer, a better comprehension of what is involved.

PAIN

The post at hand is not about Bi-Fa, nor composition, nor methodology, nor scatter point perspective, but is about our conversation to the audience, the emotional content of our work.

I assume we paint for different reasons, fun, self-expression, commercial endeavor.  Occasionally we find a piece of work that makes a connection, not only with ourselves, but with the audience.  We might be painting something because that is what everybody else is doing, or some great master was doing that in the past and we try to emulate their works, their styles.  We might get the technique down, but the work is silent, like a perfect mannequin, well proportioned, great poses, but lifeless.

I did this painting when I was dealing with some personal problems.  Yes I did it with Chinese brushes just because that's all I have in my sushi  blanket.  I painted it on the back side of a piece of paper that came with a frame.  The paper that had a generic wedding picture printed on it.  My "wants" at that moment was to find a conduit to release my emotions..... the choice of medium was not my concern. (fortunately I did not release that on a person :-

I had absolutely no idea of what I was doing.  There was no technique, composition, color wheel,  nothing.
I had some faint idea of where to paint in shadows etc. to show the contours, and that was about it.  When I finished the "unleashing" process, I found the dabbling to be dark and full of tension.  I had no idea that I painted a person of unknown gender and  that the wine bottle and glass was not symmetrical and all that.  I was not going to make any alterations.  I just wanted to let the dabbling stand, as a witness to that particular moment of my life.   Perhaps I had given the title "PAIN" to the painting, I was getting some feedbacks, some voyeuristic inquisitions from my acquaintances as to the circumstances ..... but I wasn't going to reveal my innermost secrets. 

A dabbling with no aspirations or pretension to be a piece of art somehow is making a few chattering.  The only explanation I have is because it is not only raw, but brutally honest.  I have also been accused of painting a nude in this painting.  If I did, where did I hide it...................................

Remedy for "Multnomah Fall"

The more I looked at the "Multnomah Fall" painting, the more I was itching to do something about it.  As I mentioned in the blog, it was the bilateral symmetry that really bothered me.  I made the painting look like an insert for a tourist guide, or something I lifted from a photograph ( those of you who know me, know how I feel about painting from a photograph..... the resulting work is often  2 dimensional;  without a soul)

(before remedy)



Since the painting was already mounted on canvas, there wasn't a whole lot that I could have done, else I made the Xuan paper too moist and it would wrinkle again and become separated from the canvas.

I used jet black ink to go over the "chuen" again on the left hand side, to try to increase the density of that area.  I did the same for the trees on the right hand side; to add more body to the foliage and to mask the lower black line of the lower fall even better.

At the same time, I added the bright greenish yellow moss on the rock surface.  I did that with my worn brush, using the "split hair" technique.  The moss added some realism to the scene ( hinted the area of the water spray), but most importantly it imparted a lighter color to the back walls, thus helping to pull the background further away from the foreground.

To add a little bit of drama, I put in a few circling birds.  I needed to cover up the messy ink splashes in the sky anyways ( my trade-mark ).

(after remedy)

Now that I am pleased with the remedy, I went ahead and sealed the painting with a gel medium.  The gel makes the painting water resistant and as an added bonus, helps to bring out the depth of the color and recovers some the lost vibrancy.

The changes were minor and not obvious, yet they helped to restore some balance to the painting.  I am biased, obviously, since I am the architect behind all this,  but it is my sincere hope that the correct remedy was applied.

Scatter Brain revisited

In my Scatter Brain blog, I mentioned that I got carried away from my original premise, which was a blurry vision of a bridge ( I used a Flying Dutchman  to describe it) set against a lily pond.  Well this brew had been fermenting in my brain for quite a while now.  I finally decided to do something about it.  This time it will be a little more impressionistic, more provocative than descriptive.

To accentuate the "Flying Dutchman", I decided to use a simple warm tone to achieve an overall personality of the painting.  I shall then play with my light values within the confines of this monotone.  I shall paint the lily pads with a saturated tone to set against the foggy image of the bridge and the sky.  I wanted to take advantage of the high contrast neck of the Canadian geese, which complements the flow of the leaves.  Cloud drafts or rain streaks would be used to break up the vast blank space of the sky.  I worked out these details on a plain typing paper.

Everything pretty much went according to plan.  I was being real patient with the sky/background, so I took my time and stained it quite a few times,  intensifying the effect as I went.  Rain streaks was difficult to lay down on moist Xuan.  The streaks would diffuse out too much, so I was happy to make do with light beams peeking through the low clouds.                                                       

(note the flying geese)

Everything went fine until Murphy paid me a visit.  Whilst I was being careful and patient with my washes, I inadvertently splashed some ink onto the sky.  Normally I could blot that off when it was fresh, but I made

the discovery too late;  the ink had fixed.  My innovative brain told me to paint something to hide those splashes.  But what?       How about a few Canadian geese flying overhead;  they would tie in with the pair in the pond nicely.  The problem is that the ink splashes were so much darker than the sky, so I had to paint my flying geese much darker than I would prefer.    I tried to  paint in a few dark clouds but they seemed out of place      After a few attempts, I decided that I better quit while I was ahead.  I felt that I was making the painting worse instead of better,  all because of Murphy.                                                                             

     

                                                               Finally when I mounted the Xuan on canvas, I left all the creases and wrinkles in.    The painting had that feel and look of an antique painting, and I  believe these minute details addsto the ambiance of the painting, albeit not readily perceptible. 

(wrinkled Xuan on canvas)

                                                         

In the end, I am not displeased with this piece of work.  This style of work is particularly suited for the Xuan on canvas mounting.  You really get the benefit of watercolor wash/diffuse effect spliced into the feel of canvas.  In fact I like this one a whole lot better than my original bridge on lotus pond.  Now I just have to get busy making a frame for this piece of work.

Small Wonders

The kids, whom I mentored at their art club  at a middle school showed some pretty amazing works.  We started out by learning a little bit about Chinese brush painting.  They were introduced to the brush and Xuan paper for the first time.  I picked the subject matter of bamboo because it harbors the most basic form of the brush stroke.  The bamboo helps to hone a person's skill on using the center tip; along with varying pressure and ink tone and moisture content, the practitioner can achieve many "happy accidents".

By mentoring these young citizens, I hoped to dispel the notion of China Town art.  I did not want it to be paint by numbers.  Nor did I want it to be stencil work.  At the very minimum,  I wanted the kids to appreciate the techniques involved in using the center tip to effect different shapes.  Of course kids at this age are  a little bit too tender to deal with the so called "virtues" of the bamboo.  Nonetheless, I brought in a live bamboo branch so they could have a first hand tactile connection with the subject.  It is my theory that if you can "feel" it, that feeling can sublime into your work.  My emphasis for these kids was energy over form.  The form would come if one becomes more proficient with the brush, but the spirit still needs to be manifested.

We also did our own mounting of the finished painting.  This allows the first timers to experience the entire process of creating a painting and preserving it.  Interestingly one of the kids  inadvertently tore her painting into halves during the mounting process and was a little distraught.  I was able to mend the halves, perhaps an opportune time to demonstrate how to overcome obstacles, and to remedy mistakes.  Nah, I wasn't that noble, but there is some truth in what I said.

Finally I showed the kids how to cut mats.   I threw in a math problem in the process.  I had the  kids calculate the width of the margins, given the size of the mat and the size of the opening.  I wanted them to be able to at least present their mounted paintings in a matted format, to be able to show off to their parents and friends.  Most importantly, however, is to be able to build a positive self esteem.  To have a sense of accomplishment.  And accomplished, they have!!

The accompanying  pictures are some of the finished works.  (the ones not shown are not because they are not up to snuff, but rather the kids were eager to take them home, before I had a chance to take pictures !)  One must appreciate them not by technical merits ( they had maybe 40 minutes of training ) but from the perspective of a maiden voyage into an alien creative field.

Bamboo Tutorial continued

The painting I took to class was very two dimensional and lifeless.   Somehow it looked like a manikin.  I suppose it was sufficient for instructional purposes.  I figured since I do not paint bamboo that often, I needed the practice.  I ended up with the one shown above.

I attempted with different ink tones to show the spatial relationship of the different stems and leaves.  The bold ink color of the lower vertical stem gave anchor to the painting and helped to defuse the parallel lines.

My painting colleague had this critique............. a weak left flank.

But I had already mounted the painting.  Any alteration now will disturb the sandwiched starch layer and cause the paper to warp.   Oh what the hell, it's only a piece of paper.

Armed with concentrated ink right out of the bottle, and a very dry brush ( really too dry to paint bamboo leaves, but I had few options), I attempted to build on the left side.

One thing is for sure, this painting has more spunk than the one in the last blog.

I had to do another class demo, so I tried my hands at bamboo again.  This time paying a little bit more attention to contrast and harmony.  The more noded stem has denser and adhering leaves, versus the less noded stem with sparse leaves that hang away from the main stem.  More or Less.

Finally, the painting is cropped and mounted on canvas, and I even made a frame for it.

P.S.  For more material on bamboo leaves, please watch video on my blog on Bamboo Leaves and Pronation published on Oct 29, 2011.

Bamboo Tutorial

I admitted to not being proficient in painting bamboo.  My excuse was that this was not my genre of work;  I prefer landscape paintings.  Thus when I was taking lessons, I skimmed over this topic as much as I could.
Now that I am giving lessons and mentoring, the table had turned. I understood that despite its apparent simplicity, the bamboo painting encompasses a lot of the basic brush stroke techniques and aesthetic arrangement and the importance of ink tones.  It is now my job to try to convey and convince others that the simple bamboo is nothing to sneeze at.

I often expressed my dislike for "stencil" work, i.e. painting with all the rules and prescribed composition that the resulting work lacks spunk.  But how else should I pass on the basics of a bamboo painting?
I needed to demonstrate the nodes on the main stems.  I needed to note that the segments are shorter towards the base.  I needed to point out that the little branches grow on alternate sides of each node.  I needed to explain how the leaves are grouped together.  I needed to .................................

Segments grew longer as the plant grows taller.

I had to deal with this dichotomy of being compliant and original at the same time.  I thought the best way to do this is by showing the real examples of the bamboo, rather than someone else's work of what a bamboo looks like.   So I took a lot of pictures of bamboo, all the while trying to categorize the characteristics of a bamboo painting.

Branches grow on alternate sides of stem

Bamboo leaves

A live model

These photographs were used as teaching material for my adult students.  For my younger middle-school kids I used an actual plant.  The tactile experience, along with the visual cues, help the younger audience to comprehend the subject matter a little better. 

Sample painting I took to class for middle -school kids

Fortune Birds

I am just playing with words in Chinese.  The pronunciation of "SIX" and "FORTUNE" in the Cantonese dialect is the same.  Hence the Chinese Title of " Fortune Birds Singing" rather than "Six Birds Singing".  After all, who does not desire fortune, especially around New Year's time.

I chanced upon this photo on the net that showed some finches.  I liked the photo because it showed the birds in various attitudes of attention.  The picture claimed no copy right and in fact welcome other users to find good uses for it.

So I decided to arrange the birds on a tree branch.

I wanted to capture more than the different personalities.  I wanted to create a subtle tension... the fact that 5  birds have occupied one section of the branch, and the odd bird is off to the side, trying to assimilate, or lure?

So I produced this sketch as my practice sheet.

I painted in the birds first, and completely finish them before I put the branch in.  This way the tree branch can better hug the birds and minimizes the embarrassment of having to make a sitting bird stand!  As a last  step, I used  the brush wash as a final wash for the whole painting, leaving the center brighter, creating a focus area.    Brush wash is used because it captures the colors that I have used, and would be naturally in tune with the painting.  I intend to mount this in the Xuan-Boo style.  I am trying extremely hard to not crowd the painting by adding flowers or bamboos as commonly done.  I want this to be a simple and elegant painting.  Less is More!

As a post-script, when I finally get to make the frame for this painting, I decided to give it an "antique" look.  The painted frame was sanded down to reveal the primer and bare wood.  I admit that this is gimmicky, but it lends itself pretty well to this occasion.  It only took me 7 months to figure this out.

 

Happy New Year Year of the Rabbit

Wishing you a

Safe, Prosperous, and Peaceful

New Year

Multnomah Falls continued

After weeks of piling on more pigments on the rocks an adding "chuen" (texture), I grew more and more unhappy with my lower fall.

Unlike the upper fall, where I was able to reveal some of the spraying and pulsating energy of the water, I have painted in 2 parallel dark lines into the bottom fall.  What was I thinking.

I pulled out my cardboard framing borders and was trying to see where I should cut the Xuan paper so that I could pretend that the mistake never happened.  Then I thought about an old trick that I've described in my previous blogs..... using a transparency.

I fashioned a few trees using white titanium (for better contrast against the dark background) on this piece of transparency, such that I could move this about the painting and see the best placement to obscure the parallel lines. 


 Once I have the location finalized, I can now paint in the trees for real.  This transparency trick allows me to figure out the placement and size of add-ons without having to commit to it.

I've added 3 spectators to the bridge just to warm this painting up a little bit. 

I am not totally happy with the overall feel of this painting.  There isn't enough of a contrast between the front and the back.  I am afraid to make the front look too dark or I would lose the details on the rocks.  The other option is to darken the back, but that would regress my nice rock walls , which I thought is quite dramatic.  Besides, I thought my foreground is too dark for this set-up.   But wait, I have one more option.  Since I am going to be mounting this piece of Xuan on canvas (as in my Xuan-Boo technique), I can play with my canvas gesso colors to see if I can remedy my front to back contrasts.

What I do like is that I have at least tried to establish a yin an yang contrast.  I painted trees on alternate sides of the fall, to avoid a bilateral symmetry.  I've painted the left side lighter than the right and highlighted the trees such that illumination is from above.   I've tried to create contrasts within each sector of the painting.

I'll post my painting again after it is mounted and framed.

Like I said, come hell or high water, I've done it!

Multnomah Falls

Multnomah Falls is a hot spot in the scenic Columbia River Gorge.
I have wanted to paint this image for over 3 years now.  A night scene ?  A snow scene?  How about a perspective from the top?  My apprehension is that I don't think I can portray the Falls with my present stage of craftsmanship.  So I procrastinated.

Well 2011 is upon us.  I am not one to make any New Year's resolutions, but here is one.  I am going to paint the Falls, come hell or high water.

As in most of my work, I lay down the basic premise in medium tone ink.

I am trying for a perspective that is looking up to the top of the Fall.
I have contemplated in doing the scattered focal point perspective that is utilized in so many Chinese landscape paintings, but I must confess that I am having difficulty applying it here.  So here comes hell.

After the basic skeleton is constructed, I am working on "chuen" (adding texture) and shading, to give my work a more 3 dimensional feel.

More shading is done, and also an initial layer of vermilion is deposited.  This works to depict the high lighted areas of the rocks, and also blends well with the subsequent burnt sienna, ink and indigo that I'll be piling on the rocks.

The water itself is the blank space, brought to light by the dark contrasting margins.

Tradition, Tradition !

No I am not Tevye.  Isn't Fiddler On The Roof a wonderful piece of work!

In teaching my students about the basics of brush strokes, and Chinese Brush Painting in general, I cannot circumvent some fundamental painting techniques.  To make my case more poignant, I have to fall back on a favorite subject matter, the orchid.  Orchid is touted as one of the 4 "PALS" in Chinese painting, possessing the virtue of lady like elegance and arrogance.

There is a very hierarchical way of depicting orchid.  The insert is a page from my instructional material.

The lower half of the diagram dissects the composition of the orchid leaves.  It has to have a "master" leaf and a "slave" leaf and these two cast a general orientation of the plant.  The "master" and the "slave" leaves must form a "phoenix eye" at the base.  A third leaf ( No. 3 in the diagram) must break out from this "phoenix eye" to dictate the height of the plant.   In other words, if these 3 elements are not arranged in this prescribed fashion, then the painting is a failed one, or the artist has not done his/her homework.  In some ways, such paintings have absolutely nothing that remotely resemble a studio "still life" or an on location plein-air rendition of the plant, but more to do with the discipline of floral design and arrangement.  After all, the painting of orchid can be construed as an euphemistic expression of virtues and beauties.

Such conformity to "Tradition" in a way stifles the advancement of Chinese Brush Painting.  At the very least, it lends to create the impression that Chinese brush paintings seem to copy each other.  This is especially confusing with the influx of mass produced pieces of "art".  Yet if the artist was to be divorced from this tradition, then he/she could be inviting a brow beating and deemed being ignorant of the basics.

My intention here is to neither advocate, nor to destroy the adherence to "rules".  I am just trying to stir up discussion as to what is deemed "correct" or "incorrect", especially for the new enthusiasts in Chinese Brush Painting.  I encourage you to find your own orchids in the library, at your local galleries and research on the net and see for yourself.  Whether chop suey is Chinese food or not depends on your own sophistication.

Xanadu Part 2

I've decided to revise my Xanadu painting a little bit.  I wanted to see if I could make it less "rigid" and perhaps more impressionistic.  I also wanted a wide angle presentation to facilitate a feeling of not being on a leash.

The above picture is my attempt at that goal.  The picture was taken when the Xuan paper was still wet, thus the colors were more saturated.

The next photo shows the same painting with calligraphy on it.  The writing is better than the original Xanadu, but in touching up a tree in the foreground, I made the lines too busy.  Wish I had controlled my OCD

a little better.

O Well.



As the image of hills and streams still churns in my cranium, I very quickly grabbed my brush and used whatever happened to be in my color dish and plotted out a mountainous mass with flowing lines as the liquid companion.  I basked in the initial delight of painting something altogether different, but quickly succumbed to the O Too Bland syndrome.  Found my split hair brush and started to plant my trees here and there, which ruined the "unleashed" feel of the painting.   This need for decoration caused me to write with more distinct edges in my calligraphy.  The resulting fonts perhaps seemed more curvaceous, but appeared to be anorexic.

Life is a process of reincarnating events.  An initial  attempt in painting a tranquil misty coastal forest led me to a chance encounter of a poem that mentioned Xanadu, and now this poem steered me into extracting another painting.  My lament is that quite often I grasp the light bulb alright but I could not make it shine.  I have maintained that a good painting is the amalgamation of a bunch of good accidents.  Yes I am a disciple of fate, and I shall patiently wait my turn.

Xanadu

20 mph sustained easterly wind.  41 mph gusts.  I kept focusing on the pine tree that is listing at a 60 degree angle in my backyard.   The swaying image of the scaly red branches is morphed by the streaks of raindrops running across my window pane ........ as if watching an old VCR tape with noise on the picture.

I decided to paint something a little more tranquil!

Needless to say, trees became my subject.  A forest of tall firs, punctuated by an occasional alder, bathed in a coastal shroud of fog.  An initial groundwork of laying down the tracks of trees proved to be a little too harsh for my imagination.  The body of trees seemed too concrete.  I had loaded my brush with ink in the belly, green around the torso and bits of yellow on the shoulder for that highlight.  As my brush grinds across the paper, the stops became too labored and the result was not "Xieyi" enough.    Perhaps my stops were too uniform, too calculated.  Something needs to be done about it.

I started to layer more colors and hues onto the green ribbons, hoping to mitigate some of the choppiness.

I have also started to paint in the main harness of some of these firs.  I wanted the shape of my brush strokes to suggest a general morphology, and the specific reveal of branches to affirm the recognition.  I've also decided the painting  is too cold, so I warmed up the fog a bit.

The next task is trying to decide what to do with all that empty space.  In my Serene Lake painting I had left the space on purpose...... in fact the whole painting was about empty space and about day dreaming but this piece somehow is not conducive to that task.  I almost went for the old formula of painting a faint peak in the distance.  For sure K2 would look good.    Here I am appealing  to dare to deviate from the prescribed compositions, from the old decoration scheme.

I came upon this poem in my calligraphy class material, and it was written out in the cursive style.  Both the font and the meaning of the poem mesh well with the painting, so I decided to use it.  A rough translation of the poem is
                   The existence of angels is a myth
                   Xanadu ( or Shangri-la, euphemism ) is a farce
                   But do capture the winding waters and mountains
                   And display their beauties for all to admire

Too bad my calligraphy here sucked, and my Xieyi painting seemed too contrived, but look at this as a down payment for something better.
                 

Southpaw

Have you  played Ping-Pong with a lefty and be victimized by the weird english?  Do you think pitching to a left handed hitter is the same as a right-hander?  Why does sinister mean left?  These are interesting questions to mull over.... until you are faced with it.

My former painting teacher once confided in me his frustration with a student.  He could not get the student to use the correct brush strokes, which is the foundation of Chinese brush painting.  It took me almost half an hour to coax my teacher to tell me that this student is left handed.  So what, you ask.

To those of you who have toyed with the Speedball nibs for calligraphy, you would understand that the natural right-handed slant of the pen, plus the nib's plane, makes the fine and thick lines of the alphabet . A left-hander would be unable to scribe these letters without turning the page 90 degrees to align the slant of the strokes with the slant of the nib.
As I ruminated on the implication of that awkward scenario, my first impression was that the brush should be exempt from that.  The brush possesses no rigid plane, thus it is free to script whatever it wants to.  There is nothing farther from the truth than this assumption.  If we take a look at my last blog; at the picture where it showed a transition from center tip to side tip as one writes a "7", this task is done with ease for a right handed person.  The brush would indeed assume a natural right slant, and we would move in the east-west axis to start out with.  For a left-hander, the brush assumes the opposite slant, and would be rubbing against the direction of travel, i.e. reverse tip.  The last blog "Ridgetop Explained" also suggested that the vertical "side tip" contour line describes the thickness of the object and thus for a right handed person, this is accomplished with flowing ease.  For a southpaw however, this is done against the orientation of the brush hair.  For a left-hander to do what we do, this person must turn the wrist completely inwards to cradle the brush, in order to achieve the same brush alignment  and slant  as the right handed person. 

(right handed body segments)

To better illustrate this point, I used the painting of a shrimp as an example.  The body of this arthropod is done with side-tip strokes;  as if drawing a fat arc, with the longer radius to the right. 
When I asked a left handed person to do this, the arc is painted with the opposite curvature, i.e. the longer radius now on the left side, despite the same body orientation.

(left-handed body segments)

I must say that I was ecstatic when I observed this.  It validated my theory, and vindicated the left handed persons.. ....... the teacher was frustrated because he did not understand the mechanics of the hand .. ...the student was frustrated because she was either blamed for not following directions, or was told to turn the paper upside down just to comply.

What is the remedy??  The southpaw should still learn the basics  and be able to execute the different brushstrokes, but also understand that most of the paintings that we take in are done by right handed people, with a right handed bias in their strokes.  My solution of teaching the southpaw is that as we learn from emulating the works of ancient masters, we could flip their works along the vertical axis.  Thus our right becomes their left !!    I am encouraging left handed people to digitally flip the masterpieces, and then learn to paint with the same strokes.  In essence, a center tip stroke that started from the left to right, turning downward and transitioning to a side-tip would now be a center tip stroke from right to left (aligning perfectly with the natural left handed slant), and transitioning to a side-tip down stroke. 

Confusing?  Only for a right-hander.  I think the southpaws know what I am talking about.

Ridgetop Explained

Now that I am done with the Portland Open Studio event and my son's wedding, I have a little more time to write my blogs. Having a student or two to teach has actually taught me a few things. The task at hand now is how to convey in a clear and succinct manner so there is an actual transfer of knowledge. We often harbor a notion, a concept that we somehow intrinsically know, but are unable to verbalize. Since so much emphasis in Chinese brush painting is placed upon Bi-Fa (method of the brush), the "don't do what I say, but do what I do" doctrine becomes an exercise in frustration.

Case in point, when painting rock formations, hilltops, mountain ridges, the beginners often copy the shapes without understanding the structure of the lines. It is not unusual for a range to look like a row of staples or horseshoes. I have sat in on classes where the instructor is unable to convey the concept of "contour" lines.

I am sure most of us have seen and understood what elevation lines represent. When we look at a topography map the elevation lines give us a description of the shape of the land. We know where the ridges and gullies are, and the relative steepness or flatness of the land. In painting a mountain range, we are just tilting the map on its side, so the elevation becomes not the height from the horizontal plane, but the distance to where we stand.

To illustrate my point, I've chiseled out a wooden block into the shape of

a mountain range. Now I have painted the " contour lines " on this block, and these lines describe the shape of the mountain ( as elevation lines describe the heights at different points on the map). When we paint these contour lines in succession, we are in effect transcribing the mountain range.

I have sliced through this block of wood into slabs to illustrate this point.  The more slabs I create, the more information I am able to draw ( i.e. more contour lines ), this is akin to having more "pixels", or watching a 1080p HD program vs. the 480 lines old programming.  The "chuen" lines that I have discussed  in the past i.e. hemp "chuen", is merely a sliver of such a slab; thus showing just a partial contour instead of the entire shape.  Therefore one can use a few strategic contour lines to describe the main shape of the range, and the "chuen" or "texture rubbing" lines to describe the minute details of the topography.

As we paint the lines with the Chinese brush, we are naturally in a "center tip" form as we traverse horizontally on paper, and as we turn the corner onto the vertical lines, the natural angle of inclination puts the brush in a "side-tip" mode automatically.  That part of the line describes "thickness" of the slab that we are painting, thus unknowingly giving a 3 dimensional appearance to what we have painted.

top photo is center tip( tip is aligned with direction of  travel

bottom picture is side-tip (tip is pointed at an angle to direction of travel)

Hopefully these little hints will help us attain a better understanding of Chinese landscape paintings.