Continuing My Journey

So I've been casting glances at my "Journey" painting, the one with the two riders in it.

To say that I didn't like it would be a lie.  I do like it.

 I don't want to label it as being soulful, but it does have that quality of beckoning to your other senses and to explore beyond what is on the paper.  Yet, something was amiss.  I couldn't put a finger on it but I feel the void.  It is like drinking a cup of hot rum cider with a stuffy nose.  You taste the rum alright, but missed the aroma of the hot cider and spice.   When I caught sight of the image on the tube my brain processed it as two travellers on a ride.  What registered was the swath of land and the hazy diffused light.  It could present itself as tranquil, or lost.  The travellers might be taking in the scenery, or just enduring.  Who knows.  

I have to zoom out my lens, and see if I could capture the rest of the vibes.

Why not change the orientation to portrait.

I positioned the river bend at the extreme bottom of the paper, and the sky opened up in a dramatic way.  Now I could immerse in the picture.

 The immense sky was featureless.  It could use some embellishing.  Cirrus clouds, anvil head clouds, flock of birds, high noon are possibilities.  I settled on a mountain peak.

With this format in mind, I embarked on my own journey again, this time to do the painting in a portrait orientation.

I tried to avoid harsh outlines since the overall mood is one of dust and haze.  I needed the distal end of the river to be blended in with the background.   I painted a rider with really loose definition and
rather diffused brushstrokes, trying hard to just evoke a perception, rather than describing  a discrete object.

Unfortunately I failed to eschew old habits and re-defined my riders with added brushstrokes and rendered them too "solid".  Ah, that is another story.

I decided to show 2 reflections in water this time, one for each rider..

Again these reflections were painted on the back of the paper, as the top layer of the paper fiber worked to add that haze filter effect.

For that sepia look I summoned the help of coffee.  Yes, plain old coffee.  No sugar, no cream.
This natural pigment (if  you want to call it as such) has no gum or binder in it, thus it would not fix to the paper fibers.  Any subsequent attempt to rework an area introduced a new wash basin and gradient for the coffee to migrate, and gathered along the edge of the wet area, drying to a interesting stain mark.  I happen to love this effect.  I thought this is coolest way to elucidate a feature with ambiguous contour, in this case , the reflection of river bank in the water.

This pooling and migrating and concentrating of the coffee helped to create cloud like features in the sky.  I left a cone-shaped void to hint the presence of a snow covered peak. 

 

 

 

That distant mountain top helped to seal the perspective of this unforgiving landscape, making the journey of the intrepid riders more daunting.

Embarking On A Journey

I was tired after power-washing my sidewalk.  My fingers were numb from clutching onto the spray gun trigger for hours. I spread myself out on the sofa, turned on the tube and somehow dozed off.  Drifting in and out of my dream state, I glimpsed at an image on the tube, just long enough to register that as a couple of horseback riders trotting by a river.

A river bank, two riders, landscape and sky merge into non-distinction.  I have my main characters and the setting.  What was my motivation?  How about interpreting 2 intrepid travellers enduring the relentless bleakness?

I proceeded to position the riders on a curving river bank, at least that was how I recalled the frame.
The void provided by the river contrasted with  the vast expanse of land right above it.  The curve provided a sense of movement, whereas the two riders assumed the more sedentary role.  No I was not confused,  that's just how I perceived the arrangement.  It was contrary to what one might think.

I wanted to add a little intrigue by painting in the reflection of a rider in the water. I used ink to tell this story.  I was really interested in seeing how everything evolved from my serendipitous glance, so I wanted to keep things simple for my framework.

The attention grabbing features were the rounding banks, which defined the main stage.  Horizontal lines gave notion of the vast expanse of real estate, dissolving into the sky.  The paper that I chose was the semi-sized Xuan.  I chose it for its translucent appearance, and that it is easier to push the brushstrokes, allowing excess water from the brush to do its thing; forming interesting edges.
In this case the margin of the reflection in the water resembles indistinguishable vegetation.

Having established this framework, one which looked interesting for me, I forged ahead to paint something with a little more detail in it.

I incorporated light burnt sienna into the color palette.  I thought it worked well within my scheme of events.  I thought it portrayed bleakness without being too cold.  I moved the right bank up from the bottom to allow a more distinct impression of the river rounding the bend, thereby creating more movement in my composition.  I tried to create a sense of the horses kicking up dust as the riders travelled, now adding movement to the originally sedentary figures.

I took advantage of the translucent property of the paper by painting the reflection of a rider on the back of the paper and allow the image to come through the front side.  The effect was visually stunning  when looking at the real painting.  The un-brushed surface worked like a semi-transparent veil.  The reflected silhouette seemed vague and real at the same time.    Perhaps I had trained myself to look for this manifestation, to the point that I became hyper-sensitive to it, thus making a big deal of this trick!  Simply delicious!

I added a little dash of blue-green to the sky and the water for the ominous effect, while leaving a patch of void in the center to expand the distance perspective.

It's time again to pin this up and do a more elaborate perusal.

When Is It Too Much Information

The classical Chinese garden in town asked for permission to use my rams painting for promotional purpose.  Obviously that was a feather in my hat, a shot in my arm.

I had done Chinese Brush demonstration for them in the past, so I dug up some of the drafts I did then.  The pavilion always interests me, so I shall do another one.

I really went to town with this one.

I was painting in a lot of details  Defined boulders at the pond's edge, well dressed Taihu stone, trees, shrubs, you name it.

I gave the darkest ink tone to the my main character, the pavilion.  The leaves that grew over the pavilion tiles and the lighter ink tone tiles in the back helped to describe distance.  I even employed a photography trick by painting in dabs of diffused ink on the right, not only to frame the scene but the out-of-focus look pushed the painting further back.

I tried to circumvent the busy content by employing a very simple color scheme, and I was selective in which objects to color.  All the while looking for complement and contrast.

At this point the painting still had that raw appearance and was begging for a finishing touch.
I thus painted in the reflections and shaded in the covered corridors in the background.

It is interesting to compare this work with my previous attempts.

My first attempt turned out to be the most vivacious, I mused.   I was driven by a notion and I tried to bring it out with my brush.  It had that unadulterated innocence. Simple brushstrokes described the pavilion roof ribs, tiles, boulders, Taihu stone etc.  The audience was given a lot of freedom to conjure up whatever they wanted to see or feel.

My second trial had a lot more information.  The roof tiles were painted in. There were a lot more lines to depict the boulders, the Taihu stone and I was even trying to line the leak window in the covered breezeway!   Instead of nurturing a notion, I was trying to reinvent a painting.

My urge to give full accounting of the scene drowned me out.  I wandered further away from what inspired me in the first place and got caught up by the nitty-gritty.  I seem to recall reading somewhere that Chinese Brush is sparse in details, lines and outlines are used to shape images with little shading or reference to light values.

Whereas I am not necessary pedantic with regards to the "doctrines" of Chinese Brush; whereas I am totalling accepting the Western influence and believe in the evolution of the Chinese Brush art form in today's environment, I sometime wonder if I drank the kool aid.

 Perhaps I paid too much attention to the photograph that I took of this place.  Don't blame the kool aid.

Banal not; Unremarkable, yes.

I had a chance to submit my Banal Fail  piece for critique by an art professor.  I was surprised by the comments.

As I mentioned I was particularly fond of the way I was able to "stop" the bleeding of color in its track.  I allowed the bleeding to form streaks on this semi-sized Xuan and before the streaks could homogenize I used a hair blow-dryer to dry them.  To me it was like going back to the dark-room days when one pulls the print from the developer tray into the acetic acid stop bath.

 

I thought I was so resourceful.

I fretted over whether to paint birds into this landscape.  When I gave in and painted in the migrating geese I thought it was cliche.

It turned out that the professor did not like my treatment of the streaks at all.  "Contrived" was the comment.  I was feverishly defending myself.  I was trying to hint the presence of trees without making them too real. 

I  urged to express the presence without making it so mechanical.  The bleeding streaks intimated themselves as an afterthought, as evidenced by the layering, rather than as a natural occurrence.  The birds fit in fine and were not ostentatious in this particular case. That was the professor's adjudication.

I wanted to say one man's meat is another man's poison but then something else hit me.   I was too immersed in the technical trickery that I forgot about the overall ambiance of the painting..  What I deemed a monument became a boulder.

As a painting, it was unremarkable.  As an etude, why not.  I still like it.

Works By High School Students

The little jaunt to a local high school to teach students how to paint with a Chinese brush was a huge success.

The kids were Juniors enrolled in the Mandarin class at this high school.  We had about 15 participants and most of them had not held a Chinese brush before.  I showed them the steps in painting a ram, as detailed in my last blog "Rehearsal" and here are the results. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The paintings were done on red construction paper for 2 reasons. 

 

Xuan might cause the ink to bleed too much, especially for a novice and construction paper should fare better in this regard.  The other reason, a major reason, is that the white native color of Xuan is to be avoided when painting New Year's decoration.    White is associated with funerals and only red should be used in joyous festivities.  The distinction here is that we were embarking on making New Year's charms rather than pursuing a piece of artwork per se.

 

Interesting to note that the student of the first painting was distraught that the ink bled too much and the eyes were obscured.  So I pointed out to him that in the Xieyi style of brush painting that might not be a bad thing.  If anything, the bleeding was more expressive, and allowed the audience to form their own interpretation of the eye orbits.

 

Also of interest is the second to last painting, where the student pinned a foot long tail to the ram.  That anatomical feature is incorrect and was not present in my demo piece.  This illustrates an interesting dilemma.  Should we paint what we imagined, or paint what we see.  In her case, she subscribed to the notion that animals should have a tail.

 

Finally the last image was by a "perfectionist".  When the other students had finished painting and was attempting calligraphy, she was still trying her fourth or fifth attempt, frustrated.  I showed her how to slant  the brush down such that she could use the belly and the tip to effect a shape, rather than just using the tip alone to form her painting.  She was able to put that into practice as evidenced by the ear.  Her lines showed good modulation too.

 

It definitely was a satisfying experience for me.  My only regret was I did not take pictures of all the works.  I lost track of which works I had documented.

 





 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year, Year of the Ram

                                                                   
                                                                       Happy New Year
                                                                        
                                                                        Year of the Ram



                                             

Rehearsal

It's almost Chinese New Year.  February 19 is just around the corner.

I painted a horse last year to welcome the year of the horse.  The guest of honor this year is the ram.

I've been entertaining the thought of doing a painting for a ram.  This is not a subject that I've painted before so it would be fresh.  Luck would have it that I've been invited to do a couple of painting demos for school children, to honor Chinese New Year.  I'll have added incentive now to research my subject and embark on  the painting, except the stakes are  higher now.   I have to actually show that I could paint.

I seemed to have developed an affinity for phthalocyanine Blue.  That was the first color I reached for.  I sketched out a couple of rams in my scrapbook.

My emphasis will be on the posture.  The way the ram holds the head defines the painting.  However, I don't want to skim over the details of the facial features.  Perhaps I could paint a ram with attitude, if somehow I can grasp the expressions.

This is where I was having tons of problems.  Was I painting dogs.


How did the saying go; if you never made a mistake, then you've never tried.  After my incessant
giggling stopped, I began to analyse my mistakes.

The snout was too pointed.  I needed to make it thicker.

Time to get down to basics.  Stop being a cowboy.  I actually started to identify the components of a ram's snout.  I was sketching with a mission now.  The way I work around the problem was by creating a cylinder for the snout.  I could therefore control the diameter of the cylinder and made sure it didn't turn into a cone!

I also reached back to my high school days, when I was sketching animal skulls.  I do remember the strong  mandibles of  herbivores so their molars could grind up the grass they eat.

Feeling a little more reassured, I tried my sketching again.

I decided to break down the painting process into discrete steps.  Normally I am dead set against it.
I've met too many students and colleagues who would shy away from painting something just because they've never "learned" how to paint it.  I believe the fault lies in the system of rote learning.
We were taught to paint by memory, and not by observation.  It is my assertion that all these "How to Paint" books actually do more harm than good.  We become limited to, and by, these so called steps and this explains why most Chinese brush paintings look alike.

I suppose this is not the time to stay on my high horse.  I need to show high school kids how to paint a ram with a Chinese brush, within an allotted time frame.  Breaking the ram painting into discrete steps is the only way to get through it.

I would start out by painting the nose and the lips (steps 1 and 2).  This is followed by the 2 circles forming the two ends of the cylinder, or snout (steps 3 and 4).  Then we paint in the eyes, ears and the horns, and they all contribute to the spirit of the animal.  Finally how the ram carries itself, i.e. the neck and the limbs, speaks to the body language of the animal. 

It's time to make it bold.  I (the ram) mean business.

Banal Fail

I looked at my bastardized piece for a few days and I really didn't like that son of gun too much.
Since I couldn't possibly do anything more to hurt it, I whipped out my brush and started to paint in a flock of geese.  Migrating Canada Geese.

I was wrong.  I could make the painting worse. 

The painting now looked even more constrained, and trite !  It actually looked more like a snapshot than a painting.  Although I did not paint this from a picture, I still think it is a valid illustration of why one should never paint from a photograph.

I had to loosen up the painting somewhat.  Again I resorted to the titanium white.  I selectively blocked out some of the birds and a few valleys to take away some of the uniformity.   All these white-out moves unfortunately went against the grain of Chinese Brush methods.   I might as well be doing oil or watercolor.  The only thing Chinese about this piece was the calligraphic brush strokes of the geese; at least I tried.

I think I was able to loosen up the painting a little, but the caveat is it is still cliche.

Bastardization

While still locked in the mode of describing those distant hills I saw while driving on the freeway, and having crusted wells of Prussian Blue along with Phthalocyanine Blue left over from the punting painting to consume, I decided to paint more hills.

The reminder I jotted for myself was simple; a dramatic fore/aft gradient and a  transition from warm to cold as the distance mounts.

Again I used the sized Xuan, keying on its tolerance to color moving and building.

After the color had dried, the painting looked very soupy. I must confess the thought of painting a dreamy landscape did cross my mind.  Perhaps not as featureless as my Glimpse painting, but nonetheless fluid.   But the rolling hills were too representational; I could not escape the realism.  The painting was begging for better definition.

Ahh, the foreground is better defined.  I also rearranged the contour lines a little.  They look less haphazard now.

I liked the way my color was bleeding from the brushstroke and I wanted to preserve those little tendrils before they are absorbed into the background. They resemble tree trunks poking out in the haze.

My hair blow-dryer came to the rescue.

The sized Xuan had a pinkish tint to it, especially against this blue theme.  My hills in the background could use a little toning down also.  I debated hard about using titanium white for this purpose.
I was taught by my first teachers to never use titanium white in landscape paintings.  Streams and rivers and clouds and mist are just virgin real estate on the paper.  I should never consider titanium white as a color.  The only exceptions were when mixing with other color to paint flower petals for example; especially the two-toned ones.  How dare I entertain such evil thoughts; first by using a hair blow-dryer, and now using white to mask colors? 

I am bastardizing the painting.

Time to say my Rosary and beg for forgiveness.  I had only good intentions.  I just wanted to experiment.

Now I shall be at peace with myself and see if I should commit the next cardinal sin of painting a flock of geese over this landscape.

A Glimpse

Every time I drove on the freeway I couldn't help but be fixated at the distant hills.

With the fog, the rain, and the decreasing daylight, the details on the hills were trying their best to be revealed.  It was just a silhouette a moment ago, but serendipitously pupils dilated and my rods and cones sprang into action, and my visual cortex interpolated the shadow into features and details.  I suppose this is how I would define soul.

I could see the branches and leaves floating in the swirl of  darkness, shrouded in haze, against a clearing in this otherwise featureless veil.  I was having tunnel vision.

I began by recalling the tree branches and the hilltop.  I used dots instead of discrete lines to denote the pixels.  I was trying to make them discreet.

I attempted many layers of different colors, hoping for a well blended body with hints and punctuations of amorphous features.

For my color, I used dabs of gamboge, phthalacyanine blue and ink and I sat them on different edges on my plate.  I did this so that I could freely mix those 3 in any combinations and obtained a continuum of colors.  This is almost like a living color chart, continually evolving and changing depending on my mood.   The technique could be used most effectively on a small scale; to be used extemporaneously.   I wouldn't do it if I needed a large quantity of a given color.

I then began to paint in the veil of darkness. 

I was trying to achieve the effect of extreme vignetting, with most of the 4 corners darkened.  This is where I lost my resiliency.  Perhaps I've spent all my patience building up all the pixels for the hilltop!  I felt the urge to hurry.

I did not take steps to build up my haze.  I miscalculated the wet Xuan.  I over compensated for the eventual saturation of the ink.  I was getting streaks instead of a haze.  These must be the wrinkles in the veil that I failed to see.

After copious dousing with my brush wash, I was able to hide the flaws and render them less obtrusive.

I started out by painting a well defined scene that I recalled but as the process went on I found my focal point changing.  As I became more involved with the painting, my desire to reveal concrete objects became a backstage  to portray a certain feeling.  I was drawn in more and more by that yearning for a bright spot in this desolate landscape.  For all I care it could be ET parting the dark sky and motioning for me to come home.  I felt a strong urge to hide the physicality of the painting and just go for the guts, literally.  I showed my painting to my acquaintances and almost all were trying to find the representational aspects.  Were you painting a sea?  You were painting reflections in water!

I suppose I succeeded in confusing my audience, yet I failed to deliver the basic sentiments. Would it help after make it wear the label " A Glimpse"?

Continuing to act out

Fueled by the recent attempts to romanticize  lotus root harvesters, I re-examined the martial art figure paintings that are pinned on my walls.  I now wanted to create a series of figures.  Not in the vein of the hazy silhouettes of the long-polers, but more like a staged presentation, a group exercise.

Strike the iron while it's hot.

I was trying to avoid the flat line arrangement  by grouping my figures in a semi-circle. Using various clothing combination and shades of  black to break up a otherwise monotonous composition.  I even threw in a female figure in the center for good measure!  She looked almost like a man suffering from gynecomastia, with a horse tail hairdo pinned on.

I don't dislike the painting.  I thought I was able to parlez a sense of movement.  A sense of energy.
Then I realized that my proportions were out of whack.  The figure on the left had too big of a torso, the man next to him looked weird.

My figures didn't carry any hidden symbolism, as the right hand of David purported to. I've seen sketches by fashion designers that really accentuated the waist, the bust, or the limbs.  Was I subconsciously exaggerating particular scales to emphasize certain gestures?   Perhaps.

So I decided to rein in my imagination a little by trying another set of martial art forms.    These new figures were a lot smaller.   By working on a smaller sample, I felt the inevitable urge to be a little more precise, even at the expense of being too logical. 

The arms on the third man from the left was still too long.   But I really liked those long flowing lines.  Such grace.

So what should it be.  How should it be.  Am I allowed certain latitude when painting human forms  or do I have to demonstrate my knowledge in anatomy in order to paint human figures?  In traditional Chinese figure painting, the images were all flat, devoid of any semblance of a three dimensional projection, devoid of any shading.  Does the fact that I am using a Chinese brush on Xuan mean that I have to paint in the traditional style to merit the resulting work? 

Food for thought.

At the end of the day, I am painting for my own amusement.  Yet painting involves exposing myself a little; taking emotional stock,  and I can't do that in a vacuum.  I do react to people's feedback, I'm not immune to that.   I do believe, however, that if a painting moves me, it has to move someone, somewhere.

Push Pole Brigade ( Brushed Line version)

While still digesting the last painting, I decided to do another version, with more emphasis on lines.

For this I used a paper that is normally reserved for calligraphy. I had not used this particular brand before but I was game.  This paper has a slight yellowish tint to it although one can't tell from the picture.

I had intended to go on, but somehow the void on the right stopped me.  I thought it was interesting.  I just wasn't sure where the focal point should be. 

Let me ruminate on that.

I decided to jazz up the dark values such that the audience is drawn deeper into the painting.  I also filled in the background with more shadows; semblance of more figures.  Nothing too drastic, but now I can sense where the punch is coming from.

Push Pole Brigade (Punting for Lotus Root)

Happy New Year !

I was lounging around and caught a documentary on lotus root harvesters.  That is a job I could never do.  There were times that I had to put on my waders to repair the banks along the creek behind my house and I was totally exhausted in 5 minutes trying to free my feet from the mud.

I was impressed with how poetic it seemed; heading out in the waking morning, traversing the waterways to the lotus pond, pushing off the long poles to propel the sampans, gliding.

I suppose it would be poetic only if one ignores the imminent hard labor.  Still I pretend to be in the company of fellow harvesters, forming a queue, pushing off, anticipating the bounty, day dreaming a little in the early dawn mist.


I chose to use a rather dark Prussian Blue/Ink combination.  I thought ink alone would be too subdued.  I would use different tones to expand the spatial relationship's.  I wanted to present the objects against the light, for a silhouette effect, and using the different orientations of the long poles to add interest and direct attention.

I brushed on some darker color onto the closest subject, for a better contrast.  Using a clean brush and clean water I moistened a thin margin around the outline so the color/ink would migrate out a little.  This was done to avoid a harsh outline presented by the overwhelming dark patch.

The alteration added drama to the first edition.

Lets all forge ahead and make this a successful new year!

Tree Grooming

I dug up an old, unfinished painting of 3 trees.  My last painting exercise made me do it.

The crown of the main tree is filled in to make it look fuller.  The main trunks are painted over with a really rich ink that I found.  Giving the tree added dimension and a cogent presence.   This added "blackness" contrasts very nicely with the lighter strokes, and plays up the thin white margins left by the alum solution.


The cluster on the right side of the painting was actually painted on the back of the paper.  Ink was allowed to bleed through, forming a somewhat blurry and washed out image.

I used my brush wash to selectively douse some branch clusters, forming shadows and adding to the three dimensional presentation.

Just realized that I started out the year with this tree.  I suppose it is fitting to end the year with it too.