View from Woman's Forum State Park

This is the finished piece of the sketch from the last paint out. Let me begin by saying that I don't like the painting as a whole. I can't quite put my finger on it. Perhaps the frame needs to be wider to capture the grandiose feel of the Columbia River Gorge, ala a wide angle view. I was trying to make the foreground darker and present the effect of looking into brighter skies to show the depth and I failed miserably. It all has to do with my bad habit of laying down too heavy a stain to begin with. Patience is a virtue I must learn. The overall effect of the painting looks "dirty", the lines were not deliberate enough. I guess I have gone over these lines one too many times !!

But aside from that, let us look at other merits of the painting.

The cliff rocks showed up quite nicely with that 3-D effect. This was helped by the dark and dense vegetation around the rock formations. The branches and leaves on the fir were done with an old brush that had lost its point, and is perfect for this "split brush" technique. I had to go over the green parts quite a few times to give it the required color saturation, so that we know these are objects in the foreground.

The mist not only softened the harsh hill lines laid down initially, but it helped to create the meandering effect of the river. The gorge itself is very wide, but such a wide body of water would make the painting less interesting. Depth is achieved by the detailed depiction of the cliffs and the saturated color of the trees, contrasted by the lack of details on the distant hills.

I have moved the protruding rocky formation in the distance to the middle of the painting and made it darker so that it would give us a distant focal point to look at. I decided that the body of water was too bland, so a few sail boats/wind surfers were in order.

Chinese Brush Painting embodies the philosophy of the Ying and Yang, and in the Chinese lingo, it is coined the "Shu" and "Mi". "Shu" means vague, empty, light" and "Mi" means solid, heavy and real. In short, it demands contrast; the solid and real versus the vague and emptiness. The artist is judged not only by his/her skills in the brush strokes ( brush line and point quality, as in calligraphy), but also by how he/she manages the opposing forces, the dark/light, hard/soft, tall/short, motion/stillness etc. This sounds like mumbo jumbo to the un-initiated, but it is after all, a philosophy, a discipline.

Landscape paintings perhaps do not demand strict adherence to this philosophy as floral/birds paintings do, but somehow the artist still has to manifest it; if not in the whole painting, at least in each sub-groups of artifacts. Thus the distant rocky formation is darker than its surroundings, albeit a distance away and should be lighter. The two trees in the original draft now numbers 3 !! A third, faintly visible tree is added to balance the "Mi" with the "Shu". So within that group of 3 trees, there is a relationship, a differentiation of solid vs vague. The brush marks on the bottom of the trees are left not filled in, to contrast with the colored vegetation on the right. So, are the trees the on the same level of brush marks, or are they on a slope beyond the brush marks??

This is for you to figure out, or is this really important ?!

EXPLOITS

Today I need to vent. Sorry, nothing about paintings here. Thank you for your indulgence.

I am incensed about what happened to me the last couple of days, but perhaps I am more infuriated by how people "PRETEND" their "INTENT", and hide their personal agenda under the buzz word "HUMANITY"

The founder of Coloredpencils was calling for artworks for Midland county clinic ( clinic that serves refugees and immigrants of Oregon) to buy. This founder needed digital images of 3 art works, priced very attractively as the Clinic had only limited funds to procure art works. These images should be accompanied by the artist's bio, photo, price and size.

I submitted my works as per request and received the following e-mail. The founder needed my ethnic background and family history. Went on to say that the works will be displayed in clinics that served mostly immigrants/refugees community and that "WE" must make connection somehow here.

I can understand the desire to have certain genre of work to appeal to a specific audience, but I do not understand the need for me to reveal my family history. So my answer was that I am Asian and I do not share my family history with strangers. I further stated that art itself carries a voice, which transcends all racial barriers. Art is a medium where the artist can bare his/her soul. Any attempts to pigeon hole an artist on racial grounds is not acceptable. I therefore would not be part of this propaganda and withdrew my bid for the Midland Clinic.

For this I received the following response:

"by letting newcomers know a little of you we showed them that it wasn't bad to have to immigrate here.......We want to show them that many of us, our grandparents, and parents are adjusting and doing well. We want patience ( SIC) from afar to feel at home and inspired by many whom(SIC) arrived and thrived. We handpicked the most talent (SIC) artists and we used art that familiar(SIC) from home by our own people (not white American who try to do our native art) to heal patiences' (SIC) hearts while the doctors care for their bodies. Thank you for submitting your amazing art work. We regret that you no longer wish to be part of this humanity work."

How noble a mission ! So these refugees must look at their own people's arts to feel at home.
Should we have arts from Thailand, Vietnam, Burma, Laos, Philippines, Russia, etc etc to shore up the Clinic? I certainly did not know that selling art works to these clinics is considered " humanity work."

As an immigrant myself, I loathe the idea of these condescending attitudes. This new shore is about new opportunities, new surroundings and an opportunity to acquire new knowledge. Whereas I shall seek my own comforts and familiarity I'll do it on my own terms. I especially do not need these faux do-gooders to help me, all the while fulfilling their own agenda, camouflaging their own shortcomings. These are your closet racists; snakes in the grass.

An interesting side note, the solicitation was facilitated by an Asian Art Association for which I am a member . Incidentally, we have several "White Americans" in our club. Had any of these "White Americans" submitted their works, would that be an automatic rejection?  Think about the implications!

Paint Out at Woman's Forum State Park

At the location paint out, I was demonstrating how I do my drafts with ink.

The points that I emphasized were that we did not have to paint everything we see in the frame, and conversely we could add objects to the frame, as per our mantra gather what you see, note what you know and paint what you like. In this sketch the trees on the left were borrowed from another frame, and the rocky cliffs were presented at a different angle from the real scenery.
I wanted the trees to frame the left side of the painting, and I wanted to
give more weight to the rocky cliffs. My drafts were to be done with medium light ink, but for the purpose of demonstrating, my lines were way too dark. I painted in the rocky surface to show the group how to render a 3 dimensional feel using the Chinese brush, and how to lay down contour lines. I did the trees this way because I was trying very hard to steer the group away from painting fine needles on the firs, as was usually done in class. My mission was to show the group what Xieyi style painting was about....( paint the meaning/feeling), so we could dispense with a lot of details. The distant ranges were all done too heavily...but that was good too, gave me an opportunity to show how to amend an otherwise failed painting.


Traditional Chinese Brush Painting does not place too much emphasis on
light values, and here is how I differ.
I use shading to augment the "chun"
I rendered on the cliffs to give it that 3-D look. I wanted to leave the tree trunk and the cliffs light to create perspective.
The "way too heavy" lines were remedied by painting in mist using the wet wash technique. I've lengthened the small flanking tree a little bit. Notice the upper trunk is not done with solid lines. They were done in an interrupted fashion, and yet one could clearly make the visual perception of the trunk. It is important because the smaller tree is farther away, and clear solid lines would not have shown distance between the two trees. This "broken line" technique is very important in Chinese Brush painting, and is considered one of the virtues of this art form. This is what Chinese meant by " broken lines, connected meaning/images"

One thing I needed to point out is that the addition of color helps to integrate the painting, but color itself cannot cover up flaws. In all my paintings, coloring is the last step; after all the contour lines, "chun" lines and shading is completed.

I shall go over more in the next posting with the finished painting

Renee's Watercolor Works

As I had mentioned in my last blog, our on site paint-out was hosted by Renee Lin, a fellow art club member and an accomplished water color artist. She has travelled all over the world to paint, and is currenty enjoying her solo exhibition sponsored by the Beaverton Arts Commission.

Renee is kind enough to give her consent to allow me to post her plein-air sketch on location that day.

Readers of my blog can now appreciate the 2 different art forms;
i.e. water color and Chinese Brush Painting, albeit with slightly different subject matters.


I also found another piece of Renee's work on
snow. Her painting was done in 2004. Again, I thank Renee for letting me post it here.
Readers can go back to my blog on Snow Scene and see the different effect rendered by my
ancient secret solution!!

Crystal Springs Pond

I've taken a little hiatus the last 2 months. I had to cover for vacations, plus I took a vacation also, visiting places like the Bryce Canyon, the Grand Canyon, the California Red Woods and the Oregon Vortex.
Come October I shall have the Portland Open Studios event, which means I better get busy and get some works ready for the show.
In July our little art club did an off location paint out at the Crystal
Springs in the Rhododendron Garden. One of our members is an accomplished water color artist, and she was showing us her craft. I am hoping to get her painting of that day and post it here. Hopefully this will happen in the near future.
Right now, I just want to share with you my rendition of the site. I am taught 3 mantras for on location painting: 1. Gather what you see 2. note what you know 3. create what you like. What that means is that if you just paint exactly what is in your view, then you might as well take a picture with your camera. You need to compile all the different surroundings, views from different angles ( note what you know) and re-arrange the different elements into a cohesive painting of interest.
Here I was captivated by the low hanging branches of a tree, forming almost like a canopy of an amphitheater. There were lots of ducks frolicking, but they were not at the location that I had preferred. So I decided to fit various groups of ducks into this amphitheater and showcase their activities. I had all the branches swaying to the left with the longest branches to the left, to create motion; thus the canopy is heavy but not suffocating. The center pair of ducks were chasing and evading, to contrast with the others who were being nonchalant. The one on the right was made to be a female, with light brown color to contrast with the bright green necks of the male. Instead of painting in the true color of the leaves and reeds I chose to adorn the painting with a warm brownish hue. The tunnel vision like bright center helps to focus on the subject matter and to create energy. One thing I don't like about this painting is the water.... it looks awkward to me now. I wish I had kept it simple, without the crisscrossing crests.

The branches are done in the "double outline" fashion in the Chinese Brush Painting doctrine. The outlines were further emphasized with ink and Burnt Sienna.
Foliage on the branches were given different shades of brown and yellow to create clumps of leaves, following the morphology of the branches.
I could not decide on whether to paint the lower left duck male or female, so the plumage on that duck was somewhere in-between. Oh well!
The color of the rock and the duck which sits on it was left pale to denote foreground.


The branches are now augmented with side branches to make it look full. Otherwise the tree would not look natural.

The water reeds gets several build-ups of body., all the while leaving gaps and empty spaces to show reflected light.




The painting starts out with basic skeleton of the tree canopy, the reeds and the position of the ducks.

Note in subsequent steps my attempts to create motion and serenity at the same time, by selecting a warm temperature and a narrow range of hues., coupled with light value control

SNOW SCENE

I am having so much fun with my

Ancient Chinese Secret Solution that I am itching to try different things with it, especially when given the proper provocation. The opportunity came when I was shown how to use the alum solution to paint. I did not agree with the application of the technique, nor did I like the paintings, so I've been experimenting some more on my own.

I used straight alum solution. There are a couple of things that I am doing differently this time. Number one, I am painting on the back side of the paper first. Number two, I am mixing ink and color to the alum solution for subsequent detail work to create the layered effect.

So I started with the snow on the trees. Turning the Xuan paper over, start laying down the alum solution where the snow is. Of course I have to have an image of the trees first. While the patches are still wet and can be easily spotted ( unlike the ones I did on the Speedboat painting), I started to layer over different ink tones ( mixed with the alum solution). When these are close to being dry, I turn the Xuan paper over to the proper side, and lay down alum solution with blue (or ink) for detail work. The snow on the ground is done with big fat brush, side tip fashion. I did the water with dark ink to bring out the contrast and make the snow stand out more. Again, the final touch is to use my brush washing water as a wash for the entire piece. Sure it dulled the snow somewhat, but I think it added that intangible dreaminess to the work. What do you think?

MY SOAP BOX

Recently I had a chance to do a bit of Chinese Brush Painting demo at a trade show. The audience is obviously polite and enthusiastic, but the most frequent observation, before I started my demo, is that " Oh you do water color". In submitting work for juried events, the pigeon holes are whether you do acrylic, oil, mixed media or water color. Whereas these are the western ways of categorizing based on the medium one uses, the Chinese Brush Painting often separates the medium to water/ink or ink/color, and whether it's on Xuan or silk.  The ink and water plays off the intricacies of ink tones and the techniques in arriving at those tonal varieties. The terms splash ink, break ink, building ink are all techniques that we study, and appreciate and can be readily identified in an artwork.  Chinese have a saying that ink should have 5 colors.  Ink and color involves using both ink and color pigments.

Then we have the different genres of painting, i.e. figure, flower/bird, landscape. Within these categories, there is the distinction of Gongbi (precise, tidy style) and the Xieyi (brush strokes with expression) styles. The works that I do are all Xieyi style paintings.

I am not a "water color" artist and I am certainly not qualified to discuss water color techniques. But once "water color" is mentioned, then all the principals of western art applies, i.e. color wheel, light values, composition, "pigment sedimentation"?? comes into play. Whereas in my learning of painting with Chinese Brush, the craftsmanship, i.e. the use of the brush, assumes utmost importance. The characteristic of the lines, whether it is continuous, broken, moist, dry, straight tip, side tip, the different dotting techniques, and "chuen" techniques, all seem to play a more important role than what "medium" one works with. I am certainly not down playing the importance of the medium; after all, we do have a variety of pigments, papers, brushes for different thematic subject matters, and even different inks for painting or calligraphy.

I am using an analogy of comparing the same music played with different instruments. The melody is exactly the same, and most people do enjoy music, but it requires intimate knowledge of the musical instrument for one to truly appreciate the differences. If the listener knows nothing about string instruments, then techniques such as vibrato, pizzicato,harmonics would mean absolutely nothing. This person would not appreciate the need of playing with finger position vs. playing on an open string.

I am not trying to be a snob here, but for a person to appreciate Chinese Brush Painting as an art form, one should be equipped with discerning knowledge and not assumptions. If I might use music to illustrate my point again, there is a famous Chinese violin concerto with the title "Butterfly Lovers Violin Concerto" and obviously it was written for Violins. Well the same piece has been adapted for performance with Erhu, a Chinese two-stringed bowed instrument, and the effects are very different, albeit the same music. It is the instrument, Violin vs. Erhu, Chinese Brush vs. ??, that makes the difference, and to equate Chinese Brush Painting with water color is a mistake.

I fervently hope that for those of us who are new to Chinese Brush Painting would stop looking at the art form as "water color". It is about the calligraphic brush strokes and how to appreciate them, and not about tribalism as some might counter.

Okay, I feel much better now.