Serene Lake

This is one of those projects that took me a long time to finish.

In my mind I wanted to paint something serene, peaceful; something to day dream with.

I know I wanted to use a very simple color scheme. I do not want a palette of colors to distract from the feeling of the painting. I want it to be vast, something that can fully occupy one's visual field, such that one can be totally immersed. The only thing I did not know was what to paint!

In a way, that might be a valid way to proceed. The abstract thought of the work superseded the physical entity, and painting is just the process when the artist translates that thought onto a medium.

I finally settled on water. I must confess I am fascinated by water, and yet I am very much afraid of it. When I look at a body of water, I feel its presence, its inertia and its infinity. In this painting, I wanted to capture the feeling of being there, with a sense of peacefulness, with a underlying yearning to explore, to anticipate.

I know that the "void space" will take up the majority of the space. It is however, through this "void space" that I must communicate. I shall therefore summon the help of the shore line as the white lines on a black top. I put the shoreline one-thirds way across the paper, vaguely remembering the rule of thirds from my school days. I faded out the landscape from right to left, directing the observer's attention to the yonder. To add interest on the landscape itself, openings in the trees were made, to admit light from the other side to come through. This little window of illumination helps to play out the dance of the reflections. I thought it added tremendously to the life of the painting, without being so loud that it disrupted the tranquility.

The boats in the water are there to create perspective. The five dots on the left of the horizon represents boats so faraway that you can barely see them, thus helping to create the vast spread of the water. I had originally deployed only 7 vessels but my Chinese roots tell me that even numbers are preferred, thus one more dab of the brush makes a total of 8 vessels. Hm, interesting!

I had wanted to paint in some flocks of birds but decided against it. Too "formulary", and disruptive, I thought.
Alright, I am now on the water, and ready to traverse this lake, and let my mind drift.
After the completion of the painting, I wanted to mount it on canvas and not on tradition Xuan paper. Wow, I had no idea about the difficulties that I would encounter. With the help of my good friend Sandy, we embarked on this mounting project. Several hours into this, it was one disaster after another. Too wet, too dry, paper was not lined up properly (this painting is 4 feet long, not very forgiving about misalignment), too many air pockets, too many wrinkles. Sandy and I literally waited for the mounting to become dry so we can see the final product. We now know what "watching the paint dry" means. After all is said and done, we were very pleased with the result. The 4 foot wide piece of Xuan paper on canvas looked and felt right. Awesome !

But alas, several days after it was hung in my studio, the whole piece started to warp really
badly. The shrinking process in mounting exerted uneven forces on the canvas frame and is pulling a warp that you can't believe. My remedy was to shell out for a custom frame to beef up the canvas frame. Ouch! But now it really looks like a piece of art work.

This painting by the way, got invited by the Visual Arts Showcase sponsored by the Beaverton Arts Commission. It will be on display in the Beaverton Library starting Feb. 6, when there will be a Gala reception that evening.

Land Of The Falls

Happy New Year !!

I am fortunate to have 2 pieces of work accepted into the Beaverton Visual Arts Showcase this year. I submitted 3 pieces of work for jury.

They are "15 Zebras", "Land of the Falls" and "Serene Lake"

The "15 Zebras" piece unfortunately did not meet the standards of the jurors. "Land of the Falls" and "Serene Lake" did.

This painting was inspired by the Iguazu Falls ( Cataratas del Iguazu ) in Argentina. It was one of the most awesome sights that I have witnessed. In my rendition of the Falls, I was trying to exploit the translucent property of the Xuan paper to bring out the water. All the bodies of water in this painting are nothing but voids, empty spaces. The trick is to define these "voids" and to give them characteristics of vapor, spray, and flow.

Painting the land mass in a very saturated color scheme helps to bring out the water. This intensity is definitely a departure from the traditional Chinese landscape painting. The edges of the upper falls have a sharper margin, to give the ribbons that knife edge feel. The hill sides are inundated with silvery swords of water. This gives the painting energy and aura. I've added burnt sienna to the sprays to denote wash off of sand and silt.

The real Cataratas is a stretch of hundreds of falls hanging off a rim that is miles in length. I chose to condense a few falls into a plateau in this case, as if to put the falls on a pedestal. The trailing serpentine river gives reference to where the water might come from, and adds depth and distance to the scenery.

The rocky spines in the distance stand as testimony to erosion. Vapors run along side, sandwiched by the two land masses; hinting the presence of rapid waters?

I originally painted the foreground with light color rocks, but that scheme interfered with the voids of the falls. I remedied that by making the foreground even darker than the rest, and painted the rocks with the lush mossy feel. Throw in a few bamboo cultivations and stands of banana leafs, I made this painting credible.

Interesting side note, I had this old bamboo motif frame with non-reflective glass around and I thought it was perfect for this format. This painting is approximately 11 x 22 inches, a perfect 1:2 ratio, which is a standard ratio for Xuan papers. This is more conducive to landscape painting than the western frames. In fact I have picked up a few 15 x 30 canvas and I plan to do more landscape works on the Xuan paper on Canvas set up.

PERSPECTIVE continued

With my new understanding of "perspective", I am itching to put that into practice.




What I have done here is sort of cheating, well, not exactly. By that I meant I have changed the characteristics of the landscape. I have chosen the type of landscape that is more conducive to revealing the birds eye view perspective.




I have chosen to paint precipitous bluffs with flat surfaces that I can more easily depict an upward orientation.




I have chosen to hide the water leading to the fall with mist and vapor. This void space also helps to create distance from the hills in the back.




A bridge is painted way low to augment the depth of the structure. I wish I had extended the waterfall (void space) below the bridge before the darker shade of vapor.



Bodies on the bridge showed wider shoulders and skinny legs; a distortion that helps the mind to assimilate that this is a view of looking down from above.












I found a piece of sketching to further illustrate the view of "perspective"




In this piece of work, the gazebo showed the underside of the roof, therefore the observer is looking at it from below.



The hill it sits on is at eye level.







The buildings in the lower foreground show their roofs and shingles, thus the observer assumes a higher vantage point than the buildings.



The rock formation in the foreground showed extended flat surfaces. The front contour lines are replaced by light value shadings. The observer can appreciate the and feel the structure as one that the observer can set foot on!



The use of "perspectives" in this painting is more akin to the western practice. We have the upward view, the level view and the downward view, and also, to the left and to the right. The "virtual" position of the observer in this painting is well established.

SCATTERED FOCAL POINT PERSPECTIVE

I was presented with a piece of work with the emphasis on perspective. In this instance, assuming a downward looking perspective.



Before I delve into this topic of perspective in Chinese paintings, let me address the concept of scattered focal point. As we thumb through "HOW TO" books on painting, we often find the terms horizon, vanishing point, etc. In Chinese Landscape paintings, the concept of scattered focal point is introduced. As you look at objects at different elevations, and I am using a building as an example, conventional wisdom will tell you that if you see mostly roof, then you are looking at the house from above. If you see mostly foundation, or the soffit then you are looking at it from below. A lot of Chinese landscape painting however depicts the buildings at various elevations as if one was looking at them from level ground, and this is the concept of scattered focal point.






The attached illustration makes that observation.



When the uninitiated individual looks at a Chinese landscape painting, one might notice exotic ways of representing mountains, hills, rocks and streams and vapor etc, but one can't quite put the finger on what else makes the painting different. This is almost like looking at a flat map of the world instead of the spherical map



Having said that, the artist can choose to deviate from this format, and utilize perspective to add to the overall feeling of the painting.



When I looked at the presented work, I had a strong feeling of discord. I will shy away from discussion of composition, but I will



try to address what I see is wrong, and it all has to do with perspective. The work pretends to present a view from above, thus the observer is looking at the top of the gazebo. Unfortunately nothing else suggests that. Everything else in this painting has the scattered focal point presentation.



I used the following indicators:



I should be able to see the water leading up to the fall on the left.



The water falls ( the artist says those are water falls ) on the right looks like streams if this was the perspective from above. They do not show a downward movement, just a north-south direction.



The contour lines on the hills are those of a typical observer at the same level, i.e. the contour line defines the ridge.



The artist did not accept my observation well. Perhaps

the artist is too entrenched in the Old School of copying and did not do much observing. I asked the artist to paint the same landscape, but using the traditional scattered focal point practice, to show me the difference his view of " from above" vs that scattered focal view and the artist was not able to do that. I then realized that his inability to do so stemmed from his lack of true understanding of "perspective".



I spent a couple of weeks attempting to present my case in a different fashion. I tried to draw the same painting by using my understanding of perspective, and I failed. I found that his type of landscape does not lend itself well to make my case.



I finally resorted to building models to illustrate my point. I crumbled a piece of paper and built my own mountain. I fashioned my gazebo top using a tiny square of paper, resting on a pin. Set up my light source to the right, above my "mountain" to simulate the sun, and took pictures from above and from eye level to get the 2 perspectives. I labelled the typical contour lines A,B,C,and D to show how these same contours, or land features, are different when viewed at different elevations.



What is readily apparent is that in the eye level shot ( gazebo top is in perfect side view), the contour lines pretty much defines the highest point of that feature, therefore a line defines a hill. Whereas in the birds eye view, that line has crept forward, followed by an area showing the "thickness" of the feature. This thickness can be addressed by light values and not by lines. One needs to add real estate beyond the contour line !! To make an extreme case of this, a tree at eye level shows the trunk and the crown. The same tree in the birds eye view will be a round circle of leaves, i.e. the "thickness" of the crown.

I showed these photos to the artist, and now he understood the point I was making. He asked to borrow the photos for further studies. This is why I am posting this, as it had been a consuming topic for the both of us, to explain and to comprehend.

I have certainly learned from this exercise. I had a concept that I could not verbalize, nor execute. At least now I have a better understanding.

But to the artist's credit, traditional Chinese landscape paintings often incorporate the bird's eye view with the scattered focal point perspective.  I am not sure how to put this concept across succinctly, what comes to mind is how we look at a world atlas.  We know the earth is round, so if we can conjure up a view from space, then northern Russia and Greeland would not be as big as they are seen on maps.

A two dimensional map tries to make the converging longitude lines into parallel lines, thus distorting the distances at the ends of these lines. Thus the typical perspective for a Chinese landscape painting is one that is a bird's eye view of the landscape, but the description of each part of the landscape is as if the person is seeing them at eye level.  One can almost claim that these paintings do not really distinguish foreground or background.  Every point of interest is "equal distance" from a perspective point of view. 

HORSING AROUND WITH STRIPES

Garble Garble, hope everybody had a wonderful turkey day. I had to work that day, but all these years of working retail had taught me to look at any day as just another day! How can one be disappointed when one does not have any expectations.....hmmm, something Confucius might have said.

In preparing for the Portland Open Studios, I wanted to paint something that is high contrast and black and white, something that reminisces of a black and white photograph. I came upon a picture I took of zebras at the Washington Park Zoo and I proceeded to plan this painting.

The second insert is the finished product ( before it is mounted on Xuan paper backing and framed ) and I named it 15 Zebras. It measures 26 x 17 and was priced at $ 475. My intention was to paint a herd of zebras, but only their striping would show. I wanted to show only the upper body of the animals, asserting that the limbs would be hidden by tall grass on the Serengeti. I wanted this presentation to take on a contemporary, quasi abstract kind of feel.

I started out by trying to emulate a famous Chinese horse painter by the name of Hsu Bei-hung.( see top insert ) but somehow the horse's body does not translate too well into zebras. I started to sketch with my brush, using ink only, and I did quite a few models. When I was researching through pictures of this animal, I noticed the brown stripes amidst the black ones. Oh xy?! is what I uttered, now my images would be too busy....... would not be that high contrast, austere look that I was hoping for. Now I would have black and brown stripes!!!! I settled on using the brown color as my shading.... and it seemed to work for me. I cut off a piece of my studio practice piece ( close-up of two zebra heads ), cropped it and sandwiched it in a glass block frame.

Now that I have a better grasp of what I am painting, I started to paint in earnest. After I was done with it, I hated it. It was too austere...... too much white spaces... so destitute. It literally slept on my floor for 3 mouths. So many times I had the urge to cut it, crop it into smaller piece(s) to salvage it. After all, I've spent many a sleepless night planning this nightmare.

Finally a good friend of mine gave me some inputs.... "why don't you paint in some grass?" What on earth ?? This is like putting rosary beads on Buddha.... how dare you.

A couple more weeks went by..... end of September was drawing near, I could smell October.... I could taste Portland Open Studios, oh what the hell, I've got nothing to lose, so I begrudgingly dappled on grass, and brown shading, and wait a minute, now I see a "S" pattern to the composition ( in retrospect, I should have done a "Z" formation for zebra ) so now I am legit, I know how to frame my composition !

With renewed zest, I darkened the stripes on the front pack, I really emphasized the manes of those animals to make them stand out from the back, to create distance. I used brown shading to add to the roundness of the animals' bellies. Named my piece 15 zebras. I wanted the visitors to count out 15 animals in this painting.

Sure you can pick this painting apart... some might even say the zebras look like asses, or worse yet, there is a lack of "Chinese" flavor in this endeavor. All points are well taken... my response is....I had FUN doing this. This Prozac worked for me.

OIL, ACRYLIC, OR MIXED MEDIA

I had mentioned that I am experimenting with making some of my works have an "oil painting" feel and I had posted an example on my last blog. Here is another example of that. I am biased of course, but this is so far my favorite. The subject matter and the composition is akin to the western painting feel and this piece of work lends itself very nicely to this transition. I took this picture off center to show the gleaming quality of the paper/canvas/varnish.

For those of you who are familiar with mounting Xuan paper, you know it is delicate work. I shall describe a little bid of my process of mounting Xuan paper on canvas.

When we mount paper on paper, the difficulty of the task is to be sure that all the wrinkles are out so that we have a piece of perfectly smooth and taut painting when dried. As we lift the wet Xuan papers with glue applied, we just have to be careful in the lifting process, so that we are not tearing off the corners by mistake ( I've done that, and I found out how many swear words I know). Papers you can lift, but how do you lift a framed canvas ?

As you recall, my first experience was with the work submitted to the Audubon society when they asked for a 6x6 work on canvas. Since the framed canvas is small, I could easily lift the entire frame from the mounting surface without too much problem. As the frame gets bigger, the task becomes exponentially more difficult. A large, wet, flat surface creates so much suction and the fact that is frame is rigid and not flexible like paper, makes it almost impossible to lift the canvas frame. What I have done is I used small piece of clear acrylic ( any hardware store should have it.... this is better than glass because it is light, and safe to handle) and as I am ready to lift the canvas frame, I turned the whole thing over, i.e. so now the clear acrylic is sitting on top, over your painting, which is wet and glued to the canvas frame. Now I can slide the acrylic off the painting, with care of course. The clear acrylic allows me to see if I am sliding too fast to create tears in my work. The acrylic also has a little flexibility in it, so I can bend it a little bit to break the vacuum.

After the acrylic is removed, then I worry about brushing off any inadvertent air pockets and now I shall wrap the edge of the Xuan paper around the canvas frame to give it that wrap around look.

After drying the painting should be flat and taut, no different from Xuan paper on Xuan paper.

I now brush on either satin gel or gloss varnish according to my desire.

The problem now is what do I call my work, or how do I label my work. Is it oil, acrylic or mixed media? Any suggestion??????????

BEST OF BOTH WORLDS

I had a pretty successful open studios with the Portland Open Studios tour. My number of visitors were down from last year, but interestingly enough, a lot of my visitors this year are people in the trade. I actually learned at lot from my visitors.

As was publicized in the Asian Reporter, and I had posted in my blogs, the new "direction" that I am exploring, is to mount Xuan paper on canvas. I feel that this allows me to exploit the dispersing and diffusing property of the Xuan paper and also the texture of the canvas. My signature piece this year was "Come Up Here" and it was a compilation of these 2 substrates. I have also posted a piece titled "Snow Scene", where I was also trying out my ancient secret Chinese solution, and that work was also done as Xuan paper on canvas. Both of these pieces were sold during the open studios, and this format was received with positive feedback.

I had expressed the wish of finishing my work with some coating so that it will have an appearance of an oil painting. Well I've received numerous suggestions and I've been experimenting with these suggestions and the results are fantastic.

The bottom image is a close-up of the varnished Xuan paper on Canvas. It absolutely has the feel and look of real canvas work. The top 2 pictures are side by side comparisons. The one in the middle is the original painting. The one on top has the varnish finish. Notice how the coating brings out more color depth and detail. I LOVE IT !!