Bi-Fa (pronounced B-Fa)

A reader was a little taken aback by my comments in "What Brush Stroke". The quibble was about my tone of the language. I seemed to suggest that only Chinese Brush Painting pays attention to brush strokes. Whereas I know very little about other brush works, i.e. watercolor, oil, acrylic etc, I do know that Chinese Brush Painting places foremost emphasis on Bi-Fa, the method (discipline) of the writing instrument. Calligraphy and painting is about the same foci, Form and Bi-Fa (brush strokes). In fact, many teachers in Chinese Brush Painting would insist that students "write", and not "paint" the lines.

The Chinese Brush owes its characteristics to a round body with a pointed tip. I am told that there are 8 basic techniques in applying the brush on paper, utilizing not only the tip, but also the belly of the brush. Couple this with various speed, angle, degree of dampness, and whether the point is split or solid, the permutation on the possible ways to reveal with a Chinese Brush is endless.

The picture insert shows the start of a line with a point at the top line. The second line started with a rounded stroke, which is accomplished by travelling the brush in the opposite direction to begin with.





The importance of understanding the basic premise of the brush, is to understand how to take advantage of the brush. In this example I am trying to paint a "line" of various thickness. As I traverse the brush across the Xuan paper, different pressure is exerted, and the brush responded by spreading( or condensing ) its coverage.




Now we shall see how this "line" applies to painting. In the example, I am painting a dragonfly.

The picture on the right shows the result done with this proper technique. The "wing" is a line written with various thickness. It is all about the control of the brush. The wings look natural, and possess "Chi" (energy) and have "Li" (strength)

The picture on the left is done with the wrong technique. I blocked in the color. You might say that I "painted" the wings instead of "writing" the wings. Upon close examination, one can observe the border that I had painted around the outline of the wings, and then filled in with color. Obviously they look like wings, but they are devoid of the "Li" and the "Chi" shown on the other dragonfly. Perhaps it is the small imperceptible irregularities in the brushed shape, versus the static intentionally painted outlines that bestows the energy. I suppose this is the argument about hand tailored suits and hand stamped Ferrari bodies.



One might argue that to the casual patron of the Chinese Brush Painting, what is the big deal. The big deal is whether it matters to you or not. If you accept the premise that Chinese Brush Painting is about Bi-Fa, then you must learn to appreciate that.

You can play a G arpeggio on a violin using all 4 strings, but you can also play the G arpeggio using only the G string. To the untrained ear, they are the same notes. However a violin patron could tell the difference in the timbre of the notes and appreciates the skill level of the performer, lest not forget the composer's expressive intent in having all the notes played on the one string. Same dictum can be applied to the understanding and appreciation of Chinese Brush painting. It is not necessarily a matter of whether my art form is better than yours , but where the emphasis lies.

To Be or Not To Be

In a perfect world, under ideal conditions, we work on a painting, from start to finish, everything as planned, eyes to the heaven, say THANK YOU.

Reality is, we often sway from our original sketch, be it conceptual or physical.
Artistic expression, or any expression for that matter, is a dynamic process. This light might suddenly pop up in our head, or our own tentacles of curiosity might drag us into saying...WHAT IF ?

I usually resort to one of two ways of deciding which path I should follow.

The first one involves a transparent sheet of material... could be a plate of glass, acrylic, overhead projection transparency or a sheet protector. I would then lay this transparency over the spot where I am dubious as to what should be done, and I would do a rough sketch on it. Thus I am able to see the effect of before and after, without ever committing myself.

In this example, I have a painting of 2 fishermen working at night. I was trying to capture the reflection of the lantern and the moon in the water. Where I failed was the composition... I had the fishermen and the Beacon Rock all lined up in a straight line, and this is visually awkward. So I wanted to see if I could cover up the bottom fisherman with silhouettes of tree tops. Well, the jury is still out on this one.



The other trick I use is to just paint it out in plain water. Xuan paper is so absorbent, plain, clear water will leave its' traces, long enough for us to consider and reconsider. Note of caution, the brush should be on the dry side.... just wet enough to leave a mark for us to see the spatial relationship. In this example, I am trying to see if there could be a dialogue of trees and the bridge.

Since any brush mark on Xuan paper is almost indelible, the above tricks are most useful before you attempt on that part of the painting. It does not bode well if your intention was to totally change or substitute something after the fact.

Gesso Tricks

One of the attributes that I can exert some further control in working with my Xuan-Boo, is the matter of white balance/contrast.

Depending on the type of Xuan paper one uses, the "white" ( or blank space ) space is anything but white. While it is not necessary, nor is it critical, for me to display true white, nonetheless I would welcome the opportunity to modify my shades of white if possible. On top of that, my style of Chinese Brush painting requires the help of shading quite a bit.

Work done on Xuan paper loses its vividness once the pigment dries and before it is mounted. The depth of this brilliance is restored once the paper is wet. It is therefore paramount for a Xuan artist to not correct his/her work when the paper has dried up. I always wet my work first before I tidy up my work.

To facilitate in varying the contrast in my work, Xuan-Boo offers an unique avenue.... I can manipulate the gesso. By laying down a differentiated map of gesso, according to my needs, I can accentuate or tone down a particular area or color of the painting. I can actually affect the overall presentation of my mounted Xuan.

Example on the bottom picture shows the dried painting before it was mounted. To the left of that painting is the canvas with my custom gesso. Notice I painted the gesso in a gray scale according to my need.

The picture on the top shows the finished work on Xuan-Boo.
One can observe that the hill on which the gazebo sits on is now more 3 dimensional, thanks to the increased shading offered by the custom gesso. The staircase shows off better because the tree to the left of it is now darker and offers better contrast. The black roof tiles on the house is now more saturated.

Granted all these changes are subtle, but nonetheless palpable. I think it can be a very useful tool to remedy a "flat" painting.

Presenting my Xuan-Boo

As a kid I remembered looking up at the radio that perched on top of our 5 drawer dresser. Each time my dad would put his fingers on one of those big black knobs my breathing would stop for a second. I wanted to catch the magic. The magic of the front glass panel on the radio lighting up. A few minutes later I could hear high pitched whistles rising and ebbing, and then music or voices would be discernible amongst the interference. Turning another black knob left and right brings the program into clear. "Where did the voice come from?" I would ask. "There is a man inside the box!" said my father.

I remembered climbing on a chair, behind the dresser, looking through the perforated backing on the radio, to find that "man". Instead, I found several "light bulbs" inside the box; I could "smell" the heat emanating from these bulbs. As my dad turned the dial knob, I could see a string hooked up to a spring, which was attached to a slider on a track, and a needle moved. The whole thing was so mesmerising.....I can still smell that heat. I can still feel its radiance.

As I grew older, there is a new addition to our family. A much larger cabinet with a tiny gray window in the front. After the black knob was turned, this cabinet gave out a extraterrestrial high frequency hum, and after what seemed like eternity, a gray and white picture appeared. It took a another life time for the picture to get brighter and became "watchable". We had television. Again I somehow managed to get to the back of the cabinet, looking through the perforated backing, to look for the bulbs, and to "smell" the heat. The moments of anticipating an image appearing on the screen, and to have events happening in expected sequences,from the transformers humming, the capacitors charging up, to the flickers, and finally having my senses satisfied, are moments that I still cherish today.


Painting for me is very similar to the experiences I just described. There has to be awe, curiosity and appreciation. I paint because it is not instantaneous, no immediate gratification at play here. There is a process of going from conception to finished work, all the while filled with anticipation.

When we paint on Xuan paper, the overall appearance of the work changes as the work dries. Wetting the finished work restores most of the original saturation, hence mounting Xuan paper on another piece of Xuan paper is mandatory not only to give it stiffness, but to restore the brilliance and color accuracy. After days, sometimes weeks of working on a piece, we then spend hours on affixing it and hanging it up to dry. We really don't know what our work looks like until it is all mounted and dried.

My curiosity led me to explore new ways of mounting. Hence I invented this process/medium I called Xuan-Boo. Along with this new platform comes new challenges and that led to my making my own frames. I kept thinking how turning the knob made the dial move. Perhaps that is why I am not satisfied to just paint, but I want to be involved in as many facets as I can. I enjoy the complete process from laying down the first stroke, to hanging the work up. Today I am presenting you with the first batch of Xuan-Boo.

Of course the end is gratifying too, sometimes. There are some works that I would really hate to part with, because I had invested so much of myself in them.... "Every time you go away, you take a part of me with you!"

Every so often, after the National Anthem has played, and the TV station has signed off, I would still be watching the Station Calibration Wheel. There is nothing to anticipate now,nothing to be awed about, but at least I know the damn set still works.

Student Works from Hong Kong

The Municipal Park in Tsim Sha Tsui, Kowloon hosted a painting exhibition by students ( grade school and high school ). The paintings have to use the park as a theme.

Most of the nominated works are displayed in page protectors in a binder, therefore difficult to take photographs of. The few that I have posted here are on bulletin boards., i.e. the top 3 mentions.

The ones on top are from high school students, the ones on the bottom are from grade school kids.

Their works are so inspiring that I feel compelled to post them to share with readers of my blog

Crying Fowl

Greetings from Hong Kong !! I thought it would be interesting to lay down a couple of blogs while I am visiting Hong Kong, my birth place. Like a salmon returning to the river where it was born, I have followed the the scent of the water and my instincts and landed here a few days ago; not to mate, but to enrich my life cycle, I hope.

I am happy to say that I escaped the jurists' waste baskets and have gained my place at the Portland Open Studios tours again this year. I have decided that the majority of my new works would be in the Xuan-Boo style, and I have picked the heron as my entry piece.

This painting was done on fibrous Xuan paper. The sizing on this paper is a little bit different ( not as absorbent ) and the color presentation is not as deep and saturated as the normally sized Xuan. However when mated to canvas, the apparent texture it imparts is particularly suitable for our feathery friend here.

I am trying to keep the color scheme really simple here, after all I am not creating a document nor an accurate depiction of the bird. However the characterisation, the mannerism of the bird is vital. My mission is not to let color overrun my pictorial essay. The simple creature is then garnished with a few blades of leaves.

One of the challenges is to describe the feathers without actually drawing them out. I have allowed a controlled bleeding of strokes along the frontal side of the neck to give it that feathered look. A brief outline helps to define the physical structure.

Intersecting leaf blades is a real headache as far as composition and presentation goes in Chinese Brush Painting. I have placed a few drops of water at strategic points of the cluster so that ink disperses to a much larger extent along those fronts. This is not a blemish, but a controlled artistic technique, a la moss dots in many of the traditional works.

Finally, instead of allowing the background to be blank, I used a Mosaic of nondescript patches of colors. I find great similarity between this and a photograph with a shallow depth of field. Perhaps this is an instinct carried over from my hobby in photography.

I must mention that for this piece of work, I stretched my own canvas, and built my own frame for the canvas. My only debate right now is whether to finish the frame in the traditional black color, or to leave it as is, with the gray primer only.

COLLABORATIVE PAINTING

I have another collaborative painting to share with you.

my reasons for selecting the piece is as follows
1. quite characteristic of Guilin landscape
2. a new way of "churn" ( texture) that most of you have not attempted before. looks easy, but requires real Xieyi movements
3. wet staining of clouds/mist
4. distinct ways of showing perspective, shading. ranges from relatively colorless foreground, to "splash ink" method of distant hills.
should be a lot of fun.
The above is a direct quote from the e-mail I sent out to the group.

The image on the bottom is the original work that I lifted from a publication. The image on the top right is our work.

The original work is almost monochromatic with distinct separation of foreground and background landscapes. The brush strokes are deliberate and yet expressive. Succinct and yet interpretive. Tidy and yet free. I find myself transported to this serene Shangri-La., allowing myself to be immersed in this magical mist, floating as my spirit directs me.

Before we arrive at how our work turned out, let us go through the process of painting.

As I pointed out in my e-mail, the "churn" (texture) method in this work is different but quite common in a lot of the Guilin landscape paintings. It is basically a series of L shaped brush strokes stacked on or intersecting each other.
It could be done with straight tip down and side tip across or vice versa. This gives the lime stone land mass its cracks and shows the thickness of the slabs.
If these were done too orderly, you end up with a brick wall.

Black dots denote vegetation, but they are used to soften up the contour lines and corners. Green vegetation dots need to have titanium white mixed in them to stand out.

Mists are done with the wet wash method. It takes a while to get used to the idea that as you are painting the bottom of the rocky masses, you are actually painting the mist/cloud ( blank space ). Therefore the blank space as a real space is almost like a novice flying a on coming RC plane. Left rudder turns the plane to the right!

Color is witnessed by laying down several layers of pigments. Imagine staining a tissue paper with one pass of color. It is not substantive. We first lay down our shading with various shades of ink. Then vermilion is used as the base coat, followed by burnt sienna and purple around the dark areas. Finally mineral green is used as the top coats. Its opacity drowns out the foundation colors. By moderating the number of layers of the opaque colors, we can achieve the different hues of the landscape. The coloring is done after all the shading and churn is done. Coloring is akin to putting on your clothes. You do that after you have clean underwear, showered, shaved, put on your make-up, then put on your clothes.

Based on the fact that this was done with many people, all with varying degrees of craftsmanship, this is indeed an awesome piece of work.

How does that compare with the original work?? Obviously our brush strokes are far inferior. Our contour lines lack the controlled thickness, our side tips were too broad. Our rocky spires seemed too symmetrical when compared to the original. Many of our trees grow sideways instead of opposing gravity. Our mountain goats had the wrong thorax to abdomen scale and therefore look more like dogs than goats. The branches on the bottom left corner lacks the tensile feel of a whip. Brush strokes tapered at both ends and is fat in the middle and lacks "chi" or spirit. Contrast that with the ones on the upper right hand corner. The tree branches here show interesting angles, are not tapered and fat in the middle, and has tensile strength. I have no way of knowing who painted which tree, but this is a grand example to demonstrate the importance of brush strokes in Chinese Brush painting. This style of painting is all about Bi Fa. (method of the brush)

Our work is not so much monochromatic, so it imparts a different feel to it. This presents a strong argument for supporting emulation as a way to learn to paint. The image might be similar, but the results are distinctly different, and it is a teachable moment to be able to discern and describe the differences.

The original work is done by a famous contemporary Chinese artist by the name of Bai Xueshi. ( Bai is the last name, first name is Xueshi) For those of you who are interested in this artist, you can find a wealth of information on the net about him. Even U-tube showed videos about him.