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.