Salvage Operation

I was demonstrating how to paint insects; not in the capacity of being the principal in the painting, but rather a supporting role.   In my scenario these insects would occupy the role of an ancillary chop, to fill a void without destroying the ambiance of the painting.   If done correctly, this space moderator would add to the flavor, as in the use of fish extract in Wonton soup.

The first piece was initially a sketch done at a local nature park.  The fern struck me as a ideal subject to learn to "write" a painting.  The fronds present themselves as broad stroke lines that taper and convolute with grace.  At best, that was almost like a botanical study with calligraphic overtones.  I therefore used this sketch as an example of salvaging an otherwise plain painting by adding a little interest to it.

The other piece was a sketch of peony.  The original sketch had the floral petals "gou"ed  (outlined) .  It was an exercise in still life sketching with a brush.  I took liberty with the sepals and leaves, for a more cohesive presentation.  The coloring of the petals was an afterthought.  Unfortunately this is where I biffed.  I did painting by the numbers.  The outlined planogram tempted me to fill in the boundaries with color.    I committed the cardinal sin of  blocking in with titanium and not using it as a transitional member.  Thus the whole thing as a rather "plastic" feel to it.    Perfect candidate for OPERATION SALVAGE.   I used it as an example of how to revive your dead painting by adding a smidgen of interest to it, in the form of a grasshopper. 

Unto the bad painting, a shtick was given, or was it a straight man?

PS Taming of the Silk

As I mentioned in the last blog, my painting on silk was not colorfast and I had to display that behind a glass pane, which is kind of a pain for me.  The reflection off the glass really bothers me and I can't afford museum grade non-reflective glasses.

I thought of using Scotchgard.  Unfortunately my local arts supply store does not stock it  and a quick visit to Target found them out of stock on that item.  Just my luck.

Was cleaning out my garage one day and behind a box of medicine vials, masked  by cobweb was a can of Camp Dry.  This aerosol can must be 20 years old at least.  It is a product used to water-proof boots, tarps etc. for outdoor activities.  So I decided to give it a try.  What the heck, I have nothing to lose and everything to gain.  This whole thing about painting on silk was an experiment to begin with.

I wiped clean the aerosol can, followed the direction, 3 applications with 4 hours drying time in between.  I sprayed generously onto my painting, not even bothering to test for discoloration or anything.

To my utmost gratification, the result is awesome.  Not only is my painting repelling water like a shellacked hull, but the product also made the painting look richer.  And the best part is, no glares!!

This pack rat has found salvation.

Taming of The Silk

A good friend of mine , a Hua Yu ( meaning members who paint), gave me a roll of silk for me to paint on.  My friend does beautiful Gonbi style paintings, and she was showing me her paintings, and relating how different brands of  color and gouache work on silk.  She must have sensed my eagerness to try and graciously let me have some.

Unfortunately I always thought I knew better.  This is my Achilles Heel.  I felt that the silk that was given to me feels too synthetic (feels crispy and looks shiny) so I was determined to find "real" silk.
A few phone calls later checking into the usual craft stores and fabric outlets, I located some silk at the local Mill End store.  So here is my friend who knows a lot about painting on silk, and yet I wanted to be my own trailblazer.  I must also clarify here that this is not an original work by me.  I was trying to emulate some ancient painter (Ming, or Song Dynasty??).  I am sorry I can't remember who the arts was, so enthusiasts could trace back to the original and learn from the master also.

My nightmare is about to begin.

The silk I purchased is brown in color ( I want to do paintings with the antique look), soft and feels heavy in the hand.  I couldn't wait to take out the fabric from the plastic bag and began to write a few words in ink on it.  To my horror, the ink just ran off the fabric, like water on the back of a duck.         They must have used something in the dye to render the fabric water repelling, so  the silk went into the bathtub,  and I poured in a generous amount of denatured alcohol, and Resolve, and detergent.   Whatever it was in the fabric, I was determined to  extricate that.  My bathroom permeated with the scent of alcohol, reminded  me of a clinic; a clean smell.  I am glad I am not a smoker.

Well that trick did not work.  I remember my friend telling me that she had to use a gum and alum solution to size the silk before she paints on it.  To me, this was counter-intuitive.  Sizing would add to the water repelling property. 

For some reason this worked, albeit just a little bit.  The fabric would take on ink now, but it required several passes before the ink stroke registered.   I like the fact that the pigment in the gouache seems to migrate to the edge of the stroke, leaving a natural border to the stroke.  I don't know if I could attribute this artifact to the silk.

Since I had to make overlapping  passes with my brush, any brushstroke qualities became virtually indistinguishable.  The texture of the silk fabric, tandem with multi-layered strokes, made the lines take on the air of a  charcoal drawing .

Bamboo stems, which needed to portray the bouncy tensile, showed instead a string of splinters, reminiscent of a bad whittling job.

This absence of brush stroke would absolutely ruin the bamboo leaves.  The blades had to suggest an edge, a point, at the very least.   I remembered  the "Magic Brush" I bought in Hong Kong.  It has a very soft (felt) tip, behaving much like a fine brush, and is fed by disposable ink cartridge.  I bought it for use for my plein aire sessions, but it fit the bill quite nicely here.  Whatever the cartridge holds, takes to the fabric pretty well.

The final obstacle came when I was trying to mount this silk painting on canvas and discovered that ink and color was coming off the fabric.  Back to the drawing board, literally!

I need to use the silk that my friend gave me.

Let The Sunshine In

Traditionally we have  to mount paintings done on Xuan to a substrate for viewing and display.
I have explored substrates like canvas ( my Xuan-boo technique) and Wonderboard to benefit from their textures. 

The matrimony of water soluble pigments and ink and the translucent Xuan produces a lush and ethereal feeling.  One way to exploit this characteristic is to NOT mount the Xuan.  This is best done by allowing light to peek through from behind the Xuan, adding another dimension to the viewing experience.

I did a painting of aquatic and atmospheric scenery.  For the rays, I employed the "minus" technique.
I used a wet clean brush to go over the freshly painted areas repeatedly to take away (minus) from the saturation.

Here is a look of the work in ambient light.

Here is a look of the same work when put against a window.

I used a float frame for this dramatic effect.  Reminds me of the stained class works.

The Frustrated Apprentice

Some people would differentiate art from craft in that the former requires originality on top of the skills which are required by the latter.  Hence learning by rote runs the risk of asphyxiating one's inspirations, and railroading one into unimpassioned styles.
But how else are we going to learn?  Hopefully from the works of great masters.  Here again, " great " is in the eye of the beholder.  We must have a good core before we can sprout our wings.

The following is a glimpse of tree trunks painted by a Ming Dynasty master, followed by the works of a frustrated apprentice.

As we can see, the second photo insert showed basically the same form, yet exhibited no "life" to the brushstrokes.  This is especially evident towards the top of the trees, where little branches are formed.

In Chinese brush painting, the terms "Chi" or "Li" describes force and strength and spirit and energy.
It is a concept that refuses to be explained, especially to the casual observer.  Mumbo jumbo, exclaimed the ignorant.  I often pose the question, what is the difference between a stationary live snake and a dead one?  They both possess the exact same morphology.  Yet somehow the live one portrays life.  Perhaps  the muscular tension exerted to each pair of ribs gave that away, or was it the turgid appearance a living organism, however subtle.   What we are aspiring for is the stored potential energy in a brush stroke.  Each stroke should exude the feeling not of  a wet noodle, but of a drawn bow ready to flex.

Here is work done by a Qing Dynasty master.  The brushstrokes here are rather colorful and free spirited.

Frustration in trying to decipher the strokes, the force needed, and the correct dry/wet brush.  All these considerations dialed in too much damper to the hand and mind machinery, resulting in stencil like babbling.

Getting a little better.

Throw your caution to the wind.  The exact likeness is not there, but the strokes are effervescing with "Chi". 

"So now you tell me, "copying" does not mean "copying", or does it? " says the frustrated apprentice.
"Paint me a live snake", says the master.

The Dark Side

I found a picture of a painting by some artist in the Ming Dynasty.  The painting is deceptively simple, willow branches.  What can be more difficult than drawing lines?

This piece of work is inspirational because of its simple premise..lines, brush strokes.  We understand that Chinese brush painting has inextricable ties to calligraphy.  My  challenge now is to learn how to write this painting.

Examination of the painting quickly tells me two main branches (the 2 with the darkest ink tone) reside at the middle to right of the page,  accompanied by another branch with slightly lighter ink tone to the far left.  The spatial arrangement of these branches is most elegant.  The "Shu" "Mi" ( sparse and dense) contrast is poetic.  The weight of the painting seems to be at the top, since it is tracing back to the virtual main trunks, yet the flow of the juvenile branches are like dancing thunder bolts, emitting tangible energy.  The casts in this painting must  migrate towards gravity, yet be suspended by the lack of which.

The brush strokes are deliberate and expressive.  One can discern the attacks of side-tip strokes by the sharp edges of the delta at the beginning of each stroke, and witness their eventual transformation to straight tipped diminuendos.  So effortless and yet labored with punch.  The artist was able to "write" this regal piece with feathery aplomb.

Typical downfalls in trying to emulate this painting include the following:
(note red circles in the pictures)

An example of overkill, trying too hard to depict the curly weaves

Hiccup strokes, lifting the brush at inappropriate times, too anxious to taper off

Inappropriate line widths, having no control on the pressure applied to the brush, usually a consequence of too much speed

Inappropriate "SHU" and "MI", the branches are too evenly distributed.








And I give up!  Have another drink!

The dilemma is that if we pay too much attention on each brush stroke, we seem to miss out on addressing spatial presentation and spontaneity in the strokes and the result could be quite stoic.
The drawbacks of learning by rote is that we often forget what our mission is.  Fundamentally, we need to have good technique and patience.  There are no short cuts.  After we've acquired the basics, then we can begin to analyse and "read" a painting, understand it and emulate it and learn from the process.  I like to take a segue by stating that I've been accused of keeping bad company, i.e. I did not pick good paintings to learn from.  I need a cleansing from my rote learning!

I know of people who would lay their Xuan over images to copy them.  To them the "authentic likeness" is of sole importance.  We must understand that the painting does not represent only ONE moment, but a continuum of frames. My mentor always said painting is like dancing, a string of motions. Don't get caught up in a "pose" captured by the flashlight. That "pose" does not describe the dance.

"Now you tell me", quipped this sophomoric individual.  His frustration was obvious, only to have   his ignorance fueled by the desire of Ramen instant noodles. 

For all of us who appreciate this art form, don't go over to the Dark Side, albeit tempting.   Don't be a Faustian, the reward is picayune.

Multnomah Falls Again?????

It is one of those days, hot and muggy.

As I picked up my feet and placed one in front of the other, dodging the red dragonflies that had wandered into my path, I kept counting, almost audibly to myself, the numbers of switchbacks I had taken.   It was a steep and steady climb, perhaps the grades were too much for my silvery brows, they were soaked.    Breathe easy, I told myself.  Stick your chest out, can't let other people see me panting like a dog.  The sign said 11 switchbacks to the top, and I made only 4 so far. 

The familiar lapping sound nudged me onwards.

As I closed the distance to the next turnaround, I felt the air charged exclusively with  negative ions;  there was this freshness that automatically invited my lungs to expand.  Out of the corner of my eyes, just beyond my eyelashes, framed by the sentries of trees, a silver ribbon was fluttering downwards; flaunting a few pirouettes before it disappears behind he trees.  As I looked upwards towards the sky, the flanking basalt walls were featureless against the sun, decorated with a golden hue around my vision field, exacerbated by my cholesterol deposits around my pupil. 

So here I am, back to painting the Multnomah Falls again.

In this attempt, I shied away from using the Falls as my main character.  Rather, I am using supporting characters to frame the subject.  Thus I did not want to burden the Falls with exacting accounts, but to give it a mere "presence".  A presence that is sonorous and delightful.  I wanted to hear the choir through the pillars of the hall;   I was not interested as much in the faces of the ensemble.


Obviously I stayed away from my past mistake of placing the Falls front and center.  To "write" the trees, I decided to use the tried and true techniques of the more classical eras.  The near ground trees/shrubs were done using the "outlined" method.  I tried to impart different types of leaves to the woods to suggest a diverse vegetation.  The shapes of the leaves need not bear resemblance to the real plants; these were products of rote learning.  The emphasis was to have an assortment of trees and to be able to establish a spatial relationship of the bodies.

The "outlined" trunks and leaves transitioned to a "boneless" method of portraying for the more distant objects.   This technique is used quite frequently in Chinese landscape paintings.

My design was to have a very dark outer ring of details to contrast the empty spaces ( the falls).  In order that the darks are not too heavy and covered  up details, I layered in my dark values on the back of the Xuan paper.   I also wanted to leaves and trunks in the foreground to retain that translucent quality, so the colors were mixed with alum to give them more of a resist property.  The tree trunks were meant to be empty spaces, to contrast them sharply with the dark background.  Unfortunately the "dark side" was too intense and the "force" was not with me,so now they look tinted, which is still acceptable, albeit  not what I had planned.

I had to go over the "outlines" a few times to revive the lines lest they get buried under all the stains.  This "going over" is actually kind of a boo boo in Chinese brush painting.  This is akin to "touching up" and it takes away the spontaneity and the expressiveness of the brush strokes.  I really need to practice on my patience............ do a light outline, just enough to start the painting, and then finish with the dark brush strokes just once, as the final act.