Beaverton Creek (Classic) cont'd

One of my weaknesses is my tendency to "Tu","Mew".  That can be loosely translated as to doodle, to sketch.  In Chinese brush painting, where Bi-Fa is all important, the fact that I muck up any brush strokes is a cardinal sin.  I don't want to show a wad of cotton, but strands of fibers.

Thus I try to be a little more patient, a little more deliberate, try to coax myself into a calligraphic state of mind. 

I just don't like the result.  The imagery look contrived.  I really have not mastered the art nor the discipline of incorporating technique with thought.  The nirvana for me would be to be able to achieve Xieyi without sloppiness. 

All of a sudden, the Xuan appeared to have multiplied in size.  I'm having difficulty filling in the landscape with mixed foliage.  I suppose I would rely on wash and moss dots at the final phases.

 

My original premise was to lay down a wash of Prussian Blue at the top of the paper to give it perspective and interest, as I did with my Xanadu Fall painting, but I didn't quite like it this time around.

It has been almost 4 months since I conceived of the painting and by now cherry blossoms are in bloom.  Why not embellish it with cherry blossoms then?

 

I think this looks more inviting.                                                                                                          

 

 

 

 

 

Beaverton Creek (Classic)

Having embraced the 2 attempts at painting Beaverton Creek, the thought of doing a third painting in a more traditional style intrigues me.

I've never really been too crazy about the classic style, so this idea actually frightens me.  My problem is that the style seemed so difficult and unnatural for me.  I feel compelled to regurgitate what little I've learned from the fringes of my memory, and that hurts!

But try I must.  Deem it as a self assigned homework. 

Worked out a rough sketch of what the painting might look like.

Right off the bat, I proceeded with something not quite kosher.  I started out with a faint wash of the landscape map on the back of my Xuan paper.  I find this process to be more Xieyi and helps me to assemble the pieces on the front.

Next I tried to sketch in the key landmarks of this painting.  Scattered point perspective enjoys more of a birds-eye view and  is not as compressed as in vanishing horizon perspective.  I need to bring in more points of reference this time.  Thus the bridge, and the tall firs, and the little vista by the banks. I tried to be faithful to the actual flora of this locale, but I took liberty with the riffraff vegetation.  I thought this would be a prime opportunity to employ the different ways of portraying leaves.

Speaking of leaves, I learned that by writing the vein first, it is easier to complete the rest of them.  Notice I said "write".  These simple line should resemble writings more than tracings.

I am actually having problem in developing the painting in this format.  I better stop before I have to perform the invidious task of mutilating the piece.

It's For The Birds

The unseasonably warm weather is going to take a turn for the worse.  The forecast is for the temperature to drop 20 degrees Fahrenheit in a couple of days.  I am just trying to savor "Spring".

 The geese have laid their clutch of eggs.

Having practised my calligraphy today, I decided to follow-up with ink doodling.

 

 

 

framed with mat board

 

 

 

Just for fun !

 

Beaverton Creek (yellow)

The last Beaverton Creek painting done in green was very impressionistic.  I liked it enough to build a canvas frame for it so that I could mount it a la Xuan-Boo style.

In the mean time I want to try my hands on something a little less wild, but still Xieyi.  The image I conjured up was a landscape bathed in a golden light.  Beaverton Creek, yellow !

 back of  Xuan

Again I mapped the landscape on the back of my Xuan.  This  process allowed me more freedom to flick my brush.  I could then concentrate on building up the painting  on the front side of the paper.

front of Xuan

My first step was to add visible branches and tree trunks to the scene.  I punctuated the highlighted areas with tips of branches.  I was trying to achieve the effect which I discussed at my "Visual Acuity" blog.  It is important to extend the exposed tips and branches down, at least in appearance, if not in physicality.  There is a saying in Chinese brush   "bi duan yi lian", meaning the  brush trek is broken up, but the meaning (spirit) still connects.  Sort of like driving down the freeway and using the dotted line to inform you of the virtual divide.  The extraneous branches and stems could be blended in very nicely with the split hair technique.

 

 

A few contour lines and hemp chuen  took care of the foreground, transforming a patch of grey into a bank with rocks and texture.

Looking at the rough draft, I noticed a white right triangle sticking out at the lower right quadrant of the painting.  Somehow there was a white line forming a vivid hypotenuse with the white branches.  This is most awful; especially when you are now aware of this flaw.

My remedy was to fill in the hypotenuse and turn it into a contour line.  I now have a more defined shore lobe extending into the water.

Right now this lobe seemed a little awkward, but I better stop now before I commit some knee-jerk changes.

You Bad Bird !

I was just doodling with my brush, no doubt inspired by the Mi Fu tie that I re-discovered amongst my pile of paper.  I was trying to do calligraphy ostensibly, but I was just going through the motions.  After all I didn't even have the right ink.

I noticed that my scribbling had permeated through the top paper to the second layer beneath it.  The blotches left on the second layer was interesting to me.  I could tell that they were characters of some sort but there wasn't enough information to fill in the voids to give them any meaning.

 

Sort of remind me of a half erased chalk board during my grade school years.  For some reason I thought of my "Fortune Birds" painting. 

The bird on the right is the teacher, trying to educate a bunch of subdued, disciplined pupils.   All except for the  one on the far left; the one that is distracted by something.

Ah that could have been me.  Bad Bird !!

Painting On Turned Wood

A friend of mine turns wood as a hobby and gave me a turned vase for the heck of it.  He had applied a coat of sealer on it (the purple coat in the picture).  It offered me a new playground.

I brushed on 3 coats of white gesso, allowing each coat to dry before the next application.  I mixed in some custom lime green color on the final coat to give it a very light greenish hue, reminding me of an Araucana chicken egg shell.

After smoothing out the brush marks by sanding, I painted a few shrimps on the vase.  I made this work "legit" by painting my chop on it, since a flat seal  would not go on a curved surface.  The entire surface was then sealed with urethane from a spray can.

The result was pleasing, I thought. 

Mountain Lobes

I've been asked quite frequently as to how to paint mountain lobes.

As I explained in the "Ridge Top Explained" blog,  we treat them like slices of the whole mountain range.  Since mountains come in different shapes, we can paint them into any forms our imagination leads us.

The problem I see is not with the shape, or contour of our paintings, but rather with the interpretation of  the light values.

 contour lines depicted.

My advice is to look at our fingers for illustration.   Each finger represents a lobe or a slice of the mountain.  The outline of each finger is defined by the contour line.  We can see in this picture, the darkest part of the "lobe" is immediately on top of the contour line from the finger below.  The brightest part is right under the lobe's own contour line.  These light values help to define perspective and contribute to the three dimensional feel of the object.  There is no line separating the sliver of bright area from the dark area.

We do want to paint in the contour line ( in most cases ) to define the lobe ( or finger in this case ) but we do not want any lines in between the dark and bright.  The light value line is a concept, not an actual line.  This is the reason that "chuen" marks are preferred in the shaded areas of the lobe, and that the bottom edges of the "chuen" strokes should meet the contour line from below, thus avoid leaving misplaced "bright" areas.

A misplaced line can wreak havoc with our perception of the landscape.  We must not confuse the contour line with the imaginary light value line.

 ribbon "chuen"

 

 hemp "chuen"

 

 

Even complicated landscape masses like the 2 inserts above can be dealt with step by step, as long as one recognizes where the contour lines are, and do not paint a line to denote light values.  Strategically placed shading brings out the 3 dimensional feel.  Pay attention to these nuggets of information next time we look at rock formations.  Garnish the details, but address the entire mass to evoke that "feel".

When in doubt, look at our own fingers.