Horsing Around (with horses this time)

The last time that I was horsing around, I was trying to paint a herd of zebras back in 2009.  I was more intrigued with the black and white contrast and the shape of the herd.

My motivation for horsing around this time is because of the Year of the Horse in our lunar calendar.  You can say that I am trying a little  harder, and with a little more heart.

I started out by sketching a horse on my sketch book with a brush fountain pen,  just to get a feel of how the animal might look with brushed lines.

 

 

Then I started in earnest with a Chinese brush to doodle on Xuan paper.

 

 

 

I found a reference book with paintings of horses by Xu Beihong( 1895 -1953).  Mr.Xu is acknowledged as an authority of  horse painting in modern Chinese painting.  I tried to study and emulate his brushstrokes and style.  He actually spent some time studying drawing and oil painting in Paris.  I think his horses display a strong sense of Chinese brush strokes mixed with a western flavor  of anatomy and shading.

 

 

 

 

Emboldened by his examples, I tried the following

 

 

 

Using a combination of brush fountain pen, Chinese brush and charcoal, I rendered this horse on drawing pad as the model for my horse painting.

 

 

 

This time around I line drew the horse on Xuan with brush and ink.

 

 

 

Filled in shading.

 

 

 

 

Touched up my lines.  Using the coffee that I was drinking to add further shading.  I thought that added warmth to the tone.

 

 

 

 

 

Happy New Year, Year of the Horse

Have a Happy, Safe and Prosperous New Year !

馬到功成 !
身體健康 !

Depiction of shape and form

I enjoy painting Canada geese.  It is their black neck with the white break just behind their eyes that catches my fascination initially.  I consider that particular feature, along with their knobby legs to be perfect models for practicing my calligraphic strokes.

Xie He was a Chinese critic in the 5th century who proposed the 6 doctrines, or canons , of Chinese painting.

He listed Vitality, possessing of energy as the top priority of the art form. This was followed by the mastering of brush strokes, calligraphic traits. The 3rd on the list was depiction of shape and form.  I had his words in mind when I started out to explore how to paint Canada geese.

I assert that these 3 doctrines are tightly intertwined.  I also believed that depiction of shape and form trumps the first two.  Only after one masters the depiction of form and shape can one transmit the confidence and savvy into lively brush strokes with conviction.  Obviously one has to master the foundation of brush strokes in order to proceed.

Allow me to share some of my sketch studies when I first embarked on painting Canada geese.

The black band at the front of the head reminds me of a parallelogram with a spout attached to the bottom.  The white band begins behind the eye and ends at where the neck would begin, with the lower edge forming the bottom of the head.

The neck itself is the expressive part.  This is where good practice of center tip brush stroke comes into play.  The curvature and attitude of the neck animates the story.

The body of the goose reminds me of the shape of rhombus or football (rugby).

Alternatively it could be a teardrop shape when viewed from above, or tail fin shape when the bird is floating on water;  just hark back to the Cadillacs of years gone by.

 

 

 

As far as the lower extremity is concerned, I would play up the knobby knee joint with the bow legged pigeon toes and I can parlez the feel of the goose waddling down the grassland.

By observing these birds feeding  and playing, one could successfully incorporate different neck attitudes with certain gaits and really bring your painting to life.  This is a proposition with a sanguine outcome.

Hopefully my observation and interpretation of the Canada goose will help any geese  enthusiasts with their painting projects.

Good painting to all.
.

Ole Oak Tree- Happy New Year 2014

Today is the first day of 2014.

 I am not a person to make new year's resolutions.  I know too well that I make them  just so I have something to disappoint myself with :).  I have been harboring this image of oak trees, and I have no explanation for it. 

Why oak trees?  Perhaps they provide a big and sturdy umbrella?  Perhaps they weather the winter well?  Perhaps they are there !

There is no better day than today to record that on paper.

Happy 2014.  I welcome thee.

Mounting problems

I have come across a really thin paper, known as the Cicada wing paper.  Very delicate, very translucent, very airy.  Paintings done on this paper have a different ambiance.  There is a loss of saturation with the ink and color, in exchange one gets an ethereal accounting of the brush strokes.  It is excellent with "mood" paintings.  It has a muted feel.

When it comes to mounting works done on this paper however, I was faced with all kinds of obstacles.  I was definitely in uncharted waters.

The paper tends to give up pigments and dyes if these are laid down too heavily.  This presents a grave problem in the customary wetting down the paper to relax the fibers before mounting.  To sidestep it I tried to apply starch to the mounting substrate instead and brush on the dry painting.  This alleviated the bleeding out problem ( for the most part ) but it was such a pain trying to brush out all the creases.  In fact I tore up a few practice pieces in the process.

After I finally got better at this, the final product was far from ideal.  Once the piece of "cicada wing" is fixed on a piece of substrate, it loses the very quality that gives it the tenuous feel.  I've experimented with different substrate thickness, but even the thinnest substrate I have is still too smug, breathless and stiff.  Imagine a beautiful lady donning elegant sheer lace, only to have the presentation destroyed by wearing something underneath the sheer garment.  You get the picture.

I experimented with not mounting the painting at all, but to just pin it down on foam board, and surround the work with a border of foam board.  On top of this border is the frame made with mat board.

 Basically I was playing with a float type presenting of the artwork.  The floating mat frame casted a delicate shadow and created a little breathing room such that the piece of cicada wing assumed a less restrained attitude.

This seemed like a workable solution to present works done on cicada wing paper.  In the meantime, I am looking forward to more experimenting in 2014!

Canada Geese Thank You Cards

I had an occasion to send out a couple of Thank You cards and I thought a couple of hand painted ones would be appropriate for this occasion.

Since I seem to be partial to Canada Geese, I decided to use them as my subjects.

These images were painted with ink and coffee on matted photo paper.

 

 

 

It's Kinda Private

It has been an introspective period.

I went and paid my last respect to a dear friend.  His family requested a painting from me to be carved onto his headstone and that had just been completed.

I was then invited to attend a party for the developmentally challenged.

There was a Blues band playing for the banquet and this young lady with Down Syndrome climbed onto the stage uninvited.  Normally this would have been a social disaster, but perhaps because of the company that we were in, nobody bothered.  Except for two people.

The young lady was enthusiastically swaying to the music, keeping time to the snares, having a jolly good time.

And the mom was busy capturing the daughter's every animation with her cell phone,  exuding utter joy from her face.

I couldn't help but think about the pure innocence and elation exhibited by the child, and the unqualified pride and amazement felt by the parent.  That was a private moment, even though the venue was a very public one.  Such was the dichotomy.  We could only guess, perhaps, what was going through the minds of these two individuals.

Kinda like viewing (or reading ) our paintings.  There is no mass hysteria, it is not a rock concert.  There is no protocol to like them, or to dislike them, it is not science.  We can talk till we are blue in the face about techniques, theories and what not but it all boils down to the private  conversation we have with our audience.  Our paintings are our ways of letting people take a stealthy  glimpse of ourselves.

Nothing else matters.  It's like taking  a stroll on a beach.  I'm awash in my own thoughts.

The thoughts are all mine, and they are kinda private.  I'll confide sometimes, somehow, to someone.