Pupil of The Eye

I wanted to paint a flight of spiral staircase.

A bunch of concentric circles; well maybe not entirely concentric, but think of it as a bunch of circles of different diameters placed together.  How difficult could it be.

I was asked the reason for picking this subject matter.  It really does not have a whole lot to do with Chinese brush painting.  So why bother.

My short answer was that I wanted to continue to explore the property of the semi-sized Xuan that I was using, and to continue my study of the Jimo (accumulating ink) technique.  

Actually the spirals with radiating spokes of steps and alternating bands of illuminated flat surface against vertical dark balustrade fascinated me.  To me, there existed complexity in this simplistic arrangement, and vice versa.

The schematic was too complicated to paint extemporaneously, so I took my time to sketch it out.  I wanted a reasonable spatial proportion and relationship of the different elements.

 

 

 

 

Next step was to build up the details by writing in the steps.  To help me perceive the perspective better, I painted in the floor at the bottom, designating that as the darkest portion, and began to build my risers from the bottom up.

 

 





I continue to construct until all the steps were in.  I felt like I was installing vanes in a jet engine.

It was time to test the water.  Like a proud parent, I introduced my piece to my cohorts.

I had done a few pieces of works with ink and semi-sized Xuan, namely the roof top piece and the pillars piece.  Those pieces were done in the portrait format.

Why couldn't I turn my painting 90 degrees to the left and make it into a portrait format too.   After all it's just a bunch of circles so the orientation should not matter!  By doing this, I could add to my collection of ink paintings in the portrait format.

To my chagrin, the reception was lukewarm at best.

Is that a pupil of an eye?   Mused someone.

It looked convex to me!  If you were trying to paint stairs, they appear to be poking out the painting rather than looking down  Commented another.

You need to blur out the top levels so the bottom is in focus, so people get what you are painting!  Suggested yet another.

So I monkeyed around with it and dramatized my light values to better illustrate my helical steps.

Still looks like an eye!  There's something wrong with your painting but I couldn't put my finger on it !  That was pretty much the general consensus.

Then the art professor came over and rotated my painting 90 degrees.

Now everybody went Ah!  Much better!

What I thought was a bunch of circles and the orientation didn't matter actually did matter in this instance.  I thought hard and long for my misconception. 

Here is plausible explanation.

When we are looking down a flight of spirals, we are inevitably closest to one point on the rail or banister.  As we gazed downwards, the corresponding points on each ring would seem to stick together.  For example,  when we looked through a tunnel or a huge water pipe, we typically see the
ceiling curving around us, and the floor of the pipe seemed flat, even though it is part of the circle.

By displaying this painting in a portrait format, we took away that point of reference and our brain could not rationalize the anomaly and cried foul.  Order was restored only when we restored that frame of reference.

You just can't fool the eye!  Nor the pupil, for that matter.

Suliao Xuan Ban - The Journey is complete

I submitted my Journey painting for a local exhibition and the jury gave their nods.

That meant I needed to mount the Xuan so it could be presented.

I had always wanted to try something really far rout with this piece of work.

Obviously painting with coffee and cream and tea was unconventional, especially as far as Chinese brush is concerned.  When I needed to mount this painting for presentation, I didn't want to do it the traditional fashion either.  This was in part motivated by the fact that the coffee and tea had no fixative in them and the color tends to move if not careful.

I had wanted to exploit the translucent quality of the Xuan.  I also deplore the glass covered look, the omnipresent glare from the glass.  I am also too cheap in invest in non-glare museum quality glass.  That was my motivation for inventing  the Xuan-Boo ( Xuan on canvas ) to begin with.

The only plausible way to showcase the semi-transparent Xuan was to mount my painting on a piece of glass; tampered glass to be specific.  I toyed with the notion that my painting could be viewed almost like a stained glass window or a double sided silk embroidery.  I had visions of  my work mounted on the surface of glass.  The entire piece would be a float and I would epoxy a platform behind the glass so it could be displayed several inches off the wall surface, allowing ambient and reflected light to dance on my painting.

That won't work; too heavy.

Then I was going to use a heavy gauge plastic, in lieu of tampered glass.  It turned out that anything over three-sixteenth thickness is cast plastic, and costs an arm and a leg.  Besides, even at one-quarter inch thickness, the piece flexes due to the large dimensions, and it was heavy.

I eventually abandoned the frameless float idea and settled for a frame.

My work was still to be mounted on the surface of the plastic.  I mounted another piece of Xuan on the backside of the plastic for proper white balance.   The thickness of the plastic sheet gave the backing an interesting look.

In order to not distract the painting with my traditional red seal, it was suggested that I sign with pencil.

But I really wanted to use my seal.  I am better represented by my chop than a pencil signature!

Who says the chop has to be red?

I used my ink box as the seal mud and stamped my chop in black ( buried in the right bank)  The important thing is, that chop looked great.  For people in the know they would recognize the presence of my seal.  For the less enlightened, it was not obtrusive and it didn't matter.  It was proper and soothing.  It belonged.  I thought.

(close-up of the black chop)

With this set-up, shadow would form behind the painting, behind the frame, and yet one could see it through the plastic. 
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It helped to move the painting to the front.  Now the audience can fully explore the miasma of the atmosphere homogenizing with the land, only to be interrupted by the intrepid riders.

The entire piece was finished with several layers of spray urethane to protect the delicate Xuan from soiling.  At least that was what I hoped.

I am naming this process of mine Suliao Xuan Ban,  Xuan on plastic board.

Paint Myself Into A Corner

I was at this pavilion like structure.  It had two opposing arcs of pillars, standing under a roof, otherwise exposed to the elements.

When the sun tilted to one side of the pavilion, it casted long shadows of these pillars across the mosaic pavilion floor, ending up on the opposite side..

The shadows crept towards the opposite pillars, and just happened to sandwich in between the cement masses; juxtaposing amongst the lit floor and the reflected shades of gray.

The pattern of thin, rigid metal inserts of the pillars contrasting with the heavy cylinders, staged by bands of shadows and light, garnished with rows of small mosaic tiles on the floor.

I found this composition alluring

Since I had so much fun painting my roof tops, another architectural themed painting, I made this my next project.

First I sketched the composition.  This painting is made up of geometric shapes and I wanted to get the position and relative size of the different elements right.  I also needed to demonstrate the weight of the pillars with convincing strokes and meticulous lines.  I could not afford to leave the whole thing to free hand brushstrokes.

Notice that I had planned to paint the mosaic tile floor too.  I thought the contrast between the stout pillars and the curvy rows of tiny mosaic tiles would be interesting.

This is how the painting looked after the initial playing with the gray scale.

I liked my foundation work.  I also felt that the light and dark was so powerful, that it would smother my attempt to paint in the rows of mosaic tiles on the floor.  I believe the tiny squares would take away from the emotional content.  It is as if I am looking at a beautiful bikini cladded model and I have to divert my attention to the glued on art nails.  Simply redundant!

Since I was using the semi-sized Xuan again, I took my time to paint, using the Ji Mo technique ( ink layering).  Each subsequent layer receded further from the illuminated edge of the pillar, giving it a rounded  cylindrical appearance.  I actually used a straight edge to guide my brush; forming these convincing lines.

As I was building up the painting, my focus somehow migrated away from toying with the light values, but gradually directed towards the corner formed by the ceiling beams on the upper right side.
It was as if all the pillars and things were just the guiding elements on a fishbone UHF antenna.  They just draw in and direct the signal to the collecting element.  In this case, the corner.

There was no rational explanation, but the more I wanted to not look at that corner, the more I was drawn to look at it.  Could my OCD be flaring up again?

I just went with the flow; followed my heart.  I accentuated the lines culminating in that corner and played up the shadows.  My attention could now follow the pillars, and end up in THE CORNER.

I had painted myself into a corner.

Better Roof Tops

With no hesitation I went for my second attempt at roof tops with aplomb. Knowing what was wrong with my first trial should make this child's play. Indeed it was.

It didn't take me long to lay down my patches.  I added windows to the houses on the left, now that there was room to reveal them.  The mitred roofs looked fine.  This should be easy.

 

 

 

It had different shades of black.  The roofs were a little more animated with texture.  The painting still carried an air of geometric patterns, but it wasn't cold.

 

 

Somehow things still did not seem right.  I didn't want to be agnosonosic, but I really had no clue. I just trusted my instincts.

 

Then it dawned on me.

 

 I amended my mistakes on the left, but I introduced them on the right side now. I had unwittingly painted the houses on a staggered line.  In other words, the houses on the right were not along the same curbside.  This was all due to the extended eaves.

 

 

 

 

 

I shouldn't have drawn eaves the same length on both sides of the roof.  If these houses were truly parallel to us, then the left eave and the left truss ( closest to us ) would be much longer than the other.  They should have followed the red lines in my diagram.

 

I didn't want to chalk this up as something that was not emphasized in typical Chinese brush painting.  Perspective was really not a vital player.  So this exercise had been most enlightening for me.

 

As I was ruminating all these tidbits of information, my thought process about this painting changed.

My original intent was to depict a narrow street amongst rooftops.  My initial zeal was triggered by the repeating patterns.  By now I know the painting by heart, especially with the composition.  Slowly a feeling emerged.  A maturation process was taking place. 

 

Then I left the room.  Perhaps to allow my thoughts to brew. 

 

It was evening when I returned and I had not switched on the lights yet so the room was dim, but not dark.  I glanced at my Xuan, which I had started to sketch in the blocks.  This painting was no longer about geometric shapes, although they were still integral parts.  The painting was about a silence of the night.  Not desolate, but calm.  Not abandoned, but at peace.

 

I emboldened myself with intense, decisive strokes.  The huge black patches now adorned with texture, barely visible but very discernible.  I did this in between flipping on and off the light switch just to feel the lighting effect.  Little horizontal lines reminiscing of clothing bamboo rods ( instead of clothing lines, apartment dwellers have bamboo staffs hoisted outdoors to hang clothes with)  helped to form a connection between the 2 sides of this painting.

 

 

 

This one I can  be proud of.  I delighted in the metamorphosis of this painting, and it happened serendipitously.

 







 

 



Roof Tops

I have this image of an aerial view of a narrow street, flanked by roof tops.

These roof tops would be rather uniform in shape and size.  The variety one might encounter in a row house district or housing projects.  The tarry roofs contrasting with white sidings of buildings should form an interesting composition.  I thought.

I proceeded to lay down my framework.

I decided to install flat roof dormers ( or sky lights ) onto my structures to increase the facets on my painting.  I envisioned the added surface angles would make the painting less flat in appearance.   A gable fronted dormer would be nice too;  the caveat was I couldn't sort out the various surfaces with my brush.

I was not unhappy with the resulting painting.  I did this work on my semi-sized paper, with a big brush such that when applied side-tip I could cover a large swath of ground.  I wanted to be able to still discern some semblance of a brushstroke, albeit in this quasi contemporary, geometric rendition.

After I had time to digest my initial effort, I started seeing my mistakes.

1. The roof truss of these two buildings should not be on the same straight line and should be staggered as per the red lines.  It would have to be one single roof with no separation between the 2 buildings if the truss was joined.

2. The compound angle line of the two mitred  roofs were wrong.  The line joining the 2 roof surfaces should extend from the apex of the roof  ridge  to the bottom fascia, as indicated by the red line.  The way it was portrayed, midspan on a roof, was not possible.

3.  The first building on the right seemed to have a 7 o'clock orientation vs the 8 or 9 o'clock on the rest.  One could rationalize by saying the street took a turn there.  But I knew better.

Back to the drawing board.

Chronicle Of Shadows: Coming Full Circle

Forget all the preconceptions of how the painting should look like.  I thought I would take the wait and see attitude.

Since I had memorized the painting now, I knew where everything belonged.  I just wanted to bide my time, follow the basic composition and see how things would develop; by themselves.  I wanted to assume the role of a facilitator rather than a planner.

For this I used the semi-sized Xuan for reasons mentioned before.  I decided to paint with the Je Mo technique.  This translates as the technique of accumulating ink.  The process involved repeated application of ink, sometimes as dry brushes, sometimes as wash and the resulting painting is blessed with intricate depth and intimate details.  I was also hoping that by employing this non-hurried approach, my lines would not be chiseled in stone, but would be a fluid entity and could be modified, revealed or masked as the situation demanded.
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As I said earlier, I was the facilitator this time around.  After the trees were populated, I started to manage which branch would look better as a negative space and which ones needed to be enunciated better.   As I manipulated the background I was constantly changing the position of some of these limbs.  Before I realized it, I was adding hints of trunks and the presence of an orchard in the background.  The execution was almost dream like and I was aware of it, but not noticing.  I tried not to fight it too much.  After all, I could always mask or wash what I deemed bad, but I did not want to discount my vulnerability.

Once I filled the backstage with  muted chatter, I needed the main stage to have a voice too.  This somehow led me to paint in the two paths.  The broad one was in the original painting and survived.  The one in the back was an afterthought.  The kink at the junction added interest to the layout.  It fitted well with the composition.  But then again those need not be paths.  They could be streams too ?  They're whatever you want them to be.

I decided to put the shadows back in, but not entirely, and only in a subdued fashion.   I left the paths clean on purpose.  I suppose this was my way to distinguish this as a painting and not a photographic recollection.

I liked this rendition a lot.  Perhaps it was more endearing to me due to its many distinctive traits of Chinese brush works.  Perhaps I spent so much time evolving with this particular version that we had grown fond of each other.  Perhaps it was the decision to go back to basics.

To chronicle the efforts so far with this subject matter, I've assembled the different versions here

I can't believe I stuck in for so long.    I'm not a persevering person. 

Chronicle of Shadows: continued

After a momentary hiatus I picked up where I left off with my "shadows" project.

I stuck with the semi-sized Xuan, judging that this paper is more forgiving to repeated overlays. I certainly needed that security blanket.  Also the ink would not be an absolute lack, but more like charcoal, and I like that.

To put aside any worries about brushstroke and what not I decided to go for broke.  I picked a brush with broken bristles.  It would not form a tip even when wet and felt more like a broom than a brush.
I proceeded very quickly with the painting.  I could almost do this with my eyes closed now, having done it for so many times in the weeks prior.

I thought the lines flowed rather freely and were quite spirited.  I thought I hiccuped when I got to the shadows, having lost some of that initial ruthlessness. The lines became more calculated and contrived.  Brown was haphazardly slopped onto the paper with my broom to form the horizon.   I don't know if it was the void spaces within the brushstrokes, but this wild, unrefined rendition had a certain sweetness to it.

Since I had my color out, might as well use them.  I avoided getting technical with brushstrokes by not employing them at all.  My next attempt was done using a flat brush, mosaic style.

I didn't even consider the shadows, the foreground. They were not in my cross hair at all.
Interesting.  I did it to let out steam.  And for experimentation, of course. 

Now that I had dealt with my anxiety, it was time to get serious.

The following attempt was done with first painting everything with ink, then covered with Chinese color No.3, Scarlet.

This color overlay on the semi-sized Xuan imparted a mahogany look to the trees.  Most interesting.  I tried to jazz up the painting by doing a charcoal outline of the limbs.  I did this to better define the spatial relationship of the branches and how they interact with each other; who was in front of the other.  I did it also to make the edges of the limbs more interesting.  The brush painted an inherently even keeled swath, even when I tried to mix in side-tip with center-tip.  By outlining using the double Gou technique, I hoped to amend the parallel lines appearance of the brushstroke edges.  I used charcoal because the paper became more sized after each coloring.  Any subsequent brushstrokes would lose their details because the water content from the brush would just sit on the paper, pooling and corrupting the edges.

Other than the technical interests of the painting so far, I still find it un-inspiring.  I was watching a mannequin.  All the right appendages, but lifeless.

I thought I knew exactly what I wanted to paint when I first started this project weeks ago.  Little did I anticipated  the ambivalence I encountered once I laid hands on it.  I was lost.
It was too picture like, too austere, too graphic in appearance, too......   I even tried the minimalistic approach, sort of.  I thought color might bail me out.  Nothing worked.  Somehow I was trapped inside a drain pipe and couldn't find my way out.