Asymmetry of Expectations

As I had difficulty deciding on whether to do the Monkey painting in a calligraphic brush stroke style or what I called the doodling line style, I had even greater reservations about how to present my new painting.

I stated that my primary motivation for this painting was to celebrate the Year of the Monkey.  Having said that it would appear that it should naturally don a traditional festive garb.  That usually entails bright, vibrant colors, and the color red is a must.

Yet my sensitive, artistic, and yes, even ornery and conceited side ( wink, smirk) wanted it to be more like a piece of art rather than a seasonal commodity ( whatever the definition of art might be ).

That was how I arrived at retaining the naked poplar wood as my frame.  I loved the wood grain.

I did not want my painting to appear ostentatious.

I can't explain why I could accept the gold glitter and yet I would resist the red color.  In other words, glitter was not loud but red was?

That simply didn't make sense.

The expectations from my cerebral side was confronting my "traditional" side.

I then had an occasion to present my painting to another Chinese brush enthusiast and confided to her about my internal turmoil about wanting to paint an auspicious New Year's piece and yet refusing to put a New Year's dress on.  She pondered for a while and grabbed some red napkins and superimposed them on the frame for me. 

"That looks good too!  Perhaps you can make something red, as in a decoration, to dress it up just for the occasion?"

With that said, my cogs started turning.

I had an ugly mat board that I would never use as a mat, so I decided to put it to good use.

I cut out four lengths and mitered the ends to form corners.

I then taped the corners together with strips of artist tape, in the fashion of securing an incision with butterfly bandage.

Then the outer edges were folded in, to form a shell, a lid.  This reminded me of doing craft in grade school, when we made airplanes and tanks and trains with thick stock paper.  We tried to design the whole thing on a contiguous area, such that upon folding along the edges, a fuselage or a gun turret appeared.  Harking back, that was great training in perceiving things in three dimensions.

I then trial fitted this onto my framed painting

At this point, I was elated; almost ecstatic.

I was like kid, able to repair a X'mas toy after it had broken, and was able to hide that from my parents.

I was like a tailor in Hong Kong, custom fitted a suit for my customer.

I could hardly contain myself.  The contraption worked.

I then proceeded to reinforce the joints in my mat board shell by gluing fabric to the seams.

After a couple coats of red paint, which incidentally had to be cut with ink because it was too bright; my new frame.

Some people might describe this as a red neck way of doing things.  In my neck of the woods, the term red neck has a somewhat negative connotation ( correct me if I'm wrong ).   People are making fun of those of us who use duct tape for every conceivable repair, from mending broken window to keeping a detached car bumper in place.  Things might look less than perfect, but at least they serve the purpose and the repair did not cost a national defense budget.

Perhaps I'm a red neck at heart.  At the very least, I enjoy working with my hands and derive satisfaction in finding new ways of doing things.  I think I was forced to be resourceful when I didn't have much to begin with.  In this case I made a convertible shell for my painting.  The red paper shell serves to alter the ambiance of the piece; at least for the purpose of displaying, and for the purpose of being proper for the occasion.

I am intrigued by my self analysis, and no I did not lay down on a couch!  Had I treated this like any other painting, I wouldn't be having this ambiguity about how to present it.  It would be however I felt and I would let the painting guide me in most cases.  Once I perceived this as something that pertains to my culture's recognition of the Year of the Monkey, then I must tread in the foot steps of tradition.  In a way I felt compelled to dress it the traditional way, because it was expected of me, I being a Chinese.   There were shackles that I couldn't shed.  By employing this convertible red shell I think I might have found the way to gingerly sidestep this trap, in my mind at least.    Perhaps by being two-faced.

In the case of this painting, I was vexed by the asymmetry of expectations.

I have my cohort to thank.  She gave me that light bulb for this project.

Perhaps I could call one version the Id, the other one the Ego.

Now which one is which?

Please find me a couch.

Happy New Year, Year Of The Monkey

YEAR OF THE MONKEY

HAPPY NEW YEAR

Framing My Monkey

With the Monkey painting done, I need to devise a way to showcase it.

I've already decided on using my Suliao Xuan Ban technique, despite the fact that the paper was more like a felt than semi-translucent.  I didn't want the paper to be rectangular.  I wanted a more casual feel.  I wanted a narrow border of gold color for the painting, promoting the regal festivity of celebrating the year of the monkey, in spirit at least.  I would build a wide border frame for it using 4 inch boards.

At first I was going to give my painting a round shape.  But then I  balked at the idea of a round shaped painting in a heavy square frame.  My compromise was to round off the corners of the square painting. 

I didn't want to use scissors to trim my painting in this instance.  I wanted a more organic feel of torn edges.

I wet the line where I wanted the paper to be trimmed with my brush and allow the water to soak in, such that the paper can be torn along that wet trail.

The result was amazing!  It had the feel of hand made paper!

I couldn't find any gold color sheets from the local craft stores, so I made my own.

I picked up some two and one-half inch wide gold glitter ribbon from X'mas fire sale and cut them into lengths.  My idea was to line them up side by side to form a sheet of golden glitter paper.

I used masking tape as an adhesive backing to secure my gold ribbon

here is the finished sheet of gold glitter paper made with ribbons

Then the trimmed painting was laid on top of the glitter paper to tailor for size

My original design was to trim the glitter backing a tad wider than the painting, thus forming a gold border.  I wanted to do that so when I employed the Suliao Xuan Ban mounting method, I would have a clear border around the sandwich, to make the painting appear like a float.

I finally decided against it.  Partly because I was lazy and didn't want to do the extra work, but also this set-up seemed too removed from tradition.  The set-up now involved placing the painting on top of the plastic and the glitter backing behind the plastic.  The thickness of the plastic gave the painting a hint of a float.  I was fighting my own ghosts from yesteryear again.

Instead I scraped off some glitter from the ribbon and sprinkled that on the painting.  That transformation was amazing.  Now the work looked orthodox and hip at the same time!  It just felt right.

I built my frame using poplar.  At first I was going to paint it Chinese Red but it might be too ostentatious for this painting.  I kept it naked and used clear satin urethane as a sealant.

I liked it a lot.

Monkey Business

Okay I've decided to pursue my monkeys in the drawing style, characterised by more lines than brush strokes. 

I did that for a couple of reasons, my inept brushstrokes not withstanding.  I felt more secure in doodling my monkey.  Secure in the sense that I could convey my monkeys more intimately and the process is more fluid.

I also came upon a new kind of paper recently.  This paper had a light brownish color and has visible fibers on the surface.  The paper felt like thin felt (no pun intended) and was intended for calligraphy.
It had excellent absorbency, and revealed richly the  black ink.  I especially liked the visible fibers.  They should blend in amicably with the hundreds of hair that I intended to paint on my monkeys.

Before I put both feet in, I thought I better paint a few samples.  Just to reassure myself, I fretted.

After my practice runs and no disasters were noted, I proceeded to do my monkey business for real.

I basically painted the shape of the head and body with the belly of the brush, with light ink. I did not intend to define them with outline per se, but with hair and shading, hence my notion of a fluid process.

I paid special attention to the direction at which the hair grew.  I thus laid down the main tracks of hair to guide me, such that I wouldn't get lost when I did the repetitious task of painting individual hairs.  It's easy to see the tree but miss the forest!

 

Once I had a few patches of hair the job got easier

As the brush went through different stages of wet and dry, I was able to not only paint the fur, but to perform the Ts'a  and Ren (rubbing and wash)  in a continuous loop, maximizing my brush strokes.

Eventually I had both of them done.

 

 

A little color was then added

My original composition was to paint a huge peach in front of the monkey on the right.  Not just any peach, but the Longevity Peach that is commonly found in Chinese paintings.  The peach, or Longevity Peach is a symbol of good omen and auspiciousness    Chinese often celebrate birthdays not with a birthday cake, but with buns made in the shape of a peach.  But then I said, that's too cliche!

Here is a picture of  the Longevity God clutching a peach in his left hand:

To fill the void space I summoned the help of my seals.  I decided to use the yin seals, where the background is red and the writing is clear.  I wanted the red stamps to add to the composition and to satisfy the need for showing the color red in auspicious matters.  I wanted to keep the painting low key but not subdued.   Thus I needed to place them strategically. 

I stamped my seals on small pieces of paper and moved them around to different locations of the painting to see what would work.

 

 

Framing Suliao Xuan Ban

I  mounted a few of my Ji Mo technique paintings using the Sulia Xuan Ban method that I devised ( see my blog dated September 20, 2015) so it's time to build frames for them.

The reason for employing the Sulia Xuan Ban method is to showcase the translucent Xuan by adopting a float like appearance.  I also want to take advantage of the clear plastic board such that I can display my Ji Mo paintings against a light.  I've done these paintings with that in mind.  I was very cognizant of the light sources in those paintings. 

I was looking for that stained-glass effect with my ink paintings.

I tried to keep things really simple.  I cut a groove with my dado blades in my 1x2 stock to accept the painting/plastic board/backing sandwich.  I tried to dry fit everything for a test run, to make sure my cuts were correct.

 

 

Satisfied that the pieces would fit, I glued them together.  I left one side of the frame open and secured with screws.  This is the door through which  the painting stack would be installed and changed out in the frame.

 

I decided to stain my frames with ink this time around.  This idea came about because my paintings were about Ji Mo ( accumulating ink technique), so why not use ink to the fullest.  Satin urethane was applied  to protect the ink stained frames.

 

There was something very satisfying by staining with ink.  The unpainted poplar stock took in ink like Xuan takes on ink.  I could pretend that I was doing calligraphy and marvelled at the brushstrokes.

 

 

 



 

 

I had some plywood remnants left so I cut them up to fashion some sort of a bracket/stand to prop up my paintings.  Dado blades were used to cut channels to accept the frame.  Ink was again used to stain these stands.

 

 

 

I was pretty elated when I put the finished product in front of a window.  The light that seeped through the plastic board and Xuan really helped to illuminate the light effect I was yearning to impart.

 

 



The clear border around the painting added to the flair when coupled with this back lit environment.
This is a float in the literal sense.

Time To Monkey Around

The year of the monkey is just around the corner.  It's time to do a little monkey business.

I dabbled in painting a rabbit when it was the year of the Rabbit.  When it was the year of the snake, I tried to paint snakes just for the heck of it, practicing my center tip technique (see Snakes, Just for Fun , Feb 23, 2013 blog).   I think the idea of me painting the animal of the year sort of took hold with the year of the horse.  It is a challenge now to try to keep this going.

I started out by researching photos on the net and tried to compose poses based on them and sketched them out to see the possibilities.

I tried to paint with more details to see what works

And tried to try some gazes

 

The facial expression was a difficult task.  I didn't want the painting to appear cartoonish, nor did I want it to be stoic and cold.  I forgot how many muscles are there to control our facial expressions, suffice to say regardless of the number I was not able to replicate any of them with my brush.  The things that I could try though were the relative positions of the eyes, the brow and the attitude of the head. 

 

 That's it.  Body language!

 

 

 

 

 At some point I thought the images were more like drawings than brush strokes, so I also tried my luck with more emphasis on brush strokes

 

 

 I was really having a difficult time.  I kept vacillating between the 2 different styles.  A major part of the indecision was due to my very limited experience of the subject matter and either way I would be treading in new waters.

 

I need to extricate myself from this for a little while and see if I could find a fresh approach.

 





All By Herself, wrapping it up

My attention then turned to the pier.

I added a stop to the far end of the pier and defined the edge too.    I did that by painting in shapes and lines suggesting of masts from freight barges and just junk. I also added in the main shadows from the setting sun, to create a more complete reference point for the next steps





I did not like the stern appearance of all the dark, narrow vertical lines of the support poles.  My remedy was to soften up those lines by fusing them with a blob of ink.

I wet down  a couple of strategic locations along the poles and applied concentrated ink to them and allowed the ink to bleed out.  This is sort of like the moss dots that are commonly deployed to jazz up or obscure flaws in a brush painting.

I continued to work on the different areas, all the while having the light source in my focus because I really wanted to showcase the setting sun with a good dose of elongated shadows.

I worked slowly and laboriously to make my tableware assume a more dramatic look, taking care to not over-paint it.  I darkened the flat areas on the table ever so slightly, using my brush wash, thus the unpainted areas looked brighter.  This helped to put a sparkle on the water glass. The water glass closest to the bottom would be a prime example of this effect.   Being hasty has always been my Achilles Heel so I was mindful.  I also took pains to not cover up the water marks, especially on my back lit person of interest.  I really wanted her to have that halo.

Finally joint lines were added to the cement surface on the pier.  That and  the various angled lines

in the painting helped to establish a perspective, a vanishing point for this painting.

I know everything that I have done so far is a far cry from the traditional Chinese Brush painting.  I just felt frisky and rebellious;  I was not going to be bound.

My final touch-up, for now anyways, was to add some texture to the cement surface.  This was done with the help of well worn brushes.  These brushes would no longer hold  a point because the hair had become broken and jagged, so they are ideal for loose splatter brush strokes.  The footprints they leave are fine random dots.

It was interesting how shapes and lighting prompted me to do the painting, but I tried to add the story of a lone lady to complement the scheme of things.  The conflict, or drama in this plot was the absence of a crowd at a place of multitude.  I used the setting sun and fading light to amplify the feeling of desolation.

For now, that is a wrap.