Bit off more than I could chew

Winter is here.

Trees are shedding their leaves.

For more reason I love a naked tree more than one with full foliage.  I think I enjoy the intricacy and the stubbornness of the branches.

I've attempted branches before, so why don't I try roots.

Banyan tree roots to be exact.  Full, intertwined, entangled; yet each branch leads to something, somewhere.
Like capillaries in our body.

I sensed this is a daunting task.  How to make sense of a senseless mess.  Yet my OCD beckoned.  How else could I enjoy the obsession of  repetitive work without regret!

I wanted to paint this in black and white.  I've grown really fond of this setup.  It appealed to me at a visceral level, one that I could not verbalize.

It didn't take me long to realize that I was in deep trouble.  I was losing sight of what I was painting, or for that matter, what image was in my head.

I started out by thinking that I would paint the roots as negative spaces against a dark, sumptuous background.  That took too much planning.  It wasn't natural.  So I abandoned.

Then I tried to paint the roots using a light ink, filling in the non-roots areas later with  darker ink.  My lack of patience got the better of me.  I simply could not wait for the visual effect to materialize.  I had problem envisioning the painting.  I wanted to throw my brush against the wall.

So I resorted to my tried and true method of sketching.  I took time sketching out the roots using charcoal; developing each lead.  I then developed the painting by addressing which area should be filled in or not.  It wasn't as easy as I had planned because I was soon immersed in this jungle of lines.

On top of that, the painting looked more like an illustration than a painting.  There was something amiss about it.

So I went back to my other method.  I just dived into a new sheet of Xuan and started to paint.  Again I was confused about my positive and negative spaces.... which I subsequently said "the hell with it".  Once I decided that I didn't care, and perhaps aided by the recent attempt of sketching with charcoal, I seemed to be able to fuse the positive and negative spaces together and make some sense of the composition.

 I forged on until I had all the spaces accounted for.  Often times the positive space tuned into negative space and vice versa.  I did it without much thought; I just went along.

This is how the draft looked like after the ink has dried.

My next move is to work on the details with regards to my ink values.  I am still vacillating between my charcoal sketched  version and the purely brush version.  I promise myself to be patient.  I shall wait for another day.

Obviously I've bitten off more than I could chew.

Shi Tao Revisited

I mentioned that I was not pleased with my rendition of the flat tops in my emulation.  I sensed there was something wrong and I was disappointed at myself that I just brushed over it (pun intended).  What was the haste?

The reason my flat tops looked awkward was because I ignored the minute breaks in the lines.  I had dealt with this subject matter in my blog More Than Just Broken Lines dated 3/29/2012.  In that blog, I surmised that the breaks in a line are often used to create distance, depth.  When these gaps are strategically placed,  an illusion of 3-dimensional thickness is created.

When I painted the flat tops, I painted the parameter line as a continuous, non-broken line.  Thus it was boring and two dimensional, despite the presence of vertical ch'uen lines denoting a folding feature in the land mass, i.e. a raised ridge or slope of sorts.  I magnified the original print of Shi Tao's landscape and was delighted about my observation.

In the above cut-out, one could see a break in the line at where the fold could occur.

Here I have an example of another ancient Chinese brush painter whose name escaped me, but his technique of using the gap was even more astute and deliberate.

While examining Shi Tao's painting I also noticed evidence of light markings underneath the darker ink.  He sketched his paintings.  The practise of sketching had at times become a contentious issue with me, at least during my encounter with various teachers.  Some of my teachers are staunch objectors to sketching; they deem that a sign of incompetence.  Whereas I had teachers who advocated sketching, regardless of whether one was doing brush work or not, especially in laying out a landscape painting.

Armed with this knowledge, I made another attempt in Shi Tao's landscape painting.  This time I sketched it out in charcoal first.

After the sketching is done, I went over the charcoal lines with my brush work.  I must say this allowed me to control my brush tip much better.  I could devote more attention to the quality of the lines, since I didn't have to be too concerned about placement of shapes.

In my once over with light ink brush work, I was paying special attention to the breaks in the lines when I got to painting the flat tops.

As usual I filled in my ch'uen lines and shading whenever the brush was in the right condition to do so.

This was followed by my blues.  After that I took a day off, which I shouldn't have done.

The reason I regretted taking the day off was because I had allowed the blue to totally dry, thus it would not bleed into the browns, forming hard, artificial boundaries between the different colors.  I found the lack of transition unpleasant to look at.  I should have known better!  Is this what people refer to as wet on wet technique?

I paid better attention to the round leaves too by using better brushstrokes and using side-tip strokes on one side to denote thickness/shadow, allowing a more 3-dimensional appearance.

With the mixed foliage, I tried to paint in the under layers with light ink first to give an impression of a fuller tree.

A wash with brush cleaning bath was applied to blend the colors.

After the final wash is dried

The first and second attempts side by side

The two works have a different color cast, mainly due to the different time of the day when the photo was taken. The one on the right is the second attempt.  It shows better articulation of the flat tops, as it should be; that was my motivation for this second edition.    It turned out that there is an additional flat top on the right that I didn't catch during the first attempt, and the little water level drop  right next to the red round leaves that I omitted is now added back in.  Obviously more ch'uen lines, albeit in disarray they seem.   I need to hone my skills in having a rich field of lines without making them look  like a wad of jumbled  noodles.  I also do not like the blotchy look of the colors; a consequence of my not mixing the colors in a timely manner.  I suppose it wouldn't be fun if it was easy!

Emulating Shi Tao

Shi Tao (1642 -1707) was a Chinese landscape painter.  His paintings were a little out of character with the times.  His works showed a hint of impressionism, with bold splash ink and absurd looking mountains; as if the mountains were bowing.  I don't know if that had anything to do with the fact that he was a monk, but I find his works most pleasing, even in today's light.

His landscape painting would embody all the traditional thematic matters and techniques and yet he was able to jazz it up to be almost irrelevant.  I found such an example thumbing through a collection of his calligraphy and paintings and decided to study that painting by trying to emulate it.

The basic technique is simple enough; hemp fibre ch'uen was used extensively to describe the rocky formations.

The Chinese brush stroke is so simple and yet pragmatic in describing rocky topography.  Center-tip brush gives one the contour line.  Side-tip brush describes the thickness of that slice of landmass, rendering a 3-dimensional account.

I started off by laying down all the contour lines with light ink, and plotted in some of the shading when the dampness of the brush felt appropriate.

The canon of depth perspective requires the artist to describe incidentals from near to far, thus the buildings behind the first landmass, and a road formed by a long flat ridge directs our attention to the distance.

Shi Tao also used the traditional method to describe a mixed foliage.  In this painting one could clearly see the different brushstrokes used to denote different types of plants.

The negative space seemingly represents clouds, but is also a clever way of creating a separation between landmasses, thus giving depth and perspective.

The painting included several flat top structures to the left of the road.  These flat tops are quite common in classical Chinese landscape.  I remember doing tons of homework learning how to write the flat tops. Unfortunately I've taken this exercise for granted and I can see a lot of problems with my current rendition.  Perhaps I'll have to refresh my memory.

Blue is splashed on to mark the shaded areas.  The distant mountain tops are painted in blue also.  This incidentally agrees with the western method of depicting far away landscape, when earth's atmosphere renders everything blue.  I always remembered being told to use warm colors for close in objects and cold tones for distant objects.  I find it very interesting that a Chinese painter in the late Ming dynasty observed the same principles.

I now use the tea color pigment to fill in the rest of the landscape.

The entire painting is now washed by my brush cleaning bath.  This liquid is the culmination of all the colors that I have used, thus is ideal in establishing an equalizing tone for the entire painting.

My finished painting, an emulation of Shi Tao's work.  As alluded to earlier, I might re-do it to see if I could improve on some of the brushstrokes, especially with regards to the flat tops.

Rebirth of Multnomah Falls

One of the places I visited while travelling this summer was Multnomah Falls.  This is an attraction I frequented several times a year so I know it pretty well; so I thought.  I was functioning like a tour guide for my visitors, and as I was verbalizing  my observations, I realized what I did wrong with a painting I did years ago.

I retrieved the painting from my attic and worked on a plan of attack.  I wanted to correct my mistakes.

Here's the original painting

The most obtrusive offense to me was the gaping void left on top of the water fall.  I must had been so enthralled about the water that I thought it could just appear out of the thin air.

There also seemed to be a strong representation of parallel lines in the painting; the trees on the left, the water falls, and the two really obvious trees on the right.  I also did not enjoy the weird tree on the upper right, despite it could have actually looked like it.

I remember when I was putting together this painting, I was trying to incorporate the traditional method of painting mixed foliage, as exemplified by the Mustard Seed  Garden.  The fact remains that the painting looked very staged; as if I just threw a bunch of things haphazardly together and called that done.  I know the artist has certain leeway in fabrication, especially when this is not en plein air; but the fact remains that the sum has to be greater than the parts.

First on my agenda was to paint in the grey sky and plug up the space above the upper fall.  What I had initially painted suggested a separation of the cliff into two halves, bisected by the fall, which is not feasible. I failed to recognize that the cliff was a land mass, on which a river flows and the river cascaded down the cliff face as a waterfall.  I needed the trees in the background to account for the land beyond the line of sight.

I then worked on the cliff face by making it darker, to better contrast with the waterfall.  I used a chuen brushstroke that helped to impart texture, making the rock face more pronounced.

I also added leaves to the weird tree on the upper right. I used a kidney shaped dot brushstroke, just to add variety.

I then proceeded to darken to two parallel tree trunks on the right, and shortened one of the exposed member.  What made the original setup more obnoxious was that the parallel lines were of equal length.
The resulting trees looked a lot more pleasing.

.I really liked the void left just north of the twin trees now.  That little bit of space created a distance, separating the background from the middle and the front.  We now have depth perspective.

I thought the original painting lacked punch; missing a hook.

It happened that my visit was at a time when leaves were about to don their autumn colors.
I also remembered a picture I took last year of fall colors,

so I shall borrow from this scene.

I tried to do the leaves in a cross hatch fashion to give them more texture.  I did this by laying down my brush, employing the full length of the tip and belly of the nib.

The effect was too strong and looked fake; reminded me of a bad case of artificial sharpening on the photoshop.  So I eventually sanded it down to acquire that mottled look.

I gave the lower half of the painting an orange red wash, to impart a warm cast to the foreground.  I thought that helped to delineate the front, the middle and the back.

Now the painting still encompasses the various types of leaves to describe mixed foliage in the traditional brush.  One can  find round dots, kidney dots, straight hash, pine needle, willow, maple, bamboo and  rhododendron leaves represented in the mix, but the varieties are able to coexist in better harmony than before.

Be A Gracious Guest; Bide Your Time.

I submitted several of my works for a juried art event.

I wanted to test the waters by seeing how my Suliao Xuan Ban technique would be perceived; and received.

The works I selected were:

Oblivious

Pillars

Midnight

Journey

Going Home

Dream

Aside from presenting in the Suliao Xuan Ban format, all these paintings were done in a monochromatic fashion, where I used ink or tea and coffee to effect the gray scale studies.

Before I was even notified of the jury results, I was doubtful that my two pieces that showed faces would be accepted.   I based my forecast on the fact that I've never studied human or portrait drawings and I'm sure that genre has its own rules of determining workmanship; and my demerits would be plenty. 

I did not disappoint myself.  Both Oblivious and Dream were rejected.   Despite the fact that I predicted the results, I still felt dejected.  Rejected would be more accurate.  

I had a chance to speak to the curator of the show and was told ( referring to Oblivious ) "the painting is strong, but the faces are not familiar to the West"

How dare you, was my knee jerk reaction.  That comment was almost racist!  To reject my works because of  poor artistry is one thing, but to shun them because the faces are unfamiliar to the west is asinine.  Our local art scene is still catering to what is familiar to the West?  How could this be happening  in today's world?   Am I being naive? What about Picasso's cubism?  How familiar are his faces?  

I calmed down after fuming for a couple of weeks and became philosophical; sort of.  I realized that I am a guest in this country and culture; regardless of whether I am a citizen of this great nation or not.  I need to know my place, and know that I am at my host's discretion.

What brought this understanding was my recent visit to a Historic Site.

A tiny stone building in a Central Oregon town called John Day is now on the Register of National Historic Places.  This humble building is the Kam Wah Chung museum.

It was a complete surprise to me that out in the middle of nowhere, in this desolate part of Oregon, in the Canyon City, John Day area, there once was a population of close to 2,000 Chinese.  This was the late 1800's.

The two occupants of this building were Doc Hay, a traditional Chinese herbalist and his partner Lung On, one who spoke English and was savvy in business practices.  The recorded history would tell us that Doc Hay was a well respected healer because of his knowledge of  herbal medicine and his kind heart and generosity towards the sick, even to people outside of the Chinese community.  His position in and outside of the community was revered, despite several attempts from the medical community to paint him as a quack and to bar him from treating people.  Lung On on the other hand dressed in Western garb and knew the customs and in fact owned the first automobile dealership in John Day.

So the program presented by the Oregon State Parks system would have us believe that these two gentlemen were upright citizens in good standing and were sort of a folk hero at the time, in spite of  their ethnicity  This is a far cry from the "sundown law" that was in existence throughout much of Oregon.  I visited the underground world of Chinese immigrants in Pendleton ( Eastern Oregon) and was told that Chinese had to go to their underground tunnels and chambers after sundown or face even greater peril.  A lot of the Chinese immigrants in the early days were miners, lured in by the nascent gold and silver mines.  Subsequently the Chinese were brought in by the Central Pacific railroad when a large labor force was needed to expand the rails to the Pacific coast.

The last occupant of that tiny stone building died in 1952 and both Doc Hay and Lung On were buried in John Day. Their wish was to deed the building and all the contents to the City of John Day.  

It wasn't until 1967 when the city of John Day was about to demolish the building and through a search of the Title realized that the building actually belonged to the city.  For 15 years the building was locked up and deserted and forgotten.  A building that was generously given to the citizens of John Day by their own celebrities was left unattended.  Such was the account from the State Parks department.

I came to realize that despite the fact that these two people were Chinese pioneers, and well liked folk heroes in the community, they were still two unknowns; two errant ships lost in the sea of an alien culture. Their contributions to the community meant nothing to the city government, at least during their lifetime.  Their generosity to the city they called home, their well gestures were all but forgotten, taken for granted.  After all, they were from a different place, a different people; victims of the Chinese Exclusion Act, which was enacted in 1882 by President Arthur.  What Doc Hay and Lung On thought was their dedication to the community, to the city, to their host country, were all but just entries in the Tax Deeds Department, locked up in the city vault.   It was not a scenario where the city was strapped for funds to do anything with the structure.  It was clearly a case of not appreciating the ownership of the bequest.  

Not until the time when it was deemed appropriate, or opportunistic, to document  the Chinese presence and make  the site a Historic landmark, perhaps to promote tourism, did their story take on a different fate.

Who knows, nobody in the city government of John Day cared about these two legends back in 1952, and somehow someone recognized the opportunity to tell their stories in 1967 and seized upon it.   The timing has to be right, and that requires the precise convergence of 3 elements;  time, place and people.  Call that fate, as nothing will happen sans any of the 3 requirements.

The Parks Department found over 30 thousand dollars worth of un-deposited checks  in a trunk beneath a bed.   Some of these checks were from places outside of Oregon, perhaps from people who sought Doc Hay's services. He had a mail order business at the time.  There was speculation that Doc Hay was not well versed in money and did not know to cash the checks.  I found that not plausible. His partner opened up the first car dealership in town, for heaven's sake.

I came away feeling bitter sweet.  I was able to peep into the lives of early Chinese immigrants, at least the version that was told today.  I felt proud of their accomplishments, and empathized with the fact that they lived in the shadow of their hosts' good graces, or sometimes the woes of their hosts' nefarious deeds, as evidenced by the bullet holes in the wooden door to the building.  They even installed the water well and hand pump inside the enclosure of the building for safety reasons, so I was told.  One thing that legislators could not legislate is attitude.

Be gracious; good guests know their places.

What Is In A Title, Oblivious, Faces Of Silence!

I've alluded to whether a painting needs a title or not in my past posts.  I belong to the camp that says yes it does.

Recently my own personal experience brings home the need for a title.

My portrayal of three faces naturally brought up the question of what this painting was about.

"You were practicing painting a face."

"Empathy"

"Meditation"  

Meditation was by far the most popular nomination.

Then I said, " Have eyes, but Won't  see"

I must admit, my painting was inspired by the verses in The Sound of Silence,

    "people talking without speaking

                people hearing without listening

                         people writing songs that voices never share

                                    and no one dare, disturb the sound of silence"

The face on the right, Arhat, was supposed to have attained the perfect life, free from pain and suffering.  Arhat is believed to have attained nirvana; analogous to a saint in the western religion,  and yet he was represented in reverse values.  Everything about him was just the contrary.  Black became white and white became black.  Despite all that we perceived  him as nothing wrong  in this painting; despite the unspoken uneasiness due to the reversed values.

He did have his eyes closed, or did he?  Oh but wait, he had no eyeballs.  Was he not seeing or just not feeling.  Did I forget to paint in the eyeballs?

So I went from a somber, heavy rendition of a real face on the left, to a negative, fictitious face on the right, and inserted a benevolent Buddha face in the middle for good measure, all with their eyes closed, or half closed.  Everybody knows Buddha is benevolent and caring and a lot of people in this world look to Buddha for comfort and guidance and blessings.

"The Have Eyes But Won't See is too strong and spiteful a statement", commented one person.

"You need to tone it down" was the suggestion.

Like the song said, we can talk without speaking, hear without listening and I included looking without actually seeing.  I am referring to things in general, our living environment, the way we do things, our society, our world.

Could this be denial?  Denial is a perfect coping mechanism and we all do that to some extent to protect ourselves.

So were these faces pretending that they don't or can't see because their eyes were conveniently closed or missing?  I used the negative Arhat face to say there's more to that.  This Arhat was not what he was cracked up to be. 

This painting is not about meditation or empathy.

Donald Rumsfeld ( US Secretary of Defense ) had said that there are "known knowns, known unknowns and unknown unknowns".  That seemed like a conundrum but if one analyzes that closely, it makes perfect sense. (I hope I'm not misquoting here)

There are times ( and people who) when we lack the knowledge that we actually are ignorant.  There is a medical condition called anosognosia when a person is truly unaware of one's own defect.

I am going to bastardize this term to include everyday circumstances when the persons involved are truly ignorant of the facts, and doing so without malice.

I was involved in some discussion of whether the Xuan I paint on is archival or not.  To the western practitioner who paints on paper, perhaps that is of utmost importance, being archival grade and acid free and what not.  For someone who paints on Xuan this question never arose.  Paintings done on Xuan and silk and mounted on paper or silk  from centuries ago survived just fine. We have always taken that for granted.  Yet both sides argue and insist.

The west insists that paper be archival and the east insists that mounting not only be done, but done in the traditional fashion.  My way of mounting on canvas, cement board or plastic catches nothing but ire. Perhaps these new substrates are unknown territories, their compatibility and longevity have not been proven.  One thing both sides agreed on was dry mounting is bad.  Has the traditional wet mounting of Xuan fallen victim to modern day technology?  Or is the old way of doing things too time consuming and is out of sync with the I Want It Now mentality?  Or could this be that nobody wants to invest the time into learning how to wet mount anymore?

People used to think the earth was flat and we were the center of the universe.  We insist and fight based on preconceptions, prejudices, customs, cultures and religion.  Assumptions that are not well vetted, or simply beyond our comprehension.

So are these insistence anosognosic or are they just ignorant demands.  Are we so afraid to step out of the box and give things a try?  Food for thought.

Sorry about the segue but I really needed to get that off my chest.  

In the end I am going to title my piece "Oblivious".  Arhat, Buddha, all the Salvation in the world is not going to deliver us from human slaughtering each other, from natural disasters.   People engaging in wars pray to their gods for a successful mission.  Both sides do that, I am sure.  If the deity was merciful and all knowing, why would any favoritism be bestowed.  Are our lives worth more than the enemies?  After all we are all His children.  After a disaster people have a moment of silence and pray for the victims.  So where is the Creator now?  Why would such calamity be allowed to happen to his flock in the first place.  I have no doubt for that brief moment, in the prayer,  most of us feel connected to the Spirit and that we empathized and we gave off sincere, kind thoughts.   Humanity, we're supposed to be human beings.  Homo sapiens, we are supposed to have feelings and a conscience.

If we can assume there is life after death and reincarnation and all that, then is the purported utopia a known unknown, and if we have no expectations or beliefs, then is that an unknown unknown?  If we are emphatic about our death is the final curtain then that must be a known known. What makes a person think and wish that our existence should be forever?  That goes far beyond the survival instinct bred into our DNA.  Do we exercise good deeds just for the sake of karma?  If there was no law, no watch dogs, no god, would we have behaved the same?

In either case, we all have eyes and most of us have sight but how many of us really see with them.   We might as well be blind or have no eyeballs.  We are blinded by pride.  We are blinded by ideology. We are blinded by ignorance.  We are blinded by convenience.

I am guilty as charged. 

Oblivious.  That's the only answer I could offer.  These are faces of silence.