A Quorum

Having enjoyed painting my goose amongst water grass, I thought of another painting that I could toy with.  I suppose I am blessed enough to reside in an area where I have ample opportunities to interact with Canada geese, to the extent that some of them would peck on the door to beg for food.  At times there are 4 different families with their offspring borrowing my backyard as their playground.  They are my endearing painting inspirations.

Other members of my family unfortunately do not share my fondness for these birds.  All they can relate to is the odious landmines of geese droppings on the lawn.  I consider them natural fertilizers, and I have yet to catch salmonella.

What I see is a gathering of geese at some wetland.  Bodies of water of varying depths flooding what used to be plowed fields; punctuated by short rows of grass, weed and what not.  Ambiguous silhouettes of hay and implements and dilapidated outhouses dot the frame. Birds are wading on their short stubby legs, swimming, fighting, bathing, less than mellifluous squawking,  veiled by the muslin of saturated water vapor, and the intense amber light of the setting sun, with ribbons of glistening reflections as garnish.  And yes, the hard-to-miss white flickers on their chins and tails as they carry on with their activities.

Such is the setting.

while the paper is still moist I wrote in portions of the trees, such that portions of the tree is visible through the mist

Mother's Day Serendipity

I was invited to do a Chinese Brush demo at a local attraction.  This venue boasts of an authentic Suzhou classical garden and is a destination for a lot of out-of-towners.

Typically I would show people how to hold a brush and why we hold our brush this way.   It's all about the tip and the edge.  I would try to mix good background information with real applications, avoiding topics that are too esoteric.  Don't want my audience to be bored.  My years as a retail pharmacist has honed my ability to discern if a person is drawn in by my topic or not.

I had chosen the topic of landscape painting for this occasion.  I wanted to present to the general public what are some of the attributes of this genre of work.  I used the Chinese Mustard Seed Garden as my reference, since I had to study this text book.  I went through the illustrated examples of composition, as far as grouping rocks, trees, mixed foliage, trees etc and addressed the required proficiency in Gou, Chuen, Ts'a, Ren and Dien.  I also brought prints from painters of the Song dynasty to compare and contrast with the works of a contemporary Zhang Daqian . Obviously not everybody was interested in the fundamentals, and I could tell from their body language.  Interestingly there were a few scholars in the crowd.  I surmised by the questions they asked, and the time and attention they spent at my table.

The day of my demo happened to fall on Mother's Day.  It was especially difficult for moms ( or any parent for that matter ) to spend time exploring a topic when they have their genetic copies tugging at their hems all the time.  I would suggest to you that most of the moms came to the garden as something special to do , on a day that honored them, and not because they were interested in Chinese brush painting.  To honor all the moms in my audience, I threw in a few surprises of attempting to paint a rose, under the pretense of demonstrating what a Chinese brush could do if we can harness its nib to the fullest extent.

Most of the time when I digressed to painting roses, it was because I was trying to salvage interest in my spiel;  (I mean there were times that I really wanted to do something nice for the moms) thus I had to paint fast.  Kids don't have patience.   In any case, quite a few moms received a extemporaneously painted rose as a memento for their visit on Mother's Day.

I was pleasantly surprised that some of these attempts turned out to be nice.  The hastily painted roses were spontaneous, lively, and did not seem rote.  I call that Mother's Day Serendipity.

A Minor Tweak To My Goose

Boy that title sounded a little off color.  Now that I have your attention, I was referring to the slight change I made to the geese painting.

I know I was worried that I sucked the life out of my painting by making the geese too real, yet I just couldn't resist my innate urge to make something life like.  Call that platitude or whatever, that has been the bane of my endeavors in painting.

I decided to punch it up a bit by altering the contrast and definition of my geese feathers.  I got that idea by playing with the "clarity" attribute in Windows photo editing app.

I thought of a way of re-defining the feathers on my goose.  I used a small Chinese brush and loaded it with the tea/ink mixed color.  Onto the surface of this loaded brush, I piled on some white gouache with another brush.  Imagine a Klondike Ice Cream Bar, where the ice cream is coated with a thin layer of chocolate?  This is the effect I was looking for; except tn my case, the brown color is on the inside, and the shell is white.

With the brush so loaded, I pressed firmly using the side-tip technique on to my goose.  Thus each brown dab would be surrounded by an outline of white.  By experimenting with the placement of such dabs, I was giving my feathers more realism; creating the pretense of blades of feathers. 

At the same time I selectively applied pure white gouache to certain white areas, to accentuate the original white gradient.

Well that was fun for an afternoon.

Canada Geese

I did a painting of water grass and reeds in a pond, playing with lines and dots ( my blog on Lines, March 4, 2017 ) and it is time to take advantage of this backdrop.

What spurred this impetus on was the fact that I was  tired of looking at a canvas frame that I made a few years back.  This frame has the 2:1 aspect ratio, one that approximates the native ratio for traditional Xuan stock.  In a daring move, I decided to mount my pond backdrop on my canvas first before I added to the painting.  My reeds in a pond painting did not subscribe to the 2:1 aspect ratio, but I forged ahead anyways.  I was not holding any prisoners.

Turned out to be okay.  I flipped it upside down and see if that would work

The upside down version did not work.  I thought the lines were generic and  non-descript enough that I might be able to pull the switch off but I was wrong.

Once the mounting was dried I could see that my mounting was not quite up to snuff this time; there were a lot of creases and wrinkles.   I had fortuitously picked a piece of blobs and dots and lines, so my mounting inadequacy blended in unobtrusively.

I thought about painting in some water lilies but I didn't think the petals would blend in with the reeds.  Frogs and fish were not "poetic" enough.  How about something colorful like a Mandarin duck?

It is cute, bright and placates well potentially with the unsuspecting audience since it fits the stereotype.  Perhaps I am over-thinking it but I am desperately determined to circumvent this platitude.  Besides I am really not familiar with Mandarin ducks and I rather not paint from pictures of them.

I decided on painting something I know intimately, Canada Geese.  Their white chin-band on a black neck and head fits the over-all monochromatic and graphic nuance of the pond painting.

Now that I know what to paint, how to paint the geese became a problem.  Normally I would be painting on unmounted Xuan and the paper would offer me its water and color absorbency parameters in full.   Once my pond back-drop painting is mounted however,  the paper behaves very differently because of the starch backing.  Additionally, I don't want to wet the painting too much if I could help it, for fear of disturbing the starched sheets.  Wetting will cause separation and new wrinkles on the mounted piece.

I needed to use as dry a brush as possible and minimize going over and repeating my brushstrokes.  I decided to rough-in the birds to position them more succinctly, in my mind at least.

Employing a rather dry brush, I proceeded to write in the neck and the beak; trying to be loose and precise at the same time.

Adding in the white chest and underbelly seemed to affirm the presence of the geese.

Tea color fortified with ink was used to paint the body.

I was tempted to leave the painting just like that.  It had a sort of simplistic innocence to it.  But my pragmatic right brain told me that it looked unfinished.  I ruminated on that for a day or two and decided to continue adding to it.  Perhaps I would regret my judgment.

So I decided to change a completely glassy pond to one with just a few ripples.

Then it occurred to me that the bright area under the body goes against the logic that this is where the shadow or reflection should go and therefore should be darker.  And also, the body looked much bigger from a distance because the light area was perceived to be part of the body.

I picked up my brush and obsequiously put in a darker value, hinting a reflection or shadow of sorts.

I just hope that I didn't suck the life out of this painting by rendering it too "real".  I was once told that the two dimensional feel of Chinese brush painting is what make the art form impressionistic.  I was told to dispense with  minute and trivial details of shadows and reflections and what not.  Obviously I am a product of my environment and a lot of western influences show up in my works.  I am having a hard enough time debating my allegiance to the traditional or a more contemporary expression; I just pray that I am not obfuscating my own perceptions.

Like Child's Play

I had a chance to work on painting with a bunch of  kids ranging from around 9 to 15 years old.  Painting was not part of the curriculum nor was art a particular interest for these kids.  They were participants because they were told to. They didn't have any say in this.  Nonetheless one always finds gems in the rough in any group.

There were a total of about 45 kids divided into 3 groups, and despite the fact that they were told in a step-by-step fashion as to what to paint, their own interpretations nonetheless came through.  Their innocence can be so endearing.

and of course there is always that someone who really wants to be different

can't accuse that person of lacking any originality.

And some well executed brushstrokes:

Why Waste An Etude

I am aware that I'm not preparing a musical piece,  I'm just trying to use the word Etude in a generic sense, if there is one.  So forgive me, si vous plait, musicians.

Since I was not unhappy with the landscape piece I prepared for my painting demo, I decided to mount it using my Sulio Xuan Ban technique ( mounting Xuan on plastic boards ).

The painting is first moistened to relax the fibers.  Wet Xuan is like wet kleenex, thus we have to allow it to dry slowly.  Handling a dripping wet Xuan is committing suicide.

In the mean time, iron on the silicone film onto the plastic board

Now trim a piece of blank Xuan and iron onto the film of silicone that was just ironed onto the plastic.  I used a regular iron for the initial tack, then a smaller model iron to tackle the stubborn creases.

This view shows the affixed blank Xuan on the backside of the plastic.  This is going to be used as the white balance sheet for the translucent Xuan painting. 

Using this blank on the bottom as a positioning guide, carefully place the dried, wrinkle free painting on the topside of the plastic board.  This is then ironed into place. ( another layer of silicone should have be tacked on the top side of the plastic first)

Now gently run the hand over the ironed on painting to feel for obvious air pockets and loose spots

Shine a light at a low angle onto the painting to better reveal air pockets

Using a pin to poke holes into these pockets

After re-heating with the iron over these pockets, press a rubber ball over the area with firm pressure avoiding  inadvertent damage to the delicate Xuan.

Measure 3 times and cut once, time to build my custom frame out of poplar

Rough fitting for insurance

Staining the custom frame with the same ink I paint with

The stained frame is then smoothed out with steel wool, re-stained, and finished with a clear wood finish.

Looks nice hanging on my wall.  Almost professional!