Born Free

My latest landscape painting with the Central Oregon theme has gone through a few tiny revisions here and there and I am resigned to accept it as being done.  I've been ruminating on how to mount this painting, if at all.  I am trying to not mount or frame every piece that I have completed ( the ones that speak to me anyways ) because I don't want to be hoarding all these pieces, collecting dust.  Anyways this is one of those works that pulls me to the wall now and then and I feel like that it deserves a stage.

My last landscape painting, Chibi Nostalgia is mounted on canvas; the method I coined Xuan-Boo (Xuan paper on cloth).  I like its presentation so much that I am going to make a companion for it.  It just happens that both paintings share the same 1:2 aspect ratios.  A lot of Xuan paper come in that native ratio, i.e. a 4 foot long piece would have a 2 foot width.  My Chibi measures 18 in x 36 in and this new piece is a little junior to that, at 15 in x 30 in.  I fashioned my canvas using a piece of canvas drop cloth wrapped around a wood frame and covered with gesso. 

Starch is used for the wet mounting process.

The over-hang margin is tucked under the wooden frame and secured with starch. The over-hang conceals the bare canvas, and gives the piece a more "finished" appearance. 

A dry broad stiff brush is used to pound on the surface, under the protection of a couple sheets of  newspaper.  This pounding process is my poor-man's press; it helps to form a good seal between the Xuan paper and the canvas.  The newspaper also helps to wick up excess moisture and helps with the drying process. 

The freshly pounded painting is left in a cool corner to dry.  A slow drying process is preferred, as it ensures even drying and thus tightening of the paper.  Quick, uneven drying can lead to warping of the frame with this mounting method.

The wet Xuan paper is extremely fragile and delicate at this stage, and any rough handling or even thumbing on the painting could cause a tear.  I have many procreative expletives for those occasions.  I learn my lesson the hard way.

The mounting is totally dried after a day and one can handle it with relative ease now.

I apply a coat of Liquitex gloss medium and varnish onto my finished mounting.  The medium helps to restore the "wet" look of the painting, as if the Xuan paper was still wet.  I can also look forward to it forming a physical protective film over my painting, defending an occasional errant fingerprint. 

I know it is rather difficult to discern the difference between the coated and the un-coated pieces from these photos, especially after they've been transferred and uploaded and are subjected to web constraints.  Hopefully one can see the bottom version ( coated ) looks richer, more vivid and reveals more detail about the brushstrokes.  It has more depth. 

Many will argue that this coating process destroys the "paper" ambience, especially when it relates to paintings done on Xuan.  The coating renders the painting more like an oil painting than a painting done on traditional Xuan, especially when I mount it on canvas instead of a scroll.  I know and I don't disagree.  God knows I've received tons of flak for my practice.  The trouble is, I do enjoy this variant and I think some of my paintings benefit from this presentation. I try to employ this method judiciously. 

Painted 1x3 boards are used for the frame.  A dado blade carves out a narrow channel around the inside edge, framing my canvas mounted painting and wearing a more polished look. 

I name this piece Born Free because of the 14 horses; being somewhat obscure notwithstanding.  

Adding Human Interest

 I am staring into the finished colored version of my most recent landscape painting and am at a lost to find a connection with the painting.  Perhaps I've been doing a number of similar paintings lately and the subject matter has become trifle trite?  Perhaps I've become a little habitual in my presentation.

Time to call in the cavalry for the rescue, sans the soldiers.  I am hoping that the presence of horses might add some human interest to the landscape, which  helps to connect with the viewer, me.  

I am blending in the horses with the background to make them look less obtrusive, but using dabs of titanium white as reflected highlights to make the animals stand out.  Now that sounds like an oxymoron.  I am also adding in wilted trees to augment the landscape.  After all this is the landscape of the west shown in cowboy movies, I surmise.  

I am really going to town with the highlighted effect so I am painting all my horses with that kind of illumination.  For the horses in the front row, I am actually painting the silhouette with white first and then come back to fill in with other pigments, leaving a sheath of white to achieve the back-lit effect.  

I am trying to break up the even spacing of the animals by adding a black one in the back and using dead tree trunks to further disrupt the perceived uniformity in spacing.

I am making the eroded, gouged faces of the landscape more prominent, to better illustrate the truncated part where the river cuts through.

I suppose my painting now is more animated, figuratively and literally.  

Route (Root) 66

Route 66 ( established on 11-11-1926 ) used to be a main route cutting across the US continent before it was replaced by the current Interstate Highway System.  I remember watching a television series by the same name decades ago, trying very hard to understand the dialogue.

Looks better in color

I remember long time ago a viewer offered me more money for a black and white ink painting of mine if I would paint another one just like that for her, but in color.  I politely refused; unyielding with my principles.  Being snooty perhaps.  I must admit however, sometimes that sentiment is legit.  Obviously there are many occasions a black and white brush painting imparts a certain je ne sais quoi which would be robbed if done in color; but my latest landscape painting is not one of those occasions.

I've been looking at that painting for almost two weeks now and it has not grown on me.  Perhaps it is neither luminous nor moody.  Time for cosmetics. 

I have grown to like the practice of coloring from the back of the Xuan.  I am starting with the rocky structure on the left and the distant hills in the background.

Phthalocyanine blue and ocher is now painted over the top of the under-painted rock.  The resulting color is not one would expect if one was to simply mix and paint all 3 colors together on the surface of the paper.  This is one of the properties of the Xuan paper that one can exploit.

The original alum mixed brushstrokes help to define discrete edges of hard surfaces, setting up the  loose ambiguous brushstrokes of the foreground.  I am borrowing the bokeh effect from photography now and I love the presentation.

The alum solution helps to fix the ink more readily onto the paper, leaving visible margins even after coloring or additional brushstrokes.  The patchy appearance reminds me of crusty lichens on rocks or tree barks.  A lot of brush/Xuan painters shun such effects for being too "rigid" or "lifeless" but I think it is perfect for adding texture to hard surfaces. 

Coloration somehow adds drama to the void spaces.  I believe there is a lot of room for me to feather out the edges, with the help of color of course, if I choose to.  I think eventually this would be a battle between how much of the brush or bleeding or wash I wish to reveal.  In traditional Chinese Brush, this is known literally as the balance between brush and ink.  

I am tempted to leave the painting in this state.  It has an interesting, albeit an unfinished look.  Oh well, since I am not Schubert, I better finish my work.  

The color looks more saturated or vivid when wet.

This is how it looks on the wall when dried.

Yet another landscape

After my attempt at painting Chibi (the red cliffs) I want to try my luck on another landscape painting, with cliffs or stony features as my main player; again.  Whereas the Chibi painting was sort of dreamy and poetic, I intend for the current production to be more hard and staunch in character.  

For this attempt I am mixing my ink with alum solution to paint on traditional Xuan paper.  The slight bleeding from the brushstrokes allows the paper the stage to express soft strokes.  Alum working as a mordant tends to eliminate that quality by fixing the ink before it has a chance to escape into the microfibers of the paper.  I am looking for harsher brushstrokes to help depict the rocky texture of my intended landscape.

My model comes from the central part of Oregon where it is a little less lush with greenery but more abundant with rocky outcrops and mesas. The Deschutes River and the Crooked River are landmarks that inspire me, so I shall use them as my references and give the Columbia River Gorge a pass.

First item on the list is a rocky structure occupying the left side of the painting.  I suppose I've not found my rhythms yet and the brushstrokes feel very contrived.  Of course the remedy for my shortcoming is to immediately paint the background with diluted ink and loose brushstrokes without the alum as a conspirator, thus the markings are much more relaxed. 

Contrasting with the hard edges of the rocky structure are not only the diluted ink for the distant hills, but also the soft non-discrete foreground, as if the camera is out of focus and the viewer is using the bokeh to frame their image in the head. 

The center portion of my painting is taken up by the sharp, chiseled rocks of the landscape.

The alum/ink mixtures helps to cement the brushstrokes before they have a chance to bleed; offering a stern appearance.

One can see discrete and distinct white margins unmolested by ink due to the fixing property of the alum.  

Previous brushstrokes tainted with alum also function as a resist, and allow subsequent overpainting with other brushstrokes.  Typically this is an absolute no-no but in this application the juxtaposition makes interesting patterns.  We are talking about nuances of brush works on Xuan paper now, so this might not be evident to a casual observer.  I've experimented with painting with alum solution on the back of the paper first to achieve this effect, but that takes a lot of planning and is less spontaneous than mixing the alum with ink.  This is an experimentation anyways, so the jury is still out as far as I am concerned.  

The flat exposed rock face on the right of the painting is done with the folding ribbon chuen brushstroke.  Diluted ink is also applied at strategic locations to emulate vegetation from the crevices; to soften up the harsh edges of the composition.

An assortment of line chuen, akin to the hemp chuen is used to doll up and texturize the non-rocky parts of the landscape.  I mean, if Monet and Van Gogh can employ dots and lines to fashion their works, why can't I, right?  Actually the dot and line chuen technique has been in practice in Chinese brush techniques since antiquity, I am just making light of them.

The dry rubbing technique is a way to create shadows and change up light values.  When paired with a wash, the combined effects are often employed to describe mist or to dissolve and integrate a void space into the painting.

Just as a make-up artist using eye liners and shading to prop up the cheeks and shape the jaw,  I am using vegetation and reflections to depict a river, something that is fluid to contrast with the otherwise harsh features.  Hopefully a story line can emerge!

 

Revisions

I revised a couple of my old paintings and since I've recently acquired a new camera lens I was eager to find excuses to put it through its paces.

Red Cliffs Nostalgia, The Grand Finale

At the onset of the painting I laid out my objectives for this painting, and one of them was to be able to highlight each of the 4 landmarks of the Columbia River Gorge by incorporating them into my fictitious staging of a real historical Chinese naval battle, the Battle of Chibi.  The landmarks are of course the Vista House on top of Crown Point, the Multnomah Falls, the Rowena Loops and the Stonehenge replica.  I also wanted these 4 subplots to be able to stand on their own rights as a painting by themselves.

Now that the painting is finished, let us delve into these 4 elements.

The Vista House at Crown Point:

The red cliff face is adorned with loads of vertical hemp chuen brushstrokes to give the surface texture.  These brushstrokes stand out nicely against the staining done from the back of the paper.  The Vista House itself is too big when compared with the real structure.  Visually speaking, the building should be perhaps on the scale of 1/50th the height of the cliff.  So my Vista House is at least 10 folds too big.  I suppose my zeal of wanting to emphasize the structure got the better of me!  To my defense, this is a fictitious painting, so accuracy is not a prerequisite and anything goes. 

The Multnomah Falls:

I like to draw the viewer's attention to the hemp chuen brushstrokes in the light areas of the hills.  The red color reveals beautifully against the light staining from the back of the paper.  Together with washings of different ink tones, a rich texture is achieved without rendering a messy appearance of unbridled brushstrokes.  In other words, a clean look.  

The Rowena Loops:

Realistically speaking the winding roads should be more on a level plane than hanging off the sides of the cliffs.  But this is much more dramatic!  Right?  I really enjoy the dreamy background of distant ranges as depicted by the very loose and relaxed brushstrokes.  

The Stonehenge:

I am particularly fond of the classical rendering of the shrubs and trees.  I also love the very simple coloring scheme.  It exudes an air of a Chinese painting for sure. 

I am going to be mounting my painting on canvas.  I already have my canvas primed with gesso and ready to go.

The painting is laid face up on a flat surface and wetted down to relax the fibers.

During the course of doing this painting, I inadvertently ripped a hole in my paper.

I used to freak out about such mishaps.  Now I don't fret over it anymore, because these tears will be almost imperceptible after mounting.  The glue will mend the tears as long as the flaps are kept intact.

The wetted paper is allowed to dry to a "moist" state such that there is no dripping water and the paper is soft and pliable without getting too fragile due to the additional weight of the moisture content.  Now it can be rolled up and be ready for the next step, which to affix it to my canvas.

Starch is applied to my canvas and the rolled up painting is aligned and unfurled onto the canvas and pressed down for good adhesion.  The whole assembly is allowed to dry.

Painting on canvas after drying:

With frame:

EPILOGUE

My inspiration of the painting came from bantering with my overseas friends about using Chinese literature in songs etc. and I was motivated to put in my two cents with my painting.  As I have stated, my painting borrows from the landmarks of the Columbia River Gorge.

I have done a painting of Columbia River Gorge before, a strictly scenic rendition.  I am putting these two paintings up for comparison. 

I feel that my Red Cliffs Nostalgia piece is infinitely more poetic.  I believe the fact that I have the words of Su Dongpo to teach me makes a huge difference in my interpretation of the otherwise identical  river gorge, albeit with a few landmarks rearranged.  

My new painting wears a understated elegance; as if it was cloaked in a Sarong of silence, allowing the words of Su Dongpo to enunciate:

"大江東去浪淘盡 千古風流人物

江山如畫 一時多少豪傑

故國神遊 多情應笑我

人生如夢 一樽還酹江月"

  "The incessant waves urge the river eastward, taking with them all the accomplished people.  Such picturesque landscapes, how much history have they witnessed.  Perhaps I am being too sentimental, reminiscing the days gone by.  Life is but a dream. allow me to scatter my wine, ode to the river, and to the moon."