Family Zodiac

I tried to do a painting each Lunar New Year using the Chinese zodiac animal as subjects.  A member of my extended family suggested that I compose a family zodiac animals for her family.  The work would be comprised of a Dragon, a Snake, A Rat, two Roosters ( a Rooster and a Hen) and an Ox.  Six animals in all.

I thought about it and demurred.  My reason being I didn't really know how to draw a dragon and I didn't know how to properly present a snake, especially one with a sense of character.  A wiggly line would not be good enough for me.  I didn't want to present them in a cartoonish fashion.

But that doesn't mean that my brain wasn't churning.  I've been running the images in the back of my head, mining for ideas.  More like mining for Bitcoins.  Before long, it would be the Year of the Dragon.  I should be done biding my time.

Then I serendipitously came across a doctrine, or a philosophy from I Ching.  It is said that Tai Chi produces 2 Instruments, and 2 Instruments produce 4 Images.  In Chinese 易 有太極、是生兩儀  兩儀生四象.   We associate Tai Chi as the very beginning, where the 2 Instruments (opposites or complementary parts; depending on your interpretation. Ying and Yang, Positive and Negative) are situated.  Out of this Tai Chi, comes forth 2 Instruments, and then 4 Images.  So that is 6 entities, exactly the number I need to compose my family Zodiac animals.  I mean, it all makes sense now, out of the union of a married couple, descendants and their descendants are born.  How zodiac and cosmic is that!

The couple in my painting would be a Dragon and a Snake. So they will represent the 2 Instruments in Tai Chi.

The only dragons that I know of are from comic books and movies.  Then I recall that China has the famous Nine-Dragon Wall which I was fortunate enough to have visited.  So I am going to borrow one of the dragons to be included in my painting.  To think that I was born and raised in Kowloon (Hong Kong), which literally means Nine Dragons, this has come full circle.  T.S. Eliot said "Immature poets imitate; mature poets steal." I've also heard that lesser artists borrow, great artists steal, or something like that.  You get the gist. 

Now that we have settled the legitimacy of my Dragon, I am going to do something novel for the snake.

I am going to fashion my snake out of a gift wrap tie, something like a piece of pipe cleaner, something that I can smoothly bend.  My intention is to make the snake to appear like our last time "Loh" in cursive.  After all, this is about the Loh family.  I set up a mock painting design and place my snake in it to see if my scheme would work.

The Tai Chi in the mock-up is quite stereotypical of how one would imagine or associate with the term "Tai Chi".  The spirals are perhaps from me watching too many cosmos shows.  Perhaps all my blood relatives are bodies in this nebula that I am painting?

I am going to be painting on the gold color silk that I've recently acquired.  I trust the "silk" adds a certain auspicious quality and authenticity to my "Zodiac" painting, and the gold color is the color for my snake.  That means I won't be needing to color the snake?

I begin by sketching out lightly with pencil on the silk, the shape of the circle and the complementary parts of the black and white along with my snake.

I come to find out that coloring the snake would be easier than painting the markings of the snake.

I am trying to let the markings on the snake's skin to give reference to the different aspects of the body, whether it is ventral or dorsal or lateral.  I know this is subtle and one might not even notice it if this wasn't brought up, but the pedantic me feels better if I pay attention to these details.  I mean this looks a lot more natural than if all the markings are on the top side of the skin, not animating the twisting and turning of the snake.

I guess the real challenge is if the person to whom this painting is for, can elucidate the word "Loh" from the coiling of the snake.  I am giddy now, because I have planted a secret in my painting.  

The Dragon is going to sit on the black part of the Tai Chi thus I am using white color to sketch out its shape.

A good place to stop.  I need to think of the other 4 zodiac animals now and continue with my creation.

I do love my golden "Loh" snake!  It looks very alive!

Mounting the Gazing painting 歲月人生

There's a chance the "Gazing out the window" painting might get accepted into an exhibition.  I can't put off mounting the painting any longer.

I'll be using the traditional wet mounting method.

The painting was done on the very fibrous "leather" Xuan, which as the name implies, is rather thick.  I choose it because of its texture and its resistance to rubbing.  I had anticipated a fair amount of repeated brushing and washing to get my dark tones but I lucked out.  It turned out to be rather straight forward, which was a pleasant surprise.  The heavier stock Xuan presents its own unique challenge for wet mounting.  It takes a while longer for the water to completely seep through and for the starch to spread evenly.

The best indication is to look at the back of the painting and see if the image from the painted side comes through totally or not.

When the water finally soaks through, the painting would appear to be painted on the back side, due to the color saturation.  All the fibers on the back become quite visible (against the black background in tis case) since they never made any contact with the brush during the painting process.  The paper is too thick to allow total saturation of the fibers to begin with, thus only the ones on the top side of the painting get the ink, blending in with the background.

Starch is now applied.

A piece of blank Xuan paper is now placed onto the face-down, starched panting.  The set of these two pieces of Xuan is now ready to be hung on a flat surface to dry.  The drying process takes out all the creases and flattens the painting, just as starched fabric.

The heavier stock fibrous "leather" Xuan can be quite stubborn and be a little uncooperative at this juncture.  This heavier, wet sheet has a stronger affinity for the piece of plexiglass where it sits on, than the flimsier, thinner backing Xuan that is on top.  Thus when one lifts the backing sheet off the plexiglass, the painting stays sucked to the plexiglass, instead of bonding with the backing, to be lifted as one piece. 

I have concocted a tool using a branch from my pear tree.

I whittle one end of the branch into a thin spatula.  The spatula is sanded smooth and sealed with a polymer finish to better withstand moisture.  The is used to gently lift the corner of the wet, starched painting off the plexiglass so that it can bond with the backing Xuan and be lifted as a single, bonded piece.

Now I can hang the starched painting with its backing on a flat surface to dry.

My newly mounted "Gazing out the window" painting.  Doesn't it look fresh off the press?  

I have made no attempts to hide the brushstrokes in achieving the eventual dark values.  One can easily see the different tonal streaks.  I do this with the intention of exploiting the dark and dilapidated look to contrast with the bright outside.  Adding more drama.

  

The painting is now ready.  All it needs is a frame.  And an invitation to exhibit.  

Painting on silk again

My last encounter of painting on silk was fraught with plenty of obstacles.  I was being stubborn and tried to use silk fabric, instead of the "silk" that are sourced from art supply stores.  I had endured a lot of problems just trying to get the silk to take on coloring.  I ended up treating the fabric with copious amount of alum solution to get the job done.

I am older and wiser now, no less adventurous though.  I decide to try for silk again, this time on the "silk" that I can buy from art supplies.  I am still not convinced that this is real silk, because the material feels like nylon stocking or some sort of polyester. Anyways, it is what it is.  

Silk or silk brocade is used quite extensively for the more formal Gongbi style of Chinese brush.  I am not a Gongbi artist per se, but I do like to give it another try, using the motif from my "mosaic" pond painting.  This is perhaps the closest thing to Gongbi-esque painting that I could muster. I really don't enjoy being a fodder for the traditional Gongbi artist, so my preemptive apologies!

I had done a template for myself when I dabbled in my attempt to create a Gongbi-like painting with ducks on a pond.  I am resorting to that template again.

To keep things fresh, I shall do my new painting in a portrait format.  I am cropping the right hand portion of the template with the ducks in it.

I don't quite like the composition of this cropping.  I feel that the right side needs to have more of something.  The original set-up looks fine with the painting in the landscape format, but somehow feels lacking in the vertical sliver.  

Thus I shall be adding in some ripples or reflections.

I am also going to approach this project in an unconventional manner.  I am going to save the line drawing step for the last.  Again, my apologies.

Traditional Gongbi painting begins with the line drawing step.  The line drawing is either a supplied template or an original drawing devised by the artist.  The so-called line drawing is actually brushstrokes of calligraphy.  It has characteristics of full, thin, press and lift associated with writing with a round brush.  The artist then meticulously brushes in the color, often times alternating between a color brush and a water brush together for even and gradual spreading of color gradients. The process is repeated a number of times until the desired saturation, blending and appearance is reached.  Alum solution is often applied between the layers of color to prevent the previous layer from smudging, causing a "dirty" appearance.  Regardless of how saturated the color is, transparency is almost always valued.  Nothing is done in haste. 

In my case I am not dealing with delicate flower petals or shades of landscape.  Mine is just a kaleidoscope of specks of colors that does not require manipulation within each speck.  A simple mosaic.  I feel that my sins can be forgiven if I just apply the color without paying too much attention to how one color blends into another.  I also feel that I have more freedom if I just "marked" the locations of color instead of filling in a space with color.  I can be a little bit "hasty".  Just a little!

I use different colors for the rings of ripples, not only to enrich the palette, but also to account for the assorted colors of the objects that are reflected on the water.

I am adding in a whole much of nondescript ripples, what I would call "noise" to fill in the right side of the painting.  The part of the painting I deemed lacking.

After all my desired features are on the paper, I now write in the line drawing.

I brush on a thin layer of alum solution to the areas that I want to "tune-up" before I add on more or a different color.  

The finished product does look regal and pompous after framing.  This is the miracle delivered by painting on antique gold silk.

Face Up or Face Down?

To the uninitiated, Xuan paper is just a regular piece of white paper to be painted or written on.  The more astute observer would however notice a smooth side and a rough side.

Xuan paper is made from the pulp of plant fibers scooped up on a sieve and the sheets are deposited flat on heated rollers or steel walls to dry.  The side of the paper that faces the roller or wall is smooth, the other side is more fibrous, and therefore rougher.

Technically the smooth side is the "top" side but many artists prefer the rough side to paint on.  It has more "feel".  I can attest to that.  I also like the texture the bottom side provides.  

Printing paper on the other hand are less tolerant if the "wrong" side is used.  I have wasted so much inkjet color by loading my print paper the wrong way.  It is especially easy to do if I was printing on matte photopaper.  The two sides are almost indistinguishable, either by feel or by color.  Only the finished print that comes out from my printer would tell if I fed the paper correctly or not.  Obviously there is no such problem with gloss or semi-gloss paper.  

There is a type of Xuan paper that I like to use and for lack of a proper translation, I'll call it cicada skin paper, or cicada wing paper.  This Xuan paper is very light and transparent and has a slight sheen to it, just like the wings of a cicada. The paper is considered sized or semi-sized, in that it allows color to float on it a little bit without too much bleeding.  It also is able to withstand repeated rubbing without having the top layer of fibers linting up.  Its transparency augments the transparent watercolor and bestows a very delicate feel to the painting.  It is a favorite with artists who do the Gongbi (elaborate) style of Chinese painting.  

I have a couple pieces of dance movement gestures done on such a paper.  I try to use calligraphic brushstrokes to describe the limbs and gestures.  I feel that this approach gives the dance movements more flow and energy.  There is a je ne sais quoi quality of  "writing" versus simply filling in the space with ink or color.

With me the dilemma is not whether I should paint on the paper face up or face down.  As far as I am concerned there is no perceptible difference either way.  My problem is which side of the paper should I be presenting as the top side of my painting.

The cicada paper's thinness and transparency allows the painted image to be visible from both sides of the paper, as if one is looking through a projection slide, or one of those double-faced silk embroidery from Suzhou.  The bottom side of the image can sometimes be a little less saturated or slightly well defined around the edges, but it is this quality that captivates me.

The picture above actually shows the bottom side of the cicada paper with painted image on it.

The painting on the left has the "face up" side showing, whereas the painting on the right is showing the bottom side as the good side.  Can you tell the difference between the two?

The following is a close-up of the painting presented with the "face down" side.  The images are more veiled like, more dreamy.  The limbs are obviously articulated but there are apparent discontinuity in the brushstrokes.  I suppose not all the color comes through from the top side. The blue streaks act like an atmospheric or water current, or even yards of fabric, enveloping the dancers.  I feel that "face down" presentation suits this painting well.  The audience is given more freedom to implement their gestalt. 

The "face up" side of the dancers shows more definition.  The calligraphic brushstroke does wonders with the split leap.  I am just treating the dancers as a words that need to be written, rather than filling in the spaces where their bodies are .  I especially like the effect of flaring on the clothing and all the toe points and all these are achieved with simple calligraphy brushstrokes.

I suppose no competent, upstanding artist would present the bottom side of a painting as the top side.  I don't know which is worse, hanging an abstract painting upside down or doing what I am doing now.  I don't suppose the viewer appreciates being made a fool of.  But for a second rate painter like myself, I need all the help I can get to add drama to my paintings.  I actually considered presenting these two paintings together as a diptych but I really don't want to insult anybody's intelligence, any further than I have to. 

Necessity is the mother of invention.  I am taught well! 

Tai Chi Sword Gesture

I am still patting myself on the back for amalgamating two paintings into one with my last project on dance and martial arts poses.  I am just like a little kid, finding joy in something insignificant or irrelevant and being giddy about it.  What is that saying about sloths; their babies are so ugly only their own mothers would love them!  Well I'm that sloth's mother.

On the heel of such success I am going to try another one and see if I could duplicate the results.

I have a painting of a Tai Chi sword artist striking a posture and another silhouette painting of a martial artist so these are candidates of my current project.  I had tried to reveal foreshortening of the hand within a silhouette painting. 

The silhouette painting is going to be the top layer, so it goes down first to be wet mounted.

Next is my Tai Chi sword painting being placed on the silhouette, 

So far so good!  This is now hung to dry.  Still looking good.

Unfortunately the Tai Chi sword layer fades out quite a bit after drying.  It has lost its brilliance. It does not appear to be behind a sheer veil anymore.

The result is interesting, but not as dramatic as the last project.  It dawns on me that the silhouette painting was done on regular unsized Xuan and is thicker than the cicada skin Xuan that I used on the last project.  The thicker paper renders the top layer less transparent, thus obscuring the bottom Tai Chi sword painting.  In addition, that thinner Xuan has a slight sheen on it, making it more veil like.  

I try to remedy that by coloring on the silhouette painting, by coercing the Tai Chi sword to be more visible in the background.  I am afraid to use a brush that is too wet, thereby affecting the starched layers, causing them to wrinkle and separate.  The dry coloring somehow does not agree with the overall mood of the painting.  It feels obtrusive and contrived.  Not the dreamy nor the enigmatic effect as I had hoped for.

Some things just can't be forced.  Lesson learned.  Again. 

Gestures

I don't know why but I've always liked the pose of a ballerina on toes.  Perhaps that stance forces the dancer to assume a good posture, tensing the right muscles to place the center of gravity within the confines of the mere square inches of footprint.  Toeprint in this case.  The pose inexplicably projects energy, or Chi, as I call it.  

Chi is something a Chinese brush artist relishes and reveres.  Our brushstrokes must exemplify Chi.  One can tell if a snake or a worm is dead or alive without them moving.  Perhaps dead things look desiccated and deflated, that's how we know.  Bad brushstrokes lack Chi, they look withered.   

Perhaps I had one too many music box with a twirling ballerina to play with as a kid, that image is seared in my mind.  I would often doodle a ballet dancer.  As I come to find out, there's a fancy term for it.  They call it gesture drawing.

I suppose my Whiter Shade of Pale painting of 16 Vestals is a culmination of different gestures, albeit not of ballerinas.  Even before that painting I've done studies of dance movements and martial arts movements.  

The last two examples are from me playing with silhouettes as in void spaces.  In traditional Chinese brush techniques I was taught that ink has 6 colors (some schools would say 5) and we should strive to achieve them.  We consider Chinese ink as a color, and the 6 colors of ink ( perhaps more appropriately the 6 variations ) is dry, moist, saturated, light, burnt and strangely. white (actually means absence of ink; a void space in the western vernacular ).  Thus a brushstroke with saturated ink may look dry, or moist, or burnt; depending on the manipulation by the artist, and more than one attribute could exist at the same time.  A brushstroke with light ink is therefore not necessarily dry in appearance.  When we speak of the "white" color in ink, we are referring to how the "white" defines or complements the black.  Sort of like the theory about employing "voids" in the western discipline.  Generally speaking, there are often more "whites" or blanks in a Chinese painting. Bodies of water, waterfalls and the sky are usually left blank.  "Whites" are often preferred even with a "saturated" black brushstroke.  White streaks left in a bamboo stem brushstroke help to define texture and adds character.  My teachers often barked at me, " Liu Bai, Liu Bai !" ( Liu means "to save" and Bai means "white", so the phrase means leave room for voids.)  For that reason we don't usually use a white pigment to paint "white" but opt to leave the space blank instead. Some schools will go as far to say that only a Chinese could understand these concepts.  Thus my void silhouettes are actually using dark ink to define an empty space and allow our mind to see what it wants to see.  My "saturated" ink was an example of it looking "moist" in that last silhouette by the way, and the "white" was used to complement the "black".

As I was playing with and shuffling these studies, somehow my silhouette paintings were superimposed on the other line drawings.  One of my silhouette painting was done on a piece of very translucent cicada skin Xuan, and allowed the bottom painting of martial artists to come through.

That gave me an idea of mounting the two paintings together, superimposed.  This is like working with layers in Photoshop.  How exciting!  I only wished I could control the degree of transparency from each layer.  

My silhouette painting would be the top layer, so it goes face down first.  Since the paper is so thin and delicate, wetting it and flattening out the wrinkles was not an exercise for the faint of heart.  I learned throughout the years that I needed to treat it like attaching window tinting.  I had to use copious amount of water to float the paper, so that it could be shifted slightly or flattened.  It was counterintuitive but it worked. 

I used a soft brush to apply starch and squeeze out the wrinkles.

The next step was to pile on my line drawing of people practicing Wushu.

The Wushu piece was done on regular Xuan paper so it was hefty enough to withstand the rigor of a stiffer brush for starching and flattening. 

The above picture shows the Wushu painting starched on top of the silhouette painting.  A blank Xuan paper backing was applied as the last step and the 3 layer sandwich was allowed to dry.

This is how it looked after drying

Interesting!  Ballerina superimposed on martial artists.  Movements galore.  

Serendipity!  I came upon this setup while shuffling my study pieces around.  

I must also give credit to the person who posed for me for the original silhouette study.  It was at a museum's ballroom which was not in use at the time.  Perfect timing for me to sneak a photo.

Since I was doing a silhouette, I lack the proper training to depict any sort of foreshortening, or a leg bent behind the thigh in this case.  So I changed the pose a little for my painting.  I suppose my study was more about form and feel than just about gesture.

Finishing up Gazing 歲月人生

I've been looking at the half finished "Gazing out the window" project for over a week now and I am most tempted to leave it the way it is.  In a way, and not out of being lazy, I am not dissatisfied with that painting if I had to quit right now.  The painting as it stands definitely screams out for completion, but at the same time it provokes an investigative urge, and inquiring mind.  What is this painting about?  The viewer completes the story.  

But I do need to go through with my plot and see how congruent my painting is to my thoughts.  

I am going to attack the space where the graffiti lies.  My intention is to make the wall dark, obviously, since it is inside a room.  Yet I want to leave just enough ambient light to perhaps see the graffiti a bit.  The question I pose to myself is that why does it even matter.  Most viewers here ( in the States) can't read Chinese anyways so whether the graffiti is legible or not has no bearing to the painting. 

True, but I paint for myself.  My selfish and narcissistic self.  I have myself to answer to.

In order to lay down an even wash without too much streaking, I am using the biggest brush that I posses.  Theoretically I could wet the paper down first so the ink wash spreads out and diffuses more evenly, but then I run the risk of not having a concrete edge for my window, especially in this high contrast environment.  I am trying to use just the right amount of ink wash such that it spreads nicely and evenly without causing too much bleeding along the edges.  I also have my trusted hair dryer near by just in case things get out of hand.  I can spot dry the wash rather quickly with the hair dryer to arrest any unintended bleeding of the wash.

Knowing that I can be pretty sloppy with wash laden brushes, I am shielding the rest of the painting with a cover.  Any errant splashes or ink drops would stain the cover and not my work in progress.

I have the upper portion of wall washed in ink, with barely a degree of transparency to see the graffiti.

The challenge of painting on Xuan paper is to know how much lighter the painting will become once the ink is dried.  A wet paper assumes a much darker appearance.

The wall behind the woman is also washed with ink.  I am careful to leave a hint of her shadow, even on this dark wall.  I believe this understated detail adds to the overall presence of the figure, subliminally perhaps.  In the classical Chinese way of speaking, we acknowledge that ink has six colors, or attributes, however you want to call it.  In a way I am playing with my ink tones to see if I can make the painting interesting.  Leaving a shadow on a dark wall is one such game that I play.  Using the big void as the window is also one of the "color" of the ink.

So I am now at another one of those junctures where I ask myself, should I go on.  Just like the half finished work from the last blog, I find the painting has just asked me to think again.  I would not be displeased if this is a finished painting.  It does have pleasing composition geometry and that enigmatic quality that I am after.

I am reminding myself that the title is gazing out the window.  If I stop now, it would be gazing out the doorway.  Onward, soldier!

I am applying undiluted ink to the bottom part of the window because I want this part of the wall  to be darker than the rest.  It helps to provide an anchor for my visual reference.  I am not going to paint in the left hand side of the window enclosure.  I want to leave the void open.  I want her motivation to stand by the window and gaze out to be an open-ended question, symbolically at least.  

So she is standing by the window, perhaps enjoying some anonymity by being in a dark space.  Finding a little solace for being in the shadow.  Choosing to relinquish the weight of her torso by leaning against the wall, getting support.  She is holding her own arm with the opposite hand, as if looking for reassurance.  Her lips are half open and not sealed tight, as if breathing a sigh. Or was that a rueful smile?  She is neither smug nor tense.  I am curious as to what she is gazing at.  What is in her head. 

I showed this painting to my friends and one of them said "Ah, that's Rembrandt lighting."

Cool! 

And Thank You,  I learned something.