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!

Prepping For A Demo

I was asked to do a Chinese Brush painting demonstration at one of the local venues.  I told them I would, and my topic would be landscape paintings.

Landscape painting is among the most difficult genre to master.  Needless to say it requires expert brush skill, but it is often laden with so many rules and doctrines, to the extent that it smothers creativity.  Chinese landscape paintings are in essence impressionistic abstract paintings that portray a a state of mind, a philosophy, rather than an object.  It is this ether that gets lost in the process.  I suppose one could describe a well manicured garden with all its physical attributes, design elevations and its eclectic collection of flora but it is the enjoyment of the garden, be it rests merely on the surroundings, or otherwise the sentiments it evokes, that ultimately establishes the garden.

I am certainly no expert in this area, and that is exactly why I wanted to take up this self imposed challenge.  I wanted to approach this demonstration from the standpoint of a student.

A student must do homework, and I need to have a clear road map in my mind as to what I plan to present, so I settled down to devise my program.  My experience with these demonstration sessions are that they are always fluid.  Some audience members are surprisingly well versed, whilst others are totally uninformed and I need to be able to talk at both levels at the same time.  We could be examining one topic and it quickly digressed to something else.  That is the reason I need to be more than a one trick pony and have an arsenal of useful skills and information that I can retrieve from.

Students of classical Chinese Brush are aware of the two main styles of painting, namely the Gonbi and the Xieyi; where the former is a more formal style with distinct outlines and filled in color and the latter is more expressive brushstroke ( especially broad side-tipped used to describe surfaces) format.  Landscape paintings demand a good understanding of the Ji Ben Gong ( fundamentals ) which deals with Gou, Chuen, Ts'a, R'an and D'ian ( outline, texture, rub, wash, dot )

Landscape paintings are often a combination of the two, although there are works that are predominately one or the other.  I shall start with the study of the more brushstroke-weighted ( surface weighted) one.  Here the brushstrokes represent a shape, a landmass in this case; and also the light values and shading.

I reached into my tools bag and dug up an old model that I fashioned with foam core board

using charcoal I rubbed the contour onto my Xuan ( I must emphasize that this is not the traditional way of doing Chinese landscape paintings, but strictly something I devised to help myself and others understand the brushstrokes)

I started on the left side and built my backdrop of a trail with steps using light and medium ink

Using dark ink, I sought out the areas that are shielded from the light and did my side tip brushstrokes

As the ink is depleted gradually from the brush, take advantage of that by laying into areas that require a lighter value.  A clear understanding and concept of how the rocks are presented helps to write in these brushstrokes.  In an ideal situation, the charcoal contour lines should not be visible at all, since they never existed to begin with.  They are only "cheat lines" to help the student visualize the structure.  Thus I was trying hard to conceal these lines.

Moving on to the right side, I inserted the rest of the backdrop

Voila, the completed sketch

Before I proceed to my next etude, let me just say that I am not too happy with the above rendition.
The more brushstroke-weighted (surface-weighted) style is supposed to be more spirited and free and yet I don't see that at all.  I believe the culprit is in my charcoal sketch lines.  Those were supposed to guide me as to where to write in my brushstrokes but they ended up being quite restrictive.  I was trying to conceal them as well as follow them and thus my brushstrokes looked more like tracings than actual strokes.  They lacked gusto!

While my scheme MIGHT help us understand where to wet the paper with ink, it also created a rather rigid image.

I turned my attentions to the more traditional method of painting landscape, half Gonbi, half Xieyi.
This process begins by establishing outlines of hills, rocks, trees etc., anything that is in the foreground or middle-ground.  These areas enjoy a more rigorous and detailed description from the brushstrokes.  Thus the process of Gou is the first step.

As the ink gets depleted from the brush, which also gets drier as the writing continues, we need to strategically start writing in areas that demand a lighter tone, also the process of Chuen and T'sa as the opportunities present.  In other words, Gou started out as a single minded procedure, but as the brush changes its characteristics then we take advantage of the situation by incorporating Chuen and T'sa.  This concurrent administering of the 3 techniques gives the painting a more cohesive feel.

The background, or objects far far away are always depicted with the broad strokes without Gou lines. These are suggestions that something exists out there.  The broad side-tipped strokes are used.

After the basic skeleton is acquired, it is time to employ R'an, to add shading and establish the darker tones.  R'an can be most effective and dramatic when corroborated with the Chuen that is already in place.  It really defines the faces of the rocks and the texture.  It helps if we can hypothesize and visualize where and how the light illuminates the formations.

Using burnt sienna, or tea, we judiciously color in the highlighted areas

Write in the darker areas with indigo and ink mixed.  Do this before the tea or burnt sienna dries so the transition of color is smooth and is easier on the eyes.  Also use a non transparent color like green label one to write in the flat land and shore  at the base of the conical pillars.

Close-up of fine tuning the rock face

The reason for using a non transparent color of the shores is so that when we put in the reflection of the pillars in water, the gouache like color is not covered, retaining the integrity of the shores.

D'ian is selectively applied to hide bad lines, or to accentuate a contour line, suggesting vegetation in the crevasses, tree stands, blades of grass along the shoreline or simply as decoratios to take up space, like a potted plant in the corner of a room.  Obviously tree leaves are prime candidates for its application.

The brushstrokes need to be lively and expressive, despite the fact that they seem like mere dots.

The finished painting

which is loosely based on this scene from Guiln

I feel a lot better now.

I feel like I have given the impending demo an honest preparation.

I feel like I have gone to the confession booth and have all my sins absolved.......