Auspicious Year Of The Pig, Harbinger Of Abundance

May your new year be blessed with an abundance of good fortune.

The Pig as an archetype, experimenting as I go

Armed with all the notes and test sketches that I had accumulated on my pig, I decided to launch the painting project in earnest.

I decided to sketch out my image.  Who was I kidding, I was very much concerned about the painting needing to look  "perfect".  I was willing to sacrifice a certain degree of spontaneity in exchange for the comfort of knowing that my brush wouldn't stray too far away from the intended targets.  I could recall when I first started with Chinese brush I was dead set against sketching.  I always thought that sketching was reserved for novices.  I've came to realize that I needed to do what was right for me, and not for anybody else.  So what if I was a novice.

I shied away from using too much ink as my shading base layer, especially on the face.  Too much ink imparted a grimness to the feel of the painting.  I also cheated by purchasing some cheap off the shelf flesh color acrylic.  I used that to lay down my base coat, and used vermilion as my main shading color and vermilion plus tea if I wanted a darker shade.

Again I resorted to the unbleached Xuan with fibers that looked like the butt wiper paper of the yesteryears.  The base color plus the exposed fiber added the "organic" nuance that I so endeared.  It happened that one of the fiber particles in the paper popped up in the area of the forehead, just above the eyebrow.  This was such a serendipitous delight for me, because now my pig archetype had a huge mole on his forehead, adding to the persona of my protagonist.  I couldn't have planned it any better.

I had mentioned in my mountain lobes blogs that the side-tipped contour lines denote more than the contour, but also the thickness of the slab we were describing.  I've applied the same technique and understanding to the strokes used to describe my shadows.  Here an example of a side-tipped brush stroke of uneven width gave the illusion of the lapel not lying flat against the chest wall.  The neck was farther away than the rest of the body, therefore a wider area of black void.

The side-tipped brush also worked well on describing the undulations on the robe.  The vertical brush strokes of vermilion on the right were simply a lightly loaded brush of very diluted vermilion with its tip dipped in undiluted vermilion.  The Xuan paper allowed the color to form its own gradient, demonstrating dark and bright areas along the robe.

I was not happy with the heavy drape lines on the front of the robe, especially after seeing how nicely the two vertical side-tips turned out.

So I reapplied the drape lines using a vermilion brush with ink tip for the color gradation.  Since the paper already had a layer of color on it, it became a sized paper effectively.  Thus the mixing of the color was not as dramatic as the vertical ones.  I believe that is one of the reasons that in traditional Chinese Brush we discourage going over a painted area repeatedly.  Doing so destroyed the fine details of the brush stroke.

I applied the same technique to the blue over coat.  I prepared a blue/ink dish and a blue/white dish to help me further differentiate thedifferent areas of the blue robe.

The upper arm area was done with the blue/ink side-tip and the forearm was done with blue/white

For the navel I judiciously darkened circular areas around the navel leaving a ring of the base color to denote the rim, and a much darker center and just below the navel to suggest the depression.

By writing a half arc as a shadow, a nipple was formed without much fanfare.

I bought some metallic gold acrylic to paint the lapel and the waist belt and the inner sleeves.  I used gold strictly for its dramatic effect and it worked well for my purpose.  The acrylic formed a thicker and harder surface than the rest of the painting not done with acrylic.  The buckled paper convinced me that these areas were more like collage art than a two dimensional painting.  Interesting.  Whether it would retain this look after mounting remained to be seen.  Perhaps I would deliberately not smooth out those areas during mounting so that I could preserve this illusion.

I was able to appreciate the difference between acrylic and watercolor, especially when they appear in the same painting. I definitely know my brush and the paper reacted quite differently to the two.
All the experimenting was invigorating, perhaps I was breaking all rules, by my own accord at least.  I sketched with pencil, I dared to use different media, and went over painted areas repeatedly.  I used metallic paint.  I dared to shade.  Nothing esoteric, but just experimented what I felt like.  I could now tell what a pure Chinese Brush artist deemed as dirty or muddy, versus the simple, single and transparent strokes of the traditional Chinese Brush.

I also added a faint shadow by using what was in my brush wash basin.  I was being mindful that the shadow did not diminish the ethereal quality of my archetype.  I wanted Mr. Pig to cast a subtle, non-distracting presence, as one would on a overcast day.

That was my photography alter ego speaking to me!

The Pig as an archetype, learning as I go

Now that I am pretty comfortable with my concept, I need to execute it.

I am basically on uncharted territory.  This painting now has become an experiment, a game for me.  I'll research, apply, and make corrections as I go.  Quite stimulating I must say.

I reworked the face and tried different ways of shading

I did not gauge the position of the snout correctly in the above example.  I had put in too long and wide a shading on the left side of the snout, which seemed to end on the cheek now, instead of along the smile line.

again the same mistake as the first example; improper shading of the snout, forming a weird structure.

As I was doing my research and reading up on portrait photography, I found out there is such a thing called the Rembrandt triangle.  It is the illuminated triangle under the eye on the dark side of the subject.  This triangle is bordered by the shadow of the nose and the sunken eye socket and renders a pleasing geometric form of the face.  Such Rembrandt triangle was sorely missing from the 2 examples above.

I knew my pig had fat cheeks, but I still would like to test the theory, so came yet another attempt

 This one did look more natural and pleasing with the Rembrandt triangle in place except that I messed up on the lower lip and now the pig seemed to have forgotten to put in his lower false teeth.  His lower lip was caving in.

I must also tried to find out what is the best color for the Marshal's clothing.

                                                                        all blue

red robe with blue pants

blue robe with red pants

I also tried different hand positions.  The bottom example has a higher grasp by the left hand.
I thought it left too much exposed real estate on the belly and chest.  I'll probably go for the lower grasp.

I tried a more relaxed and spontaneous brushstroke rendition, one that was not mired in a lot of details

I also fell in love with the paper with the heavy fibers.  This is a unbleached, unsized paper that reminds me of the ass-wipers from way back.  I certainly remember it from my childhood.  It has such a un-pretentious, wholesome feel to it.  The fibers also complement well with the lines of the figure.  I know the term organic has been way overused these days, but this is a fine example of an "organic" paper.

I definitely shall gravitate towards that as my choice paper for this painting.

Oink Oink Oink

The pig as an archetype

I ended my last blog with the sketch of a pig mated to a humanoid face.

In pursuing my little project of painting the pig to welcome the impending Year Of The Pig, I was exploring different options to depict the animal.  Legend has it that when the Jade Emperor summoned the animals to seat the Zodiacs, the lazy pig happened to be the 12th animal to show up and thus occupied the last space. So when I thought of the  Zodiac pig I saw the image of a sluggish, harmless pig.  A cute little piglet comes to mind.  After all pet stores have these petite porkers on their inventory, demonstrating the popularity of these critters.  The other pig that comes to mind is the plastic piggy banks that I played with as a kid.  Their appearances are not that different from a real pig so I am basically dealing with the same model.  Finally there is Zhu Bajie.

Zhu Bajie is a legendary fictional character made famous by the novel Journey To The West.  This character has the face of a pig and the body of a human.  The story states that Zhu Bajie was the Marshal Canopy in the Heavens, but he was on the Jade Emperor's gaga list because he committed crimes of passion.  He was thus banished to Earth.  He landed in a pigsty and thus materialized as a human with a pig face, and carried a 9-tooth rake as his implement.  The character Zhu Bajie was one of the three helpers who accompanied Tang Sanzang; the monk who trekked to India in search for sutras.  Zhu Bajie's partner in crime was the famous Monkey King, Sun Wukong.  These characters are no strangers to Chinese people.

What is interesting and intriguing is the fact that Marshal Canopy is actually a Daoist deity associated with the Dipper constellation.  Apparently not a pig.  It was the inadvertent, or incorrect usage of the title Marshal Canopy by the author of Journey To The West that made the label so famous.  Thus Zhu Bajie the pig was forever associated with Marshal Canopy.  Since this iconic character has attained archetypal status in our culture, I decided to borrow the concept of Zhu Bajie the pig as my model.  Obviously I would not portray him as a rake wielding beast, but a proper Marshal donning rich threads and bringing fruits of the  harvest, as an ambassador of abundance and fulfillment.

To reinvent the brand, I borrowed the image of a carved sculpture that I have.  The figure is a rather popular, generic version of a carefree, go-happy peasant, with the typical attire of  a loose robe and bare chest and belly.

He fits the image of a carefree, joyous, obese pig.  With this concept in mind, I worked on the feasibility of a pig face.  I referenced a plethora of examples and studied the ones that were not as cartoonish.

as I became more familiar with the model, there was a commensurate improvement in my brushstrokes

Exploring where the shadows fell, I had better control and luck if I sketched it out first

How about this one, with round eyes and what not.  For some reason I thought this one looked more babyish and too cute?  I suppose I was bound by my notion that the character needed to be some sort of a Marshal.  My character needed to exude the air of a bureaucrat.  Inexplicably I thought the squint eyes were more convincing.

I thought I wound get a handle on the robes and how it drapes and the general morphology of such a figure before I got myself in deep feces.

Here's one with a more formal sleeve, like the ones in the Chinese Opera costumes

All these are pretty spontaneous doodling.  I was having problems with how wet the brush was but I didn't care.   These extemporaneous etudes were stimulating and fun.

Now I marry the pig head to a human body

My Marshal, my pig will be carrying harvested cuttings of grains in his hands in lieu of the 9-tooth rake.

another attempt at modeling, with the stalks of wheat sketched in

Seems like I was a lot more serious now, or I was having a more concrete idea as to what I wanted to paint.  The lines were less tentative, and the shading was more precise.  God knows I must have looked at all the reference images a million times while conducting my research.   All the repeated attempts at painting the same image certainly didn't hurt.  They helped to build a muscle memory in my painting mechanics.

Oink Oink Oink

Soul and paintings

As I was wrapping up with my sketches of the pig, my thoughts were steered to posing the animal.
How could I make the subject matter interesting and cute, and most of all, auspicious.  My selfish motivation was to have a representational painting to welcome the Year of the Pig, which will happen in about 2 months' time.

Again I was faced with the choice of style for my rendition, whether to paint the pigs Gongbi or Xieyi style.  I just couldn't shake the shackle despite my understanding that this was so unnecessary.

My sketches were obviously line drawings, so I thought I would attempt the Gongbi style, but I knew my calligraphy was very weak and I was afraid to reveal my weaknesses.  The narcissist in me was urging me not to do it.  It was really cumbersome.  Before I could even wet the Xuan I was having trepidations already.    I was very conscious of the fact that since I identified myself as a brush artist, then I had better show my expertise in the brush.  I suppose Chinese brush has so much nuances about the brush tip, the flow and Qi that it has become very intimidating.

I had an opportunity to admire Vincent Van Gogh's works in their original forms and I came away with the impression that his lines showed none of the virtues I looked for in Chinese brush.  His tree branches, outlines of buildings and objects were what I would call wet noodles, totally devoid of the Qi that I was look for; and yet his works are so valued and admired.  Other than his bold, short brush stroke patterns, the quality of his brush was pretty monotonous.  Obviously this is purely my own impression.

Take his famous Sunflower painting for example

and contrast that with a Chinese painting

one could sense a huge difference in where the emphasis was.  Both were representational art, but immensely different in their impressionistic appearance and feel.  The Chinese painting was all about brush strokes and ink tones.  It displayed the intimate relationship amongst the brush, paper and ink.

Let us take a look at a landscape painting  Wheatfield With Crows by Van Gogh,

and compare that with a Chinese landscape painting by Chao Shao-An, a master of Ling-nan School painting

the intricate brush strokes of Chao was in stark contrast with the bold dabs from Van Gogh.

I remember an occasion when a fellow student told my teacher that she was going to paint a Chinese painting in Van Gogh style.  I didn't exactly know what she meant by it or how she was going to do it but my teacher was incensed.  He actually asked that student to not take lessons from him again.
The teacher was irate because he demanded the practice of Ji Ben Gong, the craft of the fundamentals.  Every brush stroke must encompass the calligraphic virtues by showing the tip used, flow and Qi.  His ire was more than a manifestation of tribalism.

Van Gogh was interested in Japanese paintings and he tried his hands in a few.  He painted this Courtesan

and here's a painting of a Dunhuang character from a Chinese painter, Zhang Daqian

again we saw how succinctly different were the way the lines were written.

I was hoping to present the notion that this is not a matter of which is better, or more valid.
How do you compare a Pinot noir to Huangjiu, or Moutai to Vodka.  Before we venture to compare these different alcoholic beverages, we do however need to know what they are and what makes a good Vodka or Moutai.  One would not try to find the hint of tannin from huangjiu.  A vodka bottled in a Chinese vessel does not make a moutai.  But regardless of whether they are brewed with grapes or millet, when these fermented or distilled liquid reaches certain levels of excellence, they shall all be appreciated and consumed.

Having said that, allow me to be the devil's advocate.  Allow me to pose a question.  Van Gogh's love for Asian art notwithstanding, could his Courtesan painting pass for Asian art?  If we found that painting in an attic with no signature to reveal the painter, what would our appraisal be?  Would that be an Asian painting done in Van Gogh style?  Or a western painting trying to emulate the Asian flavor.  What is Chop Suey?  Is that Chinese food?  When I see westerners put soy sauce in their tea I wonder if they were being naive, or was it their preconception that soy sauce goes with everything?  Could it be that they were just thinking outside of the box and was on an intrepid journey to explore tastes?  You might be surprised to learn that there is a soy sauce flavored ice cream!

I suppose the art of painting is not a monolith of just brushstrokes, or color or composition or style.  It is an amalgamation of all the techniques, but most importantly, emotion.  A great painting must have a soul.  A great painting must have a personality, one which moves us.

Soul is defined as an emotional or intellectual energy or intensity, especially as revealed in a work of art or an artistic performance.  The essence or embodiment of a specific quality; that je ne sais quoi.
Thus where I might deem Van Gogh as not possessing the calligraphic brush strokes, nonetheless his works effervesces in other ways and tugs at me just the same.  The standards and parameters are simply different.  A dog does not have plumage and a bird has no fur.  His works possessed a soul.

I suppose all I was doing was trying to convince myself again, repeatedly, to let go of my inhibitions and preconceived hurdles.  I should be worried about the soul and not the shell.

So I just painted whatever came to my mind, and not worry about the style

Incidentally van Gogh is pronouced differently in Amsterdam than from the States.  So should I insist, during the course of my conversation, that people here pronounce van Gogh the way Dutch do, as a gesture of reverence and risk coming off as a pompous orifice between the gluteus maximus ?

Oink Oink Oink

Are we narcissists

As the alder leaves turned fiery red and eventually vanished from the branches, and the silvery frost on my lawn each morning beckoned, the Earth Dog is ready to say Zaijian.  See you in twelve!

I could hear the oink oink from the Earth Pig in the distance, if I try hard enough.  Again I am faced with the proverbial question, what is this pig going to look like.

Artists in general are some of the most dichotomous beings on earth, I think.  We have to be sufficiently opinionated in order to put forth our ideas, yet vulnerable enough to reveal our innermost secrets.  We can't wait to make a statement and yet are ambivalent about the reception.  Of course there is this camp that insists we should have the fortitude to paint whatever we want and in whatever manner, and it is up to the viewer to understand and appreciate our works.  I am sure we can scream and demand and insist, but deep down inside we muse and second guess and long for acceptance. Rejection is a bitter pill to swallow.   Perhaps discontent, and the appetite for vindication, more than anything else, are the real fabric for creativity.   This might sound like an oxymoron but Johnny Carson once said that he is ill at ease at parties.  He would hide behind a curtain if he could.  I believe artists, and people who claim to be artists, are good at fulfilling a role; as Johnny did.  Within the confines of the prescribed role we find courage and confidence.  Outside of the pan, all bets are off.

I believe it is this insecurity that drives us to be control freaks.... sort of; and it is this fear of rejection that plants a deep seed in us, driving us to constantly compose and morph and reveal, always searching.

It is my assertion that creative people are people who can't stand status quo.   Creative people are not satisfied with the real world.   There is the omnipresent urge to alter the perception of what is real.

Why is there a need to paint a sunset ?  Isn't the sunset one of those perfect moments that the Creator forged?  To pose a gliding pelican against the setting yolk, to add a smidgen of crimson to the horizon, or to garnish the sky with lenticular clouds?  Creating "new real" from reality, the painter is not satisfied with the real sunset and creates his/her own.  The artists are suggesting that we look at matters from their point of view, despite the fact that whatever we perceive is still our own, and not that of the artists' myopia.  Yet we artists persevere, trying to change reality as we see it.  Molding our own world, our own reality.

Oh to jog our memory, one might say.  A photo or a painting or a movie clip is nothing more than a suggestion, a stimulus.  Art works are just tools, conduits to call up our own experiences.  We still have to form the image from our head, even while we are looking at a physical object.  Memory is a state of mind.

What are memories?  What are feelings?  Chemicals and electrical impulses in our brains.  When we look at the brain outside of our bodies, it is all but a blob of cold, damp, soft mass and yet we love, hate, empathize, think, create and invent with it.  Yet the topography of our receptor sites and movements of salt ions governed our psyche.  With the advence in AI and VR, could we be far from the future when our brains could be mapped and we could customize our experience?  We could have a virtual rent a movie or go to th  virtual Metropolitan Museum Of Art by tapping our skull with our cell phones!

Of course, when all else fails, there's always the route of chemical augmentation, since the chemical pathway in the brain is well documented.  Either the artist, or the audience may partake in this ritual.  This is the ultimate alteration!  Let's have a rave party.  Drug taking behavior seem prevalent for both performing and visual artists (emphasis on the word seem).  I wonder if there's an association between using chemicals and creativity.  Could this be the magic potion that sublimates what is real, albeit mundane, to something ethereal of our own imagination?  Is this how abstracts work?  Is this how minimalism works?   Berlioz composed the wildly successful Symphonie Fantastique while taking opium drops, albiet for medicinal purpose.  Could that have contributed to the genius of the piece, or was it a product of his manic depressive episodes?

A boutique ice cream business here concocted a turkey ice cream by mixing turkey with ice cream.  Wow that is going outside of the box.  It is now the love of the media and foodies pile on heaps of praises.  Can eccentricity and irrationality become celebrated traits given the right spin? I can only imagine the moment when the first person ever decided to see what fermented milk curd tasted like.   Because this person dared to go where no one has gone before, we are now blessed with Gorgonzola and Roquefort. How desperate must a person be to drink kopi luwak, a coffee brewed from partially digested coffee beans pooped out by felines.  Does exclusivity and being expensive lend credibility?

We are advancing into the field of Artificial Intelligence at a fierce pace.  We make robots that can think and feel and emote; just like ourselves.  Is this the final frontier for our creative minds?  We want to create a copy of ourselves and we want the credit for coding our creations.  Recently an AI generated piece of art was auctioned off at Christie for over $400,000.  Is that a validation of the image, the programmer, or the person who shelled out that huge sum of money.  How about paintings done by animals?  Paintings done by elephants and monkeys have been tauted as artworks.  If we put aside the fact that these are animal productions, do these "art works" harbor any intrinsic values?

Frankly I believe artists are narcissists, to a more or lesser degree.  We go to great lengths to make our views known, no matter how trite or infantile or meaningless. We paint, we perform, we take pictures, sculpt, weave, fire, and in my case, blog. Thank heavens for my soap box.

Please excuse my ranting with my sometimes sacrilegious, often mis-guided, but never nefarious statements.  These are actually questions that I ask of myself, and of others and the answers are as many and as varied as grains of sand at the Sahara Desert.   And just like the dunes in Sahara, they shift with the winds.  I could never get a straight answer.

Such behaviors beg the question, is this narcissism?  Are artists narcissists?

Artists are rewarded by putting their names on a piece of work, having their brand appear in trade magazines, gallery catalogues and museum brochures.  After all this is what the society deem as a proof of success, affirming the talents and efforts of said artists and bestow upon them a decorum of  validations, sometimes tethered to a ridiculously huge sum of moola.  Often times when these "proper" channels are not available, the creative mind still seek identity and glory by graffiti.  This is perhaps the most spontaneous, self-gratifying kind of self-expression.

I chanced upon a synagogue which walls are tagged with graffiti. No I am not talking about railroad cars or grain silos.

 What is unusual about this place is that the synagogue even erected a plywood faux wall and labelled it "Open Wall" to allow ( and perhaps promote? ) this form of expression.  It could be that the establishment saw the need for dialogue and promote its own relevancy by providing such a forum for expression.  Or it could be that by providing a legitimate venue for such behavior of expression that the synagogue would be less of a victim of defaced walls.  If you can't beat them, join them.  Regardless, people still deface the walls.

Is this a creative mind?  Narcissistic behavior?  Or plain insolence?  Is this art?  What is art?  What if these were done by Salvador Dali, would his fame change the perception of graffiti?


Time to step down from my rostrum and get on with my pigs.

First I must study them...... get the nuance of the animal....I can't remember ever painting a pig!

Sketch away!

oink  oink  oink