Happy New Year Year of the Rabbit

                                                                            兔氣揚眉

                                                   新年快樂

    Happy New Year

Finishing up my Jade Rabbits on the Moon

Now that I have the main residents situated on the moon, it is time to paint in the background. As I had alluded to before, the inspiration for this composition is the mythology of the shadows on the moon representing the dwelling of Chang'e and her rabbit.  I am therefore needing to exploit the shadows.  I am choosing to paint a classical pine tree with its branches matching the shadows.  I am also placing the branches strategically so that they take up and blend in with some of the bigger pieces of fibers on the paper.  

I need to add a branch to account for the shadows in the middle of the moon

I now paint in the branches of the pine tree.  Notice how the big piece of fiber on the upper right side is painted into part of the branch.  I don't want to trivialize the word "organic", but this is as organic as one gets.

So the tree and stuff looks a little sparse for shadows.  A little dressing up with a broad brush wash and dabbing resolves that issue.  I am happy that the details of the tree and branches etc. are well blended into the shadows.  That allows more room for the viewer to conjure up their own interpretation of the tree. 

Putting some rouge on the face of the moon.  She looks pretty now.  

 

One of my non-Asian friend looks at the work and says "you have a bonsai tree in there".  "How astute!" I tell her.  Bonsai comes from the Chinese word Penzai, or Penjing which literally means the craft of artistically staging potted plants.  As I am painting a rabbit within the framework of Chinese mythology, a Chinese style pine tree is called for.  Pine trees are symbols of longevity.  The twisted and knurly branches are more than aesthetic poses; they also pertain to the ability of withstanding adversity and thriving despite of it.   Actually within the framework of Chinese mythology the tree on the moon is purported to be an osmanthus.  However some scholars would refute that and claim the tree to be Cinnamomum pedunculatum and not osmanthus.  Hopefully my pine is not going to be ridiculed. 

I am now at the juncture of a self-imposed dilemma.  I had intended to just do silhouettes of trees and rabbits as the shadows on the moon and I had no intention of depicting any three dimensional realism to the rabbits.  So I am now debating whether to paint in the eyes of the rabbits.  I am just being an idiot, getting hung up on something that is now irrelevant, especially since I've come so far down the road of realism.

Then I am reminded of the fact that our dragon boats go through the ceremony of painting the eyeballs in on the day of the races.  Eyeballs give the dragons life and spirit.  It would be quite a taboo for me to turn in something that purportedly is nice and auspicious; pertaining to the coming New Year and yet is lacking eyeballs.  What would rabbits without eyeballs portend?

I can't help but recall the New Year's card sent out by a local Chinese tourist/cultural venue.  The fact that this institution is not run by Chinese is beside the point, but they asked some poor Chinese person to paint them a New Year's card for the Year of the Rat and sent them out to all their sponsors and partners.

The quality of the painting notwithstanding but the fact that this card was used to welcome the year of the Rat is deplorable.  Can you imagine a New Year with two vermin eating up your food staple?  Come on people, this is not the time to be cute.  Find something auspicious to depict the rats.  This was such a taboo, especially if one is just a little bit superstitious.  Yes customs can be pedantic.  Look what happened to the year 2020, the year of the Rat!

I shall not and will not be guilty of painting New Year's zodiac animals with no eyeballs!

Launching my Year of the Rabbit painting

I am feeling comfortable about my rabbits and the 22nd of January will be here before long so I better step on the gas and put some rabbits down on paper for real, or else I won't have a greeting card for Chinese New Year.

When I think of the astrological Rabbit I inevitably look to the moon.  I suppose this has to do with my culture and what is instilled in me.  I grow up learning about the legend of Chang'e, our goddess of the moon, and the rabbit is her faithful companion up there. 

In our Chinese mythology, it was said that there used to be ten suns and they were causing unbearable heat to our world.  Chang'e was married to an archer, who went out and shot down 9 suns, leaving just the one we see today.  For his valiant effort he was given an elixir of immortality by the Emperor of the Heaven.  He didn't wish to be immortal all by himself so he gave the elixir to his wife Chang'e for safe-keeping.  One day someone was trying to steal the elixir and Chang'e in an attempt to prevent the elixir from falling into wrong hands, drank all the elixir herself.  She thus became immortal and chose the moon as her residence, leaving her husband behind.  The Emperor of the Heaven caught wind of this and granted Chang'e the ability to meet her husband annually, on the 8th full moon of the year.  Hence the August Moon Festival.  A quick check on the internet shows there are many versions of this legend and what I am telling might sound different from what other people have learned.  I suppose the only real significance is that we believe Chang'e is the goddess of the moon, and the rabbit keeps her company.

I suppose it is not difficult to conjure up stories about beings on the moon, especially when the moon surface is represented by unknown shadows and shapes.  That floating luminous object that changes from a ball to a sliver in the night sky is in itself an object of pondering and bewilderment.  I need to confess, the music of Rusalka's  "Song to the Moon" is playing as I am writing.  It is also interesting that the same moon appears different when viewed from different parts of the world.  

I took a picture of a full moon in the States:

and the same moon viewed from Australia:

Notice the orientation of the shadows on the moon.  There is a 90 degrees shift.  

Now that I've convinced myself that the moon is the proper staging for my zodiac Rabbit, I intend to somehow incorporate my rabbits into the shadows of the moon.

I must also mention that the name given to the rabbit on the moon is Jade Rabbit.  Jade comes in many colors and white jade is a symbol of purity.  

I am using my fibrous Xuan again; it shows interesting strands of fiber.  I suppose the craters on the moon aligns with my fixation on the texture of the paper.  The native color of the paper has a beige straw tint to it, perhaps it can pass for the illuminated surface of the moon?  We shall see. 

The back of the paper seems more fibrous and rough, and I happen to like it.  So that will be the side I paint on.

I am drawing a circle of about 13 inches in diameter; a size that would fit on a 16x16 canvas when mounted.  I am settling on painting 2 rabbits.  Somehow two is more interesting than one, and it is easier for me to coax some sort of a sentiment from posing two animals.  I am also not trying to paint the legend of Chang'e, as the rabbits are the real protagonists, thus whether it is one or more rabbits is not critical. I am leaning towards painting my rabbits more as a silhouette, scant in details but hope to tie in with my shadow  on the moon theme.

Perhaps I am thinking of the aventurine jade too much.  My rabbit has a greenish tint to it.  I am going to tone it down with a heavier dose of titanium white. 

A cute couple!

Almost time for rabbits

The next zodiac animal is the rabbit, and our Lunar New Year falls on January 22 for 2023.  That means I better start planning on my zodiac painting now.

I love putting animals and birds into my painting, but rabbit is definitely a new subject for me.  My preparation involves just grabbing a piece of paper and start drawing with no particular agenda.  I hope to be conversant with the animal and hopefully I would be able to portray a personality to the rabbit, instead of just being vapid.  Vapid rabbit rhymes in spoken language, but not in paintings, ha ha.  

Trees in Mustard Seed Garden

I've touched upon some of the ways leaves are depicted in traditional Chinese brush landscape and I've also alluded to my realization that groves of bamboo appear to be telegraph poles.  It will be remiss for me not to mention some examples of how trees are represented. 

I am going to borrow examples from the Mustard Seed Garden for illustration.

It is not difficult to surmise that dots and/or little round circles are used to describe leaves on a tree.  It is quite plain.

The "antler brushstroke" is ideal to show a deciduous tree in the fall, with its barren branches, devoid of leaves.  This brushstroke resembles the antler of a deer, hence its name. 

By extending these "antlers", we have the basis for painting a willow tree, which is a very common thematic matter in Chinese landscape painting. 

The Mustard Seed Garden is also a compendium for how varies ancient masters would paint their "woods" with assorted trees species.  Again I am borrowing from the text book and try to showcase an example:

In the above exercise, the various trees need to assume different heights and not be rooted on a straight line, thus portraying a scattered look.  It is not important to accurately describe the correct species of each tree, just so the aggregate shows mixed trees in the woods.  Trees are often painted with exposed, gnarly roots to lend a sense of ruggedness.  It is often common practice to assign each tree with a different color to emphasize the diverse flora.  Branches and leaves often overlap each other; thus it is vital to distinguish the spatial relationship of these seemingly mundane brushstrokes.  This is where the craft of the artist is exemplified, and where the dilettantes miss their marks.   

Of course when it comes to the ubiquitous pine, there are numerous styles in the Mustard Seed Garden that one can study with.  Pine is important because it is symbolic for longevity and the ability to triumph through hardship. 

My favorite example comes from the ancient Song dynasty painter Ma Yuan.  He used a so called "broken brush" style for his conifer.  The "broken brush" literally means a brush that has seen better days and has lost some of its hair and is no longer able to come to a point.  In other words a worn-out brush.  Thus the brushstrokes are raw and unrestrained.  It really adds to the stubbornness of the pine.

Again, I encourage the readers to do your own research if so inclined.  Try to dig up a copy of the Mustard Seed Garden and enjoy a first-person experience. 

What are those circles

 At a recent exhibition some visitors ask me "what are those little circles?".  They are referring to my Red Cliffs Nostalgia painting.

Apparently they are not familiar with the impressionistic representation of leaves on trees/shrubs in the genre of Chinese Brush. This way of expression is actually extremely common in Chinese Brush landscape paintings.  I assumed that everybody is well versed in it and never gave it a second thought, until now that is.

There are numerous examples of how to paint trees, shrubs, leaves in the Mustard Seed Garden, a gold standard reference book for students of Chinese Brush painting.  For those who are familiar with this text I would be guilty of preaching to the choir.  For those who are strangers to the reference, allow me to illustrate some examples from the book.  I tried to research corresponding material in English and I couldn't come up with any, but I did come across terminology that is alien to me, terms like lanceolate, reniform, orbicular, sagittate.  Well, you get the picture.  

Aside from using the disc shape, there are other shapes that are utilized; some are more readily relatable than others.  The attached reminds me of aspen, alder and ginkgo leaves.  

Do these leaves not remind one of rhododendron or azalea?

Simple lines can be used to depict leaves.  The following example illustrates using upward bowing and downward bowing lines:

How about simple vertical or horizontal brushstrokes:

When my painting teacher showed me how to depict bamboos in landscape painting I thought he was painting telegraph poles along a railroad track.  Poles with horizontal cross members with telephone wires and power lines attached.

Then I had a chance to visit the countryside in China and saw the groves of bamboo:

I came to realize that that it is indeed an accurate way of describing bamboo impressionistically.  Bamboo branches grow out from the nodes of the long stem thus we are seeing clusters of branches at regular intervals along the length of the bamboo, resembling the telegraph poles that I alluded to earlier.

Center-tip or side-tip brushstrokes are used to form recognizable clusters of leaves.  The cluster on the right is written with side-tip and it has a different flavor from the center-tip on the left.

Dots and thick lines are also used for leaves:

These are only a few examples that are listed in the Mustard Seed Garden and there are many others.  I bet libraries would carry a copy that one can look at.

Duck pond

Having finished my dragonfly painting when the pond is stagnant, I couldn't help but remanence the days when the pond was full and beautiful.  I am talking about late spring, when flowers are in bloom and the geese welcome their new family and the pond is filled with runoffs from the spring rain.  

So instead of ruminating whether the glass is half full or half empty as I alluded with my dragonfly painting, why don't I attempt at something that is definitely a full glass.

The reflections of the yellow water iris and red rhododendron in the pond, interrupted by ducks lazily peddling is what I am going to attempt to paint.

For me, the challenge is to bring about the motion of the water; to bring about the transitory and ever evolving reflections.  They seem to be dancing around all the time, yet being stationary, in the sense that their position in the water never change.  So how does one portray a dancer who dances in place?

I definitely do not possess the expertise to answer that question, nor do I own the skills to depict that.  To me that's almost like asking me what is love, what is happiness.  All I know is that I just want to pick up my brush and strike while the iron is hot.  While I am still feeling it.

I want the ripples in the water to be the stage and ducks as prop.  I have an idea of how and where I want my ducks so I just pencil in their cutouts and wrote in the feathers.

The water immediately next to the fowls is relatively flat, showing only a semblance of ripples, so it is  easy to insert the palette denoting the sky, the water and the vegetation along the banks of the pond.

As I continue to build the stage with brushstrokes of concentric circles the brownish duck at the bottom gets drown out by all the vibrant colors.  A touch up with titanium white on the feathers gives that duck a little more presence.

I am not too concerned about my brushstrokes.  You can say that I am out of control; allowing my

feelings to guide me and pray that I've developed an adequate brushstroke over the years; even while I am not paying attention.  At the same time I am well aware that my Xuan paper reveals a very saturated look while wet, so I've learned to ignore that seemingly awkward appearance. 

The painting is making more sense now that the sky is painted in.

Finally the painting has dried, my duck painting!  The good old days!