February 16, 2012 February 16, 2012

Well I am still fighting frustration and my low skill level as I struggle to produce a decent bamboo painting. So I decided to critique my most recent attempt. I always learn from my mistakes so I hope you will also find this helpful. To start here is the painting:

Bamboo 2

Idea: I wanted to paint a simple composition with a large, old stalk of bamboo and young shots growing up around it. I like the way the new leaves point upwards.

Issue 1 – When I paint I am working on a double size practice paper but I practice on a single size practice paper so I may use larger brushes when I start to paint. I had not practiced with the larger brush that I used for the largest stalk of bamboo. The larger brush holds more fluid so it diluted my ink and I didn’t get the deep color to the side of the stalk. So no depth or modeling.

Issue 2: The composition was too simple for such a large sheet of paper so I let the painting dry over night and added two more small stalks of bamboo – they are not well painted because I had trouble seeing as I did overpainting.

Issue 3: Still having real trouble with ink color and brush loading. Never get it dark enough so go back and overpaint – real no-no.

Issue 4: I forget that if ink has not dried it will bleed into the lower layer producing blurry, smudgy looking areas. I always think its dry but its not.

Issue 5: Haven’t found the right brush or technique yet to paint the tiny twigs – get thick and thin spots and blurring.

Chop - Name

Chop Set

Someone asked about the chop I used on the last painting. For Christmas 2010 I asked for a chop as my gift. My husband found that you can get custom, personalized chops through the National Geographic catalog. They work with a Chinese expert to match your name as closely as possible. The chop itself is beautiful, made from jade and is about 1″ square and 3″ long. I love it and have thought about also using it as part of my signature on my watercolors!

 

 

February 12, 2012 February 13, 2012

I have been struggling a bit with motivation lately. A fellow docent gave me a small book, Painting Chinese, and it came to me at the right time. It was written by a college professor living in San Francisco who had just lost funding for his program. He was 70, saw death approaching, and needed to find a way forward. He frequently walked through China Town and on a whim enrolled in a painting class at a Chinese art school. He started as the only adult in a class of beginners (5-8 year olds!). The book talks about how the practice and mediative nature of Chinese painting provided the solace, comfort and mental release necessary to help him find a new life and face death (he was not sick, just slowly decaying like all of us!) This book and a small volume I found at the library titled Art & Fear have been nudging me forward.

Last week I began practicing my Sumi-e brush strokes and working on mixing the different colors of ink. I seem to have forgotten everything I ever knew and have struggled, struggled, struggled. I worked on strokes for four days before I even tried a painting and then my paintings were over crowded and full of smudges. I also couldn’t seem to get the ink colors right in order to show depth.  I am still struggling but did finish one piece – not perfect but an improvement. I have to remember that less is more when it comes to composition!

Bamboo 1 (2012)

 

June 7, 2010 June 8, 2010

Yesterday was a lovely slow day. I have almost nothing on my calendar this week and my knee and back are healing nicely. First I wanted to show you my “enhanced” painting of the purple iris. I think the painting has more energy and depth. I am too timid with color sometimes! But

"Enhanced" Purple Iris

I learn a lot every time I try to enhance a painting I thought was complete (sometimes I “learn” how to make mudpies!)

Yesterday I spend several hours practicing the Zhuan Script. Zhuan is important to the history of Chinese manuscripts and is in the middle between pictographs and modern scripts. (9th century to 2nd century BCE) Characters are generally upright, level and straight. Below is the character for Holy. My proportions are a little off. Grab the top and the bottom and stretch it and you will have it.

"Holy" Zhuan Script

Fish - Zhuan Script

Sky and Horse - Zhuan Script

In this script I found the characters for the names of animals to be really interesting because they are so similar visually to the real thing. And I think the symbol for Sky leads you right into their way of thinking about their environment. Fun! I am learning new strokes with each script so this is really good practice.

June 5, 2010 June 6, 2010

I wanted to share just a bit about the Chinese Pictographic Script. It was originally  used to carve religious text foretelling the future on bone and tortoise shell. These are known as oracle bones. We know the script was used 4000 years ago and 5000characters have been found about half of which are readable. Research indicates that the characters were painted on with a brush before being carved. After being carved the pictographs were filled in with black, brown or red color to make them readable.

Rainbow Pictograph - ATC

Last night I decided to work on some ATC paintings. I wanted to reforce the shape of some of the characters I find beautiful. I used my watercolor crayons for the colored backgrounds. The symbol above is the one for rainbow. I think I will combine cloud, rain and rainbow in a slightly larger painting soon.

Self Pictograph - ATC

Cloud Pictograph - ATC

I also did two ATC’s based on practice work I showed yesterday. As I said, I am fascinbated by the association the ancient Chinese made between the breath and an individual life so I had to do Self. I also wanted to play around with the symbol for cloud since I will probably use it for my first multi-symbol painting. This is really fun and I am going to write the history on the back of the ATC’s before I give them to family as gifts.

I also wanted to share the name of the book I am using. It is The Complete Guide to Chinese Calligraphy by Qu Lei Lei. It includes the most amazing thing. It includes a pad of Magic Paper. This paper has sample symbols for each script printed on it and you use plain water to practice. When the water dries. The paper is again pristine. I also have used it to practice characters that are not included in the samples. I just write over the top and then they disappear! It is great!!!

June 4, 2010 June 4, 2010

Sister hurt her knee and needed help, then I hurt my knee and then I hurt my back – boy has it been a tough week and a half. I have not been able to focus my energy on creating art or even practicing my skills. It is amazing how tired you get when you are in pain. Anyway I am recuperating now and had the time, energy and interest today to get something done. I miss being able to share my work and contribute to our lively discussions. And I need to start work on my Lighthouse…June 21 is rapidly approaching!

Over the last few days I have continued to putter around with the painting of Irises and it has improved somewhat. Leslie mentioned what she thinks about when working with dark purple and it led my down a productive path. Making small changes made a big difference!

Today I started studying a new book I bought on Chinese Calligraphy. It was recommended by Naomi (you can see her work at inkyarnandbeer.wordpress.com). The book provides instruction on five different styles of Chinese Calligraphy. I started at the beginning with the ancient pictograms. I was fascinated with the pictogram for Self. It is based on the human nose – the source of our breathe, the source of life. I am going to show two other sets that I worked on.

Two ways to write Clouds

Tears and Rain

The first is two different ways I found to write the word for Clouds. The second set is related but different. It includes the pictograms for Tears and Rain. This has been really fascinating and I am happy to be working with ink and brush again. It has been two months – way too long!

February 11 and 12, 2010 February 12, 2010

I feel almost embarassed to tell what I have accomplished after two days of on and off work. I want to learn Sumi-e painting. Why?  To improve my skill and creativity with a brush. To improve my watercolor paintings. So I bought a couple of books and  watched a few videos on Youtube and started work. Well that is when the rubber meets the road. This is tough! I have spent two days practicing strokes, working with different brushes and trying different papers.

Fall #1

Fall #2

One of my books suggested practicing by writing the Chinese symbols for “Fall”. This uses the majority of the strokes. Well I am ready to show two very imperfect attempts…

I admire so much anyone who has mastered this art. It is very exacting and requires patience, internal quiet and a steady hand.

I intend to practice more strokes today and to try my hand at bamboo next. I practice on newsprint which has proven to be very effective as a paper to practice on. These two images are painted on Sumi-e Sketch Paper. They are 4″ X 4″ and 5″ X 5″.

Helpful hints anyone?