February 27, 2012 February 28, 2012

Well, my friends, I am still struggling with my sumi-e and have messed up several paintings. I have found that newsprint works really well as practice paper and have decided that I need to work smaller right now. So I took a detour while I regrouped.

Last Friday, I did a Painting and Poetry tour for a middle school class. It was an incredible tour. They were studying poetry so all of them had read poetry, over half of the kids write poetry and when I asked for volunteers to read poetry I had more volunteers than poems to read. Unheard of! One of the poems inspired me to pull out a sheet of watercolor board and to start painting again. The poem is Sunflakes by Frank Asch and here are the first few lines:

If sunlight fell like snowflakes

gleaming yellow and so bright,

We could build a sunman

We could have a sunball fight

As I painted I began to think about sunlight flowing like water and, because I was starting with my “Krasner colors” of magenta and sap green, about Hawaii and the beautiful waterfalls we saw while in Hawaii. This led to light falling like a waterfall. Anyway – enough – here is Sunfall.

Sunfall - Watercolor on Full Sheet of Arches Watercolor Board

 

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!

 

 

June 23, 2010 June 24, 2010

The Watercolor Society of Indiana has their member’s show hanging in the lobby at the One America Tower in Indianapolis. Yesterday I was on duty to talk with visitors and answer questions for three hours. During that time I created three more gift bags, this time in black & gray. This was really fun!

Gift Bag 6

Gift Bag 4

Gift bag 5

June 22, 2010 June 23, 2010

My oldest Grandson is getting married in early August and my youngest daughter is hosting a shower for his future bride in July. She has been watching my blog and asked me if I would decorate some gift bags with a plum blossom sumi-e.

Gift Bag 1

I just finished three gift bags as a trial run. I did not use true sumi-e because I am afraid that the gift bags will not absorb the ink or watercolor like they should. For these I used markers – sharpies and others.

Gift Bag 2

Gift Bag 3

For these bags I used snippets of the design on the napkins, paper plates and hand towels I found. They are cherry blossom rather than plum but I don’t think this will matter. From here on out I am freehanding it and I may also try some done in black and gray like an ink painting. Hope she likes them.

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!

March 16, 2010 March 17, 2010

Yesterday I began to work with the plum bossom and the calligraphic symbol for Friendship. I started by practicing “Fall”, which turned out very well and working on my strokes, practicing bamboo and “Laughter”. I am working with the new ink I bought from OAS and it is quite different from watercolor or Black Magic ink. It is thicker and more viscous. I am fighting with dilution of the ink and the brush loading. But I know I am only at the beginning of the learning curve.

Plum Exercise #1

I practiced two different patterns. I really need to go back and study the plum to learn more about the tree, the blossoms and how they grow and develop. (This is also true of the orchid). As with anything it helps to understand the underlying structure…and as usual I just jump in!

Plum Exercise #2

Both of these use student quality Sumi ink on newsprint and my older, perhaps lower quality brushes. Perhaps next week I will be confident enough to work on the better paper.

March 11, 2010 March 12, 2010

Yesterday was very busy with meetings. I was able to paint sporadically as I ran in and out of the house going from meeting to meeting. I wanted to experiment with the learnings I had earlier in the week so I tried painting Orchid with various materials and processes. In this first painting I sprayed my 140# Arches watercolor paper and splashed on some color after using a small amount of mask to put in some (hopefully) natural shapes. Then I tried to paint an orchid with the Sumi-e brushes and watercolor. My paper was cold press and this paper and the brushes were a mis-match. I would run out of paint right after starting and would lose my stroke. I had to do a final touch-up with watercolor brushes to finish.

Watercolor paper, Sumi-e brushes

For the second exercise I used watercolor paper, brushes and paint. I tried to use the Sumi-e grip and stroke throughout.

Watercolor paper, paint, brush - Sumi-e stroke and grip

I think I’ve decided to focus on learning Sumi-e and delay experimentation. This approach seems like it may be a more efficient use of time.

March 10, 2010 March 11, 2010

Yesterday was a disaster and I accomplished nothing but I wanted to post one final orchid painting from Tuesday. It is slightly larger than the painting from March 9. I like the delicate look of this piece. Three meetings today but I hope to get in some painting!

Orchid #1

I am having some problems with brush loading and need to work on achieving the small stems that support the flowers…but that’s the opportunity to learn, right? Have a lovely day!

PS I just noticed that the one dark flower almost looks like a butterfly…

March 9, 2010 March 10, 2010

I recently had a revelation and realized that to make art a routine part of my life I need a routine. As you all know life interfers with our best intentions. I want to use Mondays to learn and practice Sumi-e and Fridays or Sundays to draw, draw, draw. Painting, exploring materials, doodling will be part of the schedule any day, any where, any time. I just need to set aside some specific time for Sumi-e and drawing which I see as major skill builders. Well, of course, life stepped in and Monday we ran errands and worked outside and played with the dogs in the sunshine. Since my Tuesday drawing class with Irina is over, yesterday became Sumi-e day. Using newsprint and lamp black and charcoal watercolor (I was almost out of ink) I practiced the curving strokes needed to make dots, dashes, flower petals. I have four small prints that I bought from a catalog years ago. They sit at the top of my stairs to greet visitors and are of Chinese calligraphy for words like laughter and friendship. I looked at these and decided that two were too difficult for me to copy but that two had potential for my current learners skill level. I practiced and practiced. I am not sure if I am making all the strokes appropriately but here is my last attempt.

Laughter

I also worked on the painting of an orchid. The orchid is part of the Four Gentlemen that are used to teach the basic strokes. The four are bamboo, orchid, chrysanthemum, and plum blossom (preview of things to come!).

Orchid #2

Now the neat thing is that my order from Oriental Art Supply was delivered late yesterday so I was able to use better paper for my final practice. Both of these paintings were done using double shuen practice paper, Black Magic ink and charcoal watercolor. The book I am using is The Chinese Painting Handbook edited by Viv Foster that I bought at Barnes & Noble.