Author: -N-

Line & Color, v

PINK

With the basic foundations of warm and cold greens laid down, time to paint the flowers. Pink seems to be more summery to me, so pink it will be! I will be using a total of three pinks. The foundation pink is neither too blue nor too red, and so will be the underpainting for the warm and cold pink to be applied later. This picture shows several layers of the same pink – the darker the pink, the more layers of color. The palest areas are single color layers. The medium pinks are two to three layers of color. The darkest have up to six.

The detailed picture will give you a better idea of some of the subtle differences of one, two, or more layers. The smaller flowers have only one to two color layers – see the slight changes in color density?

Line & Color, iv

COLD GREEN

Once the warm green dried – and more than one layer of it in some areas – it was time to add the cool green. This green is a viridian or phthalo green, so there is a bluish tint to it. The next picture shows the pale layers before they begin to build up. Warm and cool greens begin to meet.

Subsequent layers – two or three more -begin to show the intensity of the colors, as well as areas where warm and cool work together to show the underside of a leaf, such as on the far right side. Mottling is done to see how warm and cool will work together underneath yet another layer of green. Below you will see a leaf with a lighter, warmer green center surrounded by cooler green.

Line & Color, iii

WARM GREENS

The paper for this project is a handmade kozo paper. It is a thin, lightweight paper. One purpose of this painting adventure is to test how the paper handles repeated thin washes of color – bleeding? wearing? weakening of the fibers? So far, it is holding up beautifully, and does not seem to be buckling or pilling with the layers of color. The natural color of the paper is a very pale warm beige.

The key to layering colors is not to put them on too wet – that is, making sure the brush is damp but not wet. Then, pick up some of the color, blot the brush a little, and then onto the paper. I start toward the central areas, just in case the brush is wetter than I think it is, and if there is some bleeding, it won’t leak out into areas I want white or another color. The brush I am using is a very small brush, and the bristles are cat hair! It comes to a very fine, delicate point, even when wet, with a nice resiliance to it, even loaded with water and color.

The following picture illustrates the beginning of layering of a warm green over the yellows. This warm yellow was applied over both cool and warm yellows, to see the effects of the underlying yellow on the now overlying green. Some areas of the leaves were not evenly covered so that when the cooler green is applied, some variation of warm and cool will hopefully appear.

Follows is a detail of one of the leaves, so you can see the variations within a leaf.

Line & Color, ii

YELLOWS

Another picture of the outline:

The first underlayers are begun: a lemon yellow, which is a yellow with a greenish cast to it, and a warmish yellow, one closer to orange than green. The idea is that the underlying lemon yellow will aim toward a cooler green, and, obviously, the underlying warmish yellow, will aim toward a warmish green. Two separate photos are provided – the first with the lemon yellow applied, then the orangish yellow.

As you can see in the next photo, the warmer yellow – I think it is a cadmium – has been added to the outline drawing. Sometimes there was more pigment in the brush, sometimes less. The intensity of the yellow varies. There is a definite difference between the two yellows. Some of the leaves have the lemon yellow for the sub-painting, but most have the warmer color.

I don’t know if this is “traditional” in color or approach, but it should be fun to see the results!

Line & Color, i

Today, I am just writing off the top of my head.

I have been working on a handmade paper, experimenting with it as far as color, line, and ability to withstand wetness in the form of washes and in the form of repeated layers of color.

So . . . the next picture was a free-hand outlining of chrysanthemums, trying to create lined areas with logical beginnings and ends, and then painted with the saiboku. I think the results are much better. Remember the coloring books of your childhood? Staying inside the lines was “good” – and actually, with “meticulous” painting, staying in the lines is “good” too!  And, it was fairly easy to do. I filled the lines in with mixtures of colors, in one layer, except for a couple of small areas where you will see areas of orange in the green of the leaves. I recalled, last minute, something I read about applying multiple thin layers of colors, to gain a translucency not possible with a single layer of paint. Thus, I dabbed in a bit of orange, while the paper and paint had not yet dried. I like the results.

And this leads to today’s doings, which I hope to photograph along the way. It may be done today, but as the day is dampish, and other things are going, it may be a project of some duration.

To begin, I return to the chrysanthemums. Ink ground, I did the outlines, some with darker ink, some with lighter ink. What I plan to do is to do thin layers of paint, and then photograph the picture before beginning the next layer of painting. Never having done this before, I will be looking to some texts, such as Fritz van Briessen’s The Way of the Brush: Painting Techniques of China and Japan. Others will be mentioned as used.