Sumi-e & Ink Painting – Page 10

Pain(ting Class)

For the past two years I have been getting a teaching credential, while teaching full time. You can imagine it – no time to do what I want to do. As time passes, doing what I want to do becomes an ever-increasing desperation. So many people and things pulling at me that it becomes difficult to know who I am at times. I am always someone in relationship to something else. When there finally is time, a sense of guilt descends. Is it really all right to be so selfish? Shouldn’t I be running off to the next project? That is, the next project for the students or the credential?? And reading for pleasure? No, it is anatomy and physiology and physics, along with making sure this “i” is dotted, and that “t” is crossed.

Now the credential is done. Most classes are prepped. Enter the California budget crisis. Thus far, I’ve been spared, but there is always that wondering in the back of my mind, the worry, the anxiety. Now I prepare for other things, being pushed into action on things I was going to do later.

Painting, more than anything, is really the most selfish thing I do in my life. No one is allowed to bother me. I get to express myself on paper. Then the doorbell rings. The dogs bark. I feel like screaming. Certainly not conducive for getting into the zen of it all. I feel angry and guilty.

The fact is, I’ve not done any consistent painting for almost two years, less in the past one. I’ve lost my connection with brush and paper, and I’ve lost my knowledge of color and how it all comes together. Tonight I was going to do the peony from class, and I got into hating my brushes. Too soft, too this, too whatever. The fact was, it was me.

I wanted to “produce” when in reality, the best thing to do was play. I pulled out a pile of various Chinese papers I’d cut some time ago, and off I went, not worrying about color or type of paper, or anything. Some of it was pure crap, other things I liked. I held the brush close to the bristles, other times I stood up and held the brush loosely, and just swooped, smooshed, and curved.

Um, I had fun!

Chinese Painting Class, 23 May 2009 – i

Here where I live, there is a small group of painters who meet monthly for class with our instructor. This is the Chinese Brush Painting and Calligraphy Association of Thousand Oaks. Our instructor, Mr. Ha, is from China. He has trained in traditional Chinese and Western art traditions. Copying the works of other artists is a tradtional learning tool in both art traditions, but perhaps more so in the East. This means to learn by imitating and reproducing the work of others. Control of brush and stroke, elements of composition, and ways in which effects are produced are studied, analyzed, and executed. In Saturday’s class, we will watch Mr. Ha as he reproduces this painting, take notes, and learn from observation. At home, we do our work.

This is a tough process. Paper and ink and color are far more challenging than may be anticipated. As I have written in other posts, brushes from Asia are not the same as Western, and the paper certainly is not. The paper we use in class is usually fairly soft and unsized, and this absorbency gives brushwork its immediacy and spontaneous quality, but in just a second, a beautiful work can be destroyed by too much water in the brush. Watch out, grab your towel and blot!

This month’s painting is peonies. They symbolize riches and honor, good fortune, and prosperity.

Painting the Real World

One of the beauties of painting is it can be photographic in detail, or suggestive, allowing the mind and imagination to fill in the spaces. Personally, I prefer the latter. I’ve never been a realist, yet as someone who enjoys painting, I love seeing what the “real” is, and seeing the work of the “artist.”

This is a strange orchid. It lives in a pot out on the patio, grows several feet tall, and survives my neglect. I have seen this same orchid flourishing in more protected areas, lanky and straggly, in pinks, oranges and reds. Can you believe that this flower is about 5 feet tall? It really is!

The flowers themselves are rather tiny, but clustered in groups at the top of long stems. Air roots emerge periodically from the stems, and if you want more of these orchids, cut them down, stick ’em in the ground or potting soil, and off they go.

These orchids make me laugh. I just don’t expect orchids to be quite so hardy! I always think of delicate flowers, in steamy hot houses, sort of like the descriptions in that old story by Dashiell Hammett – decay, rot, humidity.

These orchids are really not elegant in the way cymbidiums are, or other more exotic specimens. Their beauty lies in the smallness of the flower, the gangliness of the stalks, the sturdy jutting of the leaves.

Here is my homage to this unnamed orchid.

The Moon in Ink Painting

In most western paintings, the moon is painted full, large and overwhelming. In Japanese scrolls, the moon is shown in all its phases. Waxing. Waning. Gibbous. Full. Crescent. Quarter. In fog. Alone in the sky. Through the trees.

The fact is, to paint the moon full is very simple! Catching its other shapes and moods is not so easy. I’ve tried to paint the moon over the years, attempting to catch a quality or mood in a few strokes. I’ll leave it to you to judge.

Adaptations of West & East

These past few weeks I have gone through some of my past paintings. One of the things I have been trying to figure out are ways in which it may be possible to create a certain spontaneous, zen, sumi-quality in a painting done using western materials.

The absorbent paper, and other papers of Japan, China, and Korea are not readily available in the United States. Mounting the very thin, Asian papers is a challenge. Traditional methods of wheat paste are difficult, and until the method is perfected, the artist can lose a lot of work if not careful. In Japan and China, there are shops to do the mounting for you – not so here. Other methods for mounting include using a framer, but the framer may not be able to get rid of the wrinkles for you. Dry mounting, using silicone release paper, such as used in photography mounting, may work, but even that can be risky – the wrinkles may still be there, or the adhesive may catch another part of the painting if you are not careful.

Western watercolor paper comes in rough, cold press, and hot press. Yupo is a Japanese synthetic paper, but sumi ink and gansai rinse away under running water. Thus, it seems, that the ideal is to somehow re-create the absorbent quality as best as possible using western papers.

The quality of xuan and tissue-thin sulfite papers is one of both absorbency and ability to portray each brush stroke. These are the ideal papers for sumi ink and sumi-e. Dry brush is easy enough on western paper. But that absorbency? How to achieve that?

Keeping the paper damp, so the color or ink is drawn into the paper fibers is critical. I don’t want the paper so wet that everything bleeds, but damp enough so the character of the ink or paint is caught. This is so hard to describe!

bamboo

This painting of bamboo is done on Fabriano 100% Cotton Cold Press paper. First, it was masked off with drafting tape onto a board, and then a layer of water was lightly brushed over the surface, and then a pale wash of lemon yellow added.

As in traditional sumi-e, the idea was to paint without outline, and to create a focused, yet spontaneous, painting. The shape of the bamboo stalks was considered, and painted without the drawing of outlines. The brush was pushed onto the paper, or paused in areas. I touched the paper to assess its dryness or dampness, and waited for more drying to occur, or added water as needed. To get the color gradations, I loaded my brush with pale-medium-dark paint, but at times I helped it along by adding color on the edges of the stems, or lifting as necessary. The result seems to have been successful.

With Arches 140# Hot Press paper, the technique is similar, but the smaller the sheet (as in the small size for ACEOs), it becomes apparent that the paper can warp more easily the wetter it becomes. Weighting down the finished product seems to help, and so does ironing!

These next pictures were done on ACEO-sized Arches. For the maple leaves, the background was given a very light wash of yellow, and then, as you can see, a wet-into-wet technique done with the branch on the far right. It has a very soft effect. The lighter leaves were painted first and allowed to become nearly dry before the darker leaves were added. Brush movement of pushing down, or turning and lifting, were done to create the shapes of the leaves as well as for the tiny maple seeds. Overall, fairly successful.

maple tree

The plum tree below is also done on an ACEO-sized sheet of Arches 140# Hot Press. Here, the effort to utilize the damp paper succeeded to a degree. I did load my brush with successive levels of ink, light to dark, but I did not succeed in its showing up. Perhaps the paper needed to be a bit dryer than it was, as the ink shades all blurred to create one shade. Still, the final result was not too bad.

I think that with more practice I might be able to achieve the effects I want, but it will take analysis and experience. In the meantime, I am trying – still! – to master the mounting of xuan with silicone release paper. But, to tell the truth, I rather doubt I have the patience for it.