Tag: japanese painting

Retrospective Introspection

Admittedly I have been feeling rather sorry for myself.  I get like this when I have no time to sit down and think about life and what I want to do with it.  Thursday I walked into my office at work and was just unable to make choices as to what to pursue next.  Oh, there were a lot of things to be done, but it seemed just so overwhelming and the mere act of choosing what to do was impossible.   The best thing to do in these circumstances – for me, at least – is to sit down with paper and pen and begin to write.  Five pages later, the world was in order once more.

Writing is therapeutic.  It’s like the pensieve of the Harry Potter stories.  I pull out thoughts and ideas and frustrations, and when they are all placed onto paper, there is structure found amidst the chaos.

Painting is much the same process as writing; however, I often feel pulled into different directions.  I never focus on one style.  The consistent factor is my use of water-soluble media and paper, but other than that, I don’t have a particular style.  Consequently, I am not as accomplished as I would like to be in watercolor.  I like many of my ink paintings and the simpler watercolors that are based on sumi-e.  Traditional watercolors are often disastrous failures.  Acrylic paints are not my favorite medium, but there are times when I have used them to create more graphic pictures.

Today, I went through my hard drive to look at some of the paintings I have scanned or photographed over the past year or two, and pulled out some which appealed to me for whatever reason – sort of a retrospective of the work of the last few years.  Here they are, not in any particular order, but just for me and anyone who wants to look at them to see and consider.

Painting Corn in Sumi-e

More fun in making painting videos – NOT!

These really are a lot of work to make, but they are getting easier. Again, a lot of the hard work is the setting up and the processing. I really do minimal work on them, but would like to make ones that are rather polished. The fact is, making videos is a lot like taking photographs – most of what is done is not at all good, most is trash, only a few are good. Making videos for an afternoon proved that point all too well. Also, the fact is, that being on film really makes me self-conscious, not something I like. Painting a line wrong creates instant trauma!

Initially, when I set up to make videos, the whole idea was to do chrysanthemums, in keeping with their autumnal theme in ink painting. Well, I really don’t like any chrysanthemum I’ve ever painted, so why should I be so foolish as to think I might be able to do one for a video?

I ended up painting corn – a really easy subject, yet one that is uses a lot of different techniques. Dots and medium grey ink, very wet. Twisting the brush in different directions as painting. Dry brush strokes. Contrasting shades and textures.

My contribution to the season!

Video: Painting Sunflowers in Sumi-e

There are a lot of “try before you buy” video editors out there.  Some allow you to publish a video without blurbs on the final product which tell the whole world who they are.  Others do it, which is annoying, but they can be removed with some editing.  Some programs are fairly intuitive – which is important if you don’t know a dang thing about video editing – and others come with decent tutorials and help sections.  Some are slow to load, hard to see, confusing, but full of cool devices.  Others are not, but have online resources which you can use to create your own what-is-needed, like a title or template.  To get what I want I have been swapping between a number of programs, but expect I will eventually settle on one.  I really appreciate 30-day windows to try out stuff!  I’ve been rather confused and frustrated, but am beginning  to understand a bit about them. One thing I do know is that over-processing the videos is occurring, and a lot of quality is lost. As long as you don’t watch them in full-screen mode, the quality is okay.

Sunflower Sunday

As always, my weekends are far too busy, but I do make time to have fun.  This weekend I was determined to try out a different set-up for the Zi8.  When I work inside in my studio (office, spare room, whatever!), the camera cannot be easily placed where I usually work.  My painting area is part of an L-shaped computer table, and the camera really is best placed to my left.  Unfortunately, the computer area is also to the left.  I have tried all sorts of gyrations, but nothing was especially great.  Practice will eventually create the perfect set-up.

So, I decided to try it out on the patio, and it worked out pretty well.  I could get the camera over to the left of the chair and angle it so I could film as if the viewer were looking over my left shoulder.  The key was to place the feet of the tripod perpendicular to the table – this way I could scoot the chair back to stay out of the picture, but not knock over everything if I moved.  All this worry creates a very stressful painting situation, but this time I actually felt fairly comfortable, and ended up painting and filming – turning the camera on and off with the remote – for quite some time.

The result was a 15-minute video on painting sunflowers.  YouTube has both a size and time limit, but I decided to try it anyhow.  No dice.  I tried to compress the video into a 10-minute segment, and all I ended up seeing was a black screen.  Thus, I had to divide the video into segments, which was not easy until I got into another software package.  I was able to edit out sections with pauses, and divide the sections into different videos with different titles.  The final result is two videos!

Painting Sunflowers in Sumi-e:  Part One and Part Two

Here they are!  YouTube also allows you to do “audioswap” and add a free (to the video-maker) music track to the video, with the caveat some advertising may appear.  I did it for the Painting Wild Orchids in Sumi-e video, and for the two sunflower ones, which you can see below.  Hopefully the music will add to the proverbial “viewing pleasure” and the advertisements won’t distract.

The Four Gentlemen: 国画兰花 (Orchid)

According to the Google Chinese translator, 国画兰花 means “orchid painting.”  If I plug in the characters, sure enough, that is what I get!  There are a lot of really beautiful orchid paintings, both Japanese and Chinese, and some from other parts of the world.

The Four Gentlemen

In learning to paint in sumi, the student first becomes acquainted and accomplished in painting the orchid, bamboo, plum, and chrysanthemum. Practicing each, the student learns critical brush strokes, and while one may become adept at the strokes, mastery is where the artist steps in.

Painting the orchid allows the student the opportunity to practice long movements with the brush. This requires moving with the arm, rather than the wrist, which is very strange to us in the west. Those of us who learned to write script hour after hour in school learned to control our movements. Big, sweeping arm movements were not encouraged.

In addition to learning to control large movements, the student also works with varying shades of ink, from light to dark, to create a dynamic painting. The leaves require darker ink, and the flowers require lighter. In addition to lighter ink, the flowers require smaller, controlled movement. Finally, “dotting the heart” – the black ink at the center of each flower – requires the patience for the ink to dry. Applied too soon, the elegant shape becomes a blurry spot in what might otherwise be a perfect flower.

Besides being an elemental step to learning sumi, the orchid represents spring, as well as the virtues of noble behavior and modesty. In Japanese, the “Four Gentlemen” are called “shi-kunshi. Each plant has a corresponding season and virtue. In contemplating paintings of these subjects – the orchid, bamboo, plum, and chrysanthemum – one also steps into the symbolism of each.

Painting the Orchid

Of the “Four Gentlemen,” the orchid is the most easily learned. The long flowing leaves are delightful to paint. The flowers are as well – a great deal of satisfaction is found in mastering the curves of the strokes. Most difficult is “dotting the heart.”

That said, the mastery of the orchid, or any of the Gentlemen, is a lifetime experience. The expression and shape and composition of such simple subjects becomes increasingly more interesting, and more challenging.

The Video: Painting the Wild Orchid in Sumi-e

Here is a video showing some of my orchid paintings in color, as well as a demonstration in sumi. I have not annotated this video, but am leaving it for you to observe. Let me know what you think!