Painting – Page 16 – Ink, Yarn & Beer

So Much to Do!

And, of course, not enough time.

I admit, I love dawdling around and just following my inclinations. I also like checking things of as Done! There are days when all I do is chores, none with any sense of pleasure; days when I am overwhelmed and cannot figure out where to begin. This weekend, though, there are a lot of interesting things on the agenda beyond the usual chores of bills, laundry, housework.

One is the completion of a year-long project is in its last week. Because of this, I have been busy doing all sorts of stuff, like editing HTML, playing with code in my haphazard way and getting it right (hooray!). Another is one class is ready to launch into their externships, and a new class to begin in the classroom – always an exciting period.

With these two are nearing points of departure, doubtless, I will also find more things to swamp me, but I also will have more time to return to painting. I have not written anything about it, much less done any, because I have been too busy to slow down. Hobbies such as cooking or photography or knitting can be picked up for a minute or two, and put down as necessary, but painting requires a bit more focus, and it means quiet and solitude. I also want to pull out my watercolor paper and reconsider painting in that medium. Photography makes me want to see what I can do with light in painting. “Suck” is the first word that comes to mind – but the allure is always there.

For fun, though, this week our little photography group met, and we did food. How to light it. How to make it sparkle. How to choose positions and viewpoints and consideration of depth of field to emphasize the subject. And how the hot lights make everything dry up! Below are some of the images I took.

I like this one for its composition and cheery colors.

This one is simple in composition, and I like the bit of lace to the lower right corner of the photo and the bright white surrounding the rest of the cherries.

First shot at fresh papaya and blackberries – no glycerin or oil spray. After about 10 minutes under the hot lights it looked pretty sad!

I like the perspective here, but see the mount under the left side? That should not be in the photo!!

Papaya and berries sprayed with olive oil mist and drops of glycerin. You should have seen it before . . .

Fresh salad, no glycerin or oil.

These are looking pretty tasty.

I just like this perspective of the salad.

Anyway, for our next class, the assignment is food, with both narrow and wide depths of field. I think something for the Valentine season could be fun. Our next meet will be outdoors at the local botanical garden, which will be wonderful for broad landscapes as well as plants of all kinds.

Shapes

Simple shapes may not be so simple.

Color

I love color. Lots of color. The fact is, it is extremely difficult for me to buy things that, to me, do not have color. That means beige, white, and black. A Japanese kimono full of vibrant colors is far more interesting than the serenity of monochrome; Hawaiian shirts hold endless attraction. Prints intrigue me far more than a brilliant, single color.

Because color is so attractive, the absence of color in a painting – such as in sumi-e – and in photography – become endlessly fascinating in the variations of black-grey-white. Color reduction, meaning decolorization, can be done in various photo editing software programs. This pushes the photograph to near monochrome, but with an essence of color. The same may be done in an ink painting. Both become intriguing as the color draws the eye, but because of the lack of color elsewhere, it also becomes a messenger, speaking to the viewer on a symbolic level. Or, it can simply become an attractive element essential to a composition.

In sumi-e, there is a challenge in gradation and contrast. This is managed by both how the brush is loaded as well as forethought and knowledge as to how dark something will dry – or, more challenging – how light. Understanding the paper being used, the qualities of the ink stick, the subtleties of the brush become an art in themselves, all of which lead to the success or failure of the final painting.

In photography I am finding much the same challenge. In playing with software, such as Corel Paintshop Photo Pro X3 and Photoscape, I can take a colored photograph and either decolor it, separate it into multiple pre-press layers, or simply change it to a grey-scale image. Red flowers which look awful in color can become quite fascinating when rendered into black and white.

Composition also plays into photography, as much as it does in painting. Because one is physically doing a painting, I think that the elements of composition have time to unfold, and the unconscious works toward the final result long before the concept is visible to the artist. It is a slower process altogether.

The very nature of photography lends itself – especially with digital – to taking picture after picture after picture. Only now am I considering more carefully my compositions. Knowing I can crop and edit in software, as well as the fact I don’t have to pay for printing, lets me shoot all over, all and everything. This lets me play. Play is creative, fun, and educational. Happenstance leads to analysis in looking at photographs, which leads to thought about all the elements which come together, as they do in painting, to create the final image: light, subject, color, direction, contrast. As a result, I am developing the skills which permit me to think ahead a bit; these are the same skills, conscious or not, which I apply to a painting.

I am finding that my preferences in photography echo those I have for paintings. Simplicity and contrast. Less is more. Whether or not I succeed is up for question.

Persimmons, i

I love the color of persimmons – bright orange fruits silhouetted against the sharp blue of the autumn sky. These are the hachiya variety, and when you buy them in the store, they are hard. As they ripen, they become blacker and squishy.

Honestly, I bought these with photographs as my primary thought, but in the back of my mind, ah! persimmon bread! And now, having photographed them, my current thought – before turning them into bread – is to paint them. And so I shall, later on. Right now, though, on to photographing them.

The photo shoot took place on the south side of the house, with the sun rising from the east. No clouds, just a bit of wind. Above is the set up – you can see the directional cast of the shadow. Light was quite contrasty. The camera shoot involved about 100 or so images (ah, the glories of digital photography!), at all f/ stops and exposures, with a polarizing filter and without. Add to that, some with flash and some without; some with filtered flash, some without.

The final images here were done with a filtered flash, using f/32 and 1/60 second for exposure. Post processing was done to clean up spots in the background in the paper, as well as to clean up a few flaws on the fruit. Color was adjusted to some degree, with the final photo given a slightly warm setting to give an impression of reflected light from the fruits, or from a bit of a glowing evening light.

I pulled on compositional elements in painting – three items, three directions. I also cropped the photo at one point to create a different image, using the two persimmons on the right. However, the last picture, supposed to suggest an evening glow bombs now that I think about it! The reason is because the tint of the background is too consistent – certainly not something one would paint! So, in the final analysis, the ones with the white background are more pleasing to me, and so is the black and white one below.

Final Image in Black & White with Contrast Enhancements

I expect I will do something in sumi-e with these persimmons in the next few days, with and without color. I need to pick up that paint brush!

Art of Ink, ii

A Digression into the West

Here, ink usually means sumi ink. Ink sticks. Painting in ink. Surprise! Ink also comes in bottles, for dip pens and fountain pens, and anything else you may wish to do with it. I’ve a small collection of vintage fountain pens, dip pens and nibs, and ink in cartridges and bottles. A lot of pleasure may be had in using fine writing tools.

Colors

For thousands of years, we have sought colors for painting, drawing, and writing. People painted the rock walls at Lascaux, using earth pigments such as red and yellow ochre, umber, and carbon blacks from wood smoke or burnt bones. White came from grinding up chalks. Cave and rock paintings can be found throughout the world, such as those at the Painted Cave in Santa Barbara. These pigments were applied with the hand, with some form of brush, and by filling the mouth with the colors and then blowing them onto the rock – people left their handprints behind using this method.

Painted Cave in Santa Barbara - by the Chumash Indians

Frescoes are attributed to the Minoans on Crete. The art of the fresco has been used for centuries, and continues to be done today. Pigments are mixed with water, and applied to wet, fresh plaster. As the plaster dries, the painting becomes a permanent part of the structure. Egyptian and Indian antiquities are filled with frescoes. European churches have frescoes which span the millenia. Mexican artists, such as Diego Rivera, created murals using the fresco. Locally, Gordon Grant painted the murals in the downtown Ventura post office in 1936-1937.

Mural in Downtown Ventura Post Office by Gordon Grant, 1936-1937

Today if we want color, it is readily available in clothing, paper, ink, paint. With technology and the advent of chemically-derived colors, we do not give much thought to the labor involved in earlier times to get colors. Just dyeing in cochineal and indigo is a time-intensive project; if thought is given to collecting the bugs or growing the plants and the transport and processing of these materials, a sense of the work needed to get colors can be gained. Earlier times meant searching out pigments, carting them home (like carrying rocks on your back!), grinding them up, purifying, whatever. And then, what about all the creative ways explored to move that color to walls or cloth? These techniques became closely guarded secrets to ensure a livelihood to those in the know.

Writing

Writing was also done on many of these frescoes, but writing itself began earlier and throughout the world. Early Chinese wrote with pictograms; cuneiform developed in the Middle East; hieroglyphics were used by the Egyptians. Alphabets developed and simplified the writing process as letters represented sounds – thousands of images did not need to be learned. Different alphabets may be found throughout the world – Arabic, Hebrew, Greek, Russian, hiragana, Roman. These may be modified to meet a local need.

Codex Zographensis in the Glagolitic Alphabet from Medieval Bulgaria

Along with writing came a desire to communicate. Lugging clay tablets around was rather cumbersome – postage could be prohibitive – and so more portable, yet permanent, means of writing were sought. Parchment and vellum were developed and used for books and manuscripts. Papyrus was pounded into sheets and scrolls, and used by the Egyptians. The Chinese developed paper. Pigments and inks were developed – some good, some not so good – that could be easily applied to these surfaces. Plants, minerals, and a myriad of chemicals were used to create ink and color. Iron gall ink was used for centuries. Carbon ink, derived from soot and combined with bone glue, was and is used to form the sumi stick. Recipes for homemade ink can be found throughout the internet, and in old books for the handy housewife.

Writing Implements

All sorts of things were used to write with, but some of the noteworthy ones are the pen and the brush. Reed pens were used by the ancient Romans. Hollow reeds had a nib cut onto one end. Ink was poured into the hollow, and the reed was squeezed to move the ink to the nib. Brushes have been used extensively in the East and the West, but in the East they were used for both painting and writing, while in the West, brushes are primarily for painting. Quills cut from bird feathers were common throughout Europe, with those of swans, geese, and turkeys. An amusing, informative article about quills and pens may be found on the Jane Austen Society of Australia site.

Feather quills are not especially sturdy implements, so with time and technology, metal nibs were developed. Dip pens became commonplace in the 19th century as manufacturing technology improved. The fountain pen developed in the late 1800s, and was common until the ball point pen began to replace it in the mid-1950s. Cartridge pens came in at the same time, and are still very popular. Today we see rollerballs and gel pens and magic markers (that term dates me!) of all sorts.

Despite all these changes, writing with a nib and ink continues. Fountain pen bladders of silicon and rubber are still manufactured and used in the repair of vintage fountain pens. The delightful Fred Krinke of The Fountain Pen Shop in Monrovia, California, is still going strong, with a family store in existence since the 1920s. David Nishimura sells vintage pens, as does Gary Lehrer. John Mottishaw is renown for his customization of nibs. Nibs for dip pens are available and for sale in many places – some are new, some are new old stock from over 60 years ago. Calligraphers still make their own quills, grind their own ink and pigments, and practice the art of fine writing. Carrie Imai offers private lessons as well as group instruction.

Fred Krinke of The Fountain Pen Shop in Monrovia, CA

The Art of Writing

Before the printing press, and even after its invention – but before the computer! – fine handwriting has been universally admired. In many cultures, the measure of a person is often determined by the quality of the penmanship or brushwork. Graphology, or handwriting analysis, purports to be able to reveal all sorts of things about the individual, from personality traits to health. (Given the decline of emphasis on handwriting, it could be amusing to see what might be determined.) A clear hand was necessary when records were written rather than entered into a computer, but certainly a fine hand was important as well. Many of the world’s historical documents were handwritten by scribes, and flourishes added to their visual richness. Marriage contracts and other legal documents were ornate, formal, and artistic.

Because writing became such an important form of communication, the tools and instruments of writing became works of art by themselves. Sure, anyone can write with a twig, but human nature seeks to embellish and beautify: Gold and mother-of-pearl dip pens, cut glass ink bottles, fancy writing slopes and lap desks, ornately decorated ink sticks, elaborately carved suzuri, colorful fountain pens.

The Art of Slowing Down

Today, with our throw-away culture, the beauty of these functional items may seem foolish, but personally, I totally enjoy them. And, like many people, I use them as well. Email is faster than snail mail, but the thrill of a personal letter still remains. Sitting at a keyboard, indoors, at a desk, is tiresome and boring (though it is getting easier). I’d would rather be outside with paper and ink any day!

Burr Oak Writing Slope, ca 1840, by Parkins and Gotto

If you don’t have any interest in writing or painting, then all this blither means very little. However, the history of how we got here is fascinating and easily forgotten. Thankfully, I don’t have to go out and collect my oak galls or raise some geese – I like having such conveniences as stores – but I will say that there is much to be gained in re-creation of past arts. Writing with a goose quill pen is a unique experience; cutting the pen is too. Dyeing wool, writing with a dip pen, using a lap desk over 170 years old places history into the present existence. Using colors and inks from long ago, with centuries of tradition and craft, provide an insight to life when it was slower (and more difficult and deadly in many ways). Today, too many of us live in haste, moving from one task to another, and forget that leisure and creativity are as important as productivity and speed. Paper and ink and color are one way to leave it all behind.