Tag: sumi-e

Sumi-e Palm Tree, i

The other day I received a request to demonstrate painting a palm tree in sumi-e.  As I have painted these in watercolor, but not in sumi, I thought I would do a bit of research.  To do this, I just googled “palm tree” and clicked on “images.”  You can also go to places like WebShots, Flickr, and so on, and do a search for palm trees.  The reason I did this search is to look at the different types of palm trees, as well as consider which one might make the most interesting composition.  Shape of the trunk, direction of the leaves, texture and structure all play important parts in a photograph and a painting.  As sumi-e is shades of black-grey-white, I find these elements are especially important focal points.

The above photo is an amalgamation of numerous public domain images of palm trees, as well as one I took when I was in the British Virgin Islands several years ago.  Some are very familiar to us here in SoCal, especially the top center one – these are the palms that are found lining the streets of Santa Monica.

I also have a couple of ACEOs I did of two different palm trees.  The one on the left is a sago palm (I think).  We have three of these in our back yard.  The one to the right is a banana palm.  Sagos are short, squat, and slow-growing.  Their fronds are stiff and pointy.  The banana palm is a much more “loose” palm – if such can be said – as its leaves fly around and are not serrated as most palm leaves.

Whenever I think about a painting, whether in watercolor or sumi, there are elements to consider.    For me, the shape of the object on the page is perhaps the most important.

With sumi-e and other ink-painting traditions, the essence or spirit of the subject matter is important. I don’t think this is less important in modern Western painting, but scientifically exact and accurate rendition of an object is less important in the East.

This means that a sumi painting of a palm tree must catch the qualities of a palm tree.  For me, the sound of a palm tree in a brisk wind is its most outstanding abstract feature.  Fronds dancing in the wind would be an element to catch. Other elements which say “palm” to me are the trunks. Many have smooth trunks, such as can be seen in the pictures above, but the sago palm, the king palm and many other have rough trunks. Fronds are dropped from the tree and the trunk develops a very ragged quality. Do I want to re-create that texture?

As I have been thinking about doing another video about painting, this request has come at a perfect time.

Yikes! Stripes! and Sumi-e

Anyone who has knitted stripes in the round knows that there are problems where the two colors meet.  There are all sorts of ways written up about how to avoid that “jog” that shows the color joins.  Oddly, I couldn’t find any videos on YouTube demonstrating how to do it!

Circular Stripes

Meg Swanson and Elizabeth Zimmermann wrote about how to do a jogless jog.  Judy Gibson has a very good demonstration on how to accomplish it, including pictures with different colored yarns.  I thought I was doing it correctly when I made the Fish Hat, but didn’t – the stripes were more than obvious.

Here, then, is my take of the Jogless Jog:

  • Knit one complete round of new color.
  • Before knitting the first stitch of the next round, use the tip of your right needle to reach into down into the stitch below the first stitch of the next round, and pull the right side of that stitch up, and place it on the left hand needle.  This means (as far as I can tell) is that you pull up the stitch one row below the next stitch, and slide it onto the left hand needle.  You then knit these two stitches together.

Something to note is that a diagonal will occur, according to Judy’s site.  Take the time to read it in detail, and look at the pictures.  It’s a very nice presentation.

Yikes! Stripes! Socks

The other day in a prep class for the CBEST, I started these socks at lunch. The yarns are KnitPicks Palette in a rather tomato-soup red and a Noro sock yarn that varies from hot pink and orange to brownish stripes. I am alternating five rows of Noro with two rows of the Palette. It is because of the stripes that I researched a bit more into how to avoid the jog.

As always, TechKnitting comes up with an excellent and detailed description of avoiding that stripey jog.   Knitting-and.com has a bunch of other ways to avoid that jog.  I decided to try this method for my sock:

In circular knitting:  when adding a new color or stripe, prevent a jog at the joining point by lifting the right side of the stitch below onto the left needle and knit it together with the stitch.

Right now, the jog is not obvious in the color shifts, and is really badly photographed, but as the colors begin to shift, the stripe change will be more obvious, and I hope, more hidden.

Striped Sock Gusset

I am also at the gusset of my Thockies (for want of a better name).  I am not pleased with the way the stripes are proceeding, and so am debating about what to do.  I think what I will do is rip it out to the point of picking up the gusset stitches.  I picked them up in alternating colors, but what I think I need to do is to pick them up in a solid color, even if this means making a bit of a mess with attaching and / or breaking yarn.  Then, on the second round, I will begin the alternating colors for the stripes, and decrease using the same color all along the gusset.  I am also considering using the Dutch heel – as I know it – so I will not need any gusset decreases whatsoever, but can simply knit in stripes without a problem.

Sumi-e

I have not had the time to do any painting at all! It really bugs me. I planned to do some during the holiday season, but unfortunately, so much got in the way! And again, my weekends are devoted to credentialling. I am soooooo tired of school and work! I’ve had to drop my Japanese class, I cannot find a time slot big enough to paint and relax, and on and on and on. No Chinese painting class, either. Well, given that, once I take the CBEST, I will PAINT and make some more videos . . .

Wah!

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!