Posts tagged ‘Paul_Ching-Bor’
Experiment, it’s what we do
Summer is the time when I really give myself permission to experiment, to try something new: new paper, new colors, new styles…and this summer is no exception. Every week I have four days of four hour afternoons in Frank O’Cain’s class at the Art Student’s League where experimentation is encouraged. I’m not trying to produce the next masterpiece (although that would be nice). I’m just trying to do something different.
First, I started fooling around with Yupo, that plastic paper (see my June blogs) and discovered it was really good for painting the rock formations and striations and reflections I saw in China.
Dragon Path, 14×10.5, $725
It also worked really well for capturing the colors and feeling of Spain.
Toreador, 11 x 14, $725
Then the alcohol based inks I had ordered from Jerry’s finally arrived and I experimented again, this time at home. What a mess! Red ink all over everything (including my hands, my desk, my nightgown and, yes, the Yupo) before I finally figured out how to handle it. When I was finished, the colors made me think of Imperial China…
Imperial China, 14 x 10, $700
Same paper, different medium, very different result.
Back at the League, I was having trouble with a painting of a bridge I saw in Ronda, Spain. Frank suggested I try Ching-Bor’s approach so I started flinging paint (see my last post for more of the gory details).
Ronda, ver. 3
The result gave me a healthy respect for Paul Ching-Bor and the realization that I had better take his class at the League if I wanted to pursue this technique.
Somewhat chastened, I decided to focus on the unique and complex still life set up in Studio 12 at the League and try to just paint what I saw (sorta), albeit somewhat differently from my usual style. The results so far are somewhat of a mixed bag.
Summer Hat II, 12 x 15, $775
Summer Hat, 12 x 15, $775
Beach Ball, 12 x 15, $775
Two summer hats (on different days) and a beach ball later, would you ever think everything in this post was painted by the same person? Ah, I love summer experimentation.
Moving beyond focus to atmospheric
Although my last blog post was about the need for focus in creating a painting (and that is clearly still important), I’m moving beyond that into … atmospheric.
I’ve taken one of my Ronda paintings that I wasn’t completely happy with (and didn’t include in my last blog) and I’m applying a new technique (new to me, that is). First, the original painting:
Ronda
This painting is about the bridge finally, but it just wasn’t thrilling me. As I was pondering what to do about it, Frank O’Cain suggested I try flinging paint at it to make it more atmospheric (à la Ching-Bor, whose technique we happened to have been discussing). Even though Paul Ching-Bor is incredibly successful, his work is largely black and white and I wanted to work in color. So with all the gay abandon of a total novice, I mixed a lot of the blue, yellow and red already in the painting into a kinda neutral color and starting flinging the paint.
Well, it was starting to look “atmospheric” but I wasn’t sure this was going to work.
Ronda ver.1
Frank said to just keep going that I had to make it a lot darker. So I did.
Ronda, ver. 2
But there is almost no sense of what the painting is. So I started spraying with plain water and blotting with paper towels to uncover more of the bridge arches. That didn’t work so well — it just made them lighter. So I went back and darkened key parts of the painting and then starting flinging again, this time darker.
Ronda, ver. 3
Okay, it’s getting better, but it’s certainly not finished. Then again, I’m not sure how I will know when it is finished. My apologies to Ching-Bor. To be continued…
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