Month: January 2024

MA Y1 U1: Exploring colours – Part 1 – red and blue

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

As part of my style development work, I have just completed a series of media exploration where I experimented with combining oil and cold wax with various ways of overlaying Chinese brush paintings on top without compromising either medium. I now want to progress onto exploring aesthetics starting with colours.

Despite having attended workshops on colour mixing over the years and researched how colours work together, I have always used colours intuitively in my paintings rather than follow any strict rules. However, I often feel that I should be more considered when using colours for my work. I attended an exhibition of London based Columbian artist, Ofelia Rodrigues, where I was inspired by her use of colours and images to express her culture giving a strong sense of place for her narrative.

For my art practice, I have reached a point where I want to re-evaluate and hone how I use colours, especially when my aim is to express my stories and narrative through my work. Also, my wish is to go towards semi-abstraction for my narrative work and I believe the use of colour is key. This is the first blog of the series on exploring the use of colour to express a sense of place for my transcultural narrative.

METHOD

To begin with, I needed some visual inspiration. I started by gathering books that I have on contemporary Chinese artists as well as chinoiserie style art. Although chinoiserie art has deep roots in political historical, its origin is not part of the research here. In my view, chinoiserie is an example of art in the ‘Third Space’ – where two cultures come together and something new emerges that has characteristics of the original cultures. Although the chinoiserie style of art does not appeal to or resonate with me, their use of colours is worth examining for my research purpose.

My aim here is to look through images in the books and choose one that resonates. Then mix the colours and explore similar colours as a ‘back to basics’ exercise to get my thought process going and to see where it takes me.

Books that I gathered:

The book that I have chosen for this exercise is by a contemporary Chinese artist, Wu Guan Zhong. The link below gives a good summary about the artist:

https://www.christies.com/en/stories/wu-guanzhong-an-artist-of-feeling-rather-than-fact-dd97ec0d995d47eb9c56753e3c280e41

The painting that I have chosen to kick start my colour exploration:

I got out all my various red oil paints and increased the lightness of each by tinting with titanium white:

Several matching possibilities came up in my ‘red’ chart:

Then the same exercise was repeated with all my blue oil paints:

Various matching possibilities came up:

I added a new turquoise paint that I bought recently to the chart:

An abstract painting was made with all the left over paint:

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REFLECTIONS

– Although it was not the intention, it turned out to be a useful inventory exercise for my oil paint. Since I often default to certain favourites, I have neglected others that have turned out to be ‘gems’ in the tinting process.

– There were also new findings about the different brands. I want to capture my thoughts here as a reminder for the future:

1. Michael Harding oil paint is always my favourite and this exercise reminded me that they deserve that top spot with the buttery consistency, pigment quality and load concentration.

2. Winsor and Newton artists oil was once a favourite before I went onto Michael Harding. This exercise reminded me of the quality of their pigment load, colour and how well they mixed. A solid product that I should not have neglected.

3. Daler Rowney Georgian oil was a brand that I used when I first started learning to paint in oil. It was sold to me as student grade oil. However, I recently read some reviews by artists saying they use it as their go-to oil so I decided to try them again. They are good value and I recently bought a batch ready for some larger scale oil experiments and they are just right for that. Pigment load is not as good as the above two but definitely good enough for some of my experiments where I plan to use a lot of oil. The ones I used for this exercise stood up well enough in the tinting process and produced some interesting colours.

4. I was introduced to Cass Art artist’s oil when I was in their shop. It’s a range that I have not tried before. It was sold as good value artist grade oil and better quality than the Daler Rowney Georgian oil that I was buying at the time. So I bought some to try, e.g. the turquoise in the last column of the blue tinting exercise. I was somewhat disappointed because the consistency was not as good as the other brand’s artist grade or even the DR Georgian oil performed better in this respect. I was also disappointed with the pigment colour and load. So I don’t think I will buy this brand again.

5. I have had a set of PEBEO oil for years and rarely use them despite the good range of vibrant colours. I got them out for this exercise and was pleasantly surprised. I always considered them as student grade quality and although it didn’t compare well to Nos. 1 and 2 above, it performed well in mixing and pigment load. The paint appeared more flat and matt compared to the other oils but it is certainly good enough for day-to-day projects. The wide variety of colours in the PEBEO set is a bonus that I have been neglecting.

– This was a good back-to-basics exercise that I needed to do to restart my colour exploration. I don’t know exactly what I’m looking for but I want to continue this with other colours.

– It occurred to me at the end of the exercise that I recently made a painting using similar colours to those in Wu’s painting. My painting was started by finding an old photograph of my parents’ lounge during one Chinese New Year when they were both alive many years ago. I don’t know why these two colours speak to me whenever I want to make narrative work. I also remember that I showed this painting at a crit session and I struggled to explain it. I need to think more about this…

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LEARNING

– Some good discoveries of tinted reds and blues for me to consider using when determining colour palette for future narrative work.

– The colours in Wu’s painting and some of the tints in this exercise clearly speak to me but I don’t know why yet. Interrogating this might reveal more clues and help to develop more depth for my narrative.

– I have not studied Wu’s work before and researching his work showed that he also worked with oil and Chinese ink. This is a useful finding as that’s what I am trying to do as well. Since Wu is a European (French) trained artist (painter) of Chinese origin, we have some common backgrounds and I will add Wu to my list of artists to research, especially about his chosen media and process.

NEXT STEPS

– Do another tinting or colour mixing exercise – find another painting for inspiration.

– Think more about why the colours in Wu’s painting speak to me.

– Add Wu to my list of artists to research.

Chinese painting: Sumi-e painting – animal

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

At my monthly Chinese painting class, we have started to learn Sumi-e painting. Sumi-e means ‘water ink’ and water ink painting originated in China around 300AD. Zen Buddhist monks from China introduced this style of ink art to Japan in the 14th century where over time the brush strokes were reduced in number and simplified forming the Japanese Sumi-e style painting of today.

At a previous lesson, we started to paint leaves by copying from worksheets and this lesson we practiced some more.

The homework this month was to paint an animal such as our pet. No worksheets were given and we had to work out how to create our simplified style Sumi-e animal painting (without looking online for hints). This blog records the method I used for the homework.

METHOD

As a warm up exercise, I mixed the Chinese ink with water to ‘find’ the five shades that would be needed to depict tone in the painting. It took a few attempts to get the right result.

I made some pencil tonal sketches from photos of my sadly departed cats. Then overlaid the Xuan (rice) paper on top for painting.

Result:

Using the same method, a few close up portraits were painted:

Then I used a photograph and overlaid the Xuan paper on top to paint/trace the tonal areas:

First attempt of ‘tracing’
Second attempt of ‘tracing’

Then I started painting freehand without tracing. I had seven attempts and each time reducing the number of brushstrokes and simplifying the image.

Seven attempts at freehand painting

Close up of the seventh and final attempt:

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REFLECTIONS

I have been wanting to learn Sumi-e painting because I see it as a way towards semi-abstraction in Chinese brush painting which is something that I’m interested in. I enjoy the thinking that is involved in this making process.

I enjoyed the exercise and was pleased with the outcomes as early attempts. I do find Chinese water-ink or Sumi-e painting very challenging. It is the most unforgiving style and painting medium that I have used. With oil and acrylic, one can correct mistakes by wiping off or painting over. Even watercolour can be corrected to a certain extent. Since the depiction in Sumi-e is done by one stroke and going over a stroke makes it look clumsy, therefore everything has to be as perfect as possible for each stroke, such as:

– Water/ink pigment balance for the tone.

– Amount of water/ink on the brush (and depending on the type of hair for the brush) to match the absorbency of the type of Xuan paper used for each stroke. The paper or silk is usually highly absorbent which makes it challenging.

– Placement of each stroke and the pressure along the travel.

It is very challenging and I love it. I feel the tension within myself in a way that is unlike any other painting media. I expect it’s also because I am so new to this and I need a lot more practice. The process of simplifying was also challenging like solving a puzzle which added to the pleasure of this way of making.

LEARNING

– Mixing the five tonal shades at the start and having plenty of ink of each shade made up really helped. However, I still find myself mixing as I went along especially for the ‘double loading’ technique.

– Tracing over tonal drawings or photos helped to give confidence at the practicing stage. Practicing in this way helped me to progress onto freestyle painting.

– Understanding the structure or anatomy of the subject is essential for the simplification process to work.

NEXT STEPS

– Keep practicing to build knowledge of the materials and process.

– Try other animals or objects.

– Start to think about how to incorporate this approach into my transcultural style development work.

UPDATE

Below is an update on Sumi-e painting progress since the session detailed above.

My tutor asked me to do a free-hand cat portrait without using any pencil drawings as guide under the Xuan paper. Below are the outcomes:

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The following lesson was on Sumi-e flowers:

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REFLECTIONS

I have enjoyed Sumi-e painting because I am more interested in free style Chinese painting (techniques are akin to Sumi-e) than the meticulous style. So these paintings have been good practice for me. The key is to keep practicing in order to master the skills required in applying paint having understood how the materials work together with the painter.

MA Y1 U1: Time and activity analysis – ongoing log

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

For the MA course, the guideline is to work on average 20 hours per week throughout the year, or 30 hours per week if only working during term time.

Work can be anything ranging from making, research or ideation. I am using the Toggl Track App on my phone to help me track my hours spent on the course and the hours are logged against the activity type. I plan to log a summary report at the end of each month to keep track of progress. However, the informal time spent thinking about my practice whilst going about day-to-day life is not recorded as they tend to ‘just happen’.

The purpose of monitoring my hours is to help me to establish a working rhythm so I know what it feels like to work the required hours for the course on an ongoing basis. It will also help me to plan and allocate time in my week to do the work. The analysis by activity type helps me to balance time for the different aspects of developing my practice so I can watch out for trends, e.g. spending too much time researching and not enough time making.

REPORTS

Each report will show the total number of hours worked per month and hours spent according to activity categories.

Key: ‘CBP’ is Chinese Brush Painting; ‘Activity’ is typically outside the studio such as visiting exhibitions or local artists group activities. The rest are self-explanatory.

The reports in this blog are listed in reverse chronological order.

January 2024

A fair amount of time in January was spent on writing my study statement (captured under MA Class Work). For research work – I am reading a very informative book on The Modern History of Hong Kong which is a key part of my research on my heritage and the transcultural phenomena in the former British Colony. Also, I went to London for three days to attend a workshop at UAL LCF, to visit the CSM campus and two galleries (Tate Modern and The RA). As a result of these activities, the amount of time spent on making was less than I wanted for January. My plan for Feb is to really ramp up my making time because I expect to have less studio time in March due to the low residency in London.

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Report at the end of December 2023:

Below is the report for the total time spent during the first term, i.e. Oct, Nov and Dec 2023.

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Below is the time and activity analysis for the first term:

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Reflections (end of Dec 2023):

My reason for doing this time analysis was to establish a rhythm in order to make the most of the opportunity of this MA course. I am happy with the overall time spent and the split between the different activities. During the first term, I feel I have established a rhythm that is sustainable going forward and I plan to continue to monitor my progress using this tool.

November 2023

This is the first full month of the course and I didn’t have any trips away, so it was easier to fit in time for work. Below is report for the whole month of November.

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Reflections (End of Nov 2023):

I have found the Toggl app very helpful and easy to use in tracking my time. I really want to make the most of the MA course so establishing a rhythm and knowing what the right rhythm feels like is useful for me. Having a way to meaningfully monitor my time is also assuring so I know I’m not spending too little or too much time on something. I know that time is a quantity measure and doesn’t reflect quality – but it’s a start in holding myself to account for the opportunity that I have with the course.

October 2023

October was the beginning of term and work on the course didn’t really get going until week 2 of the month.

MA Y1 U1: Artist research – Njideka Akunyili Crosby

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

I visited the exhibition ‘Capturing the moment’ at Tate Modern. My main purpose of visiting was to see in person the work by Akunyili Crosby – a transcultural artist that I admire very much and I have learnt a lot from her work as well as her lectures. I have been researching her over the last two years and it was rather emotional seeing her large scale work exhibited at Tate Modern. This is a short blog to record that visit and to capture my feelings at the time.

Visit date: 15th January 2024

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REFLECTIONS

My thoughts while analysing the work:

The use of photos denoting memory, mixed with hard-lined pieces of furniture such as the chairs from the reality of today is a good juxtaposition of a journey. Also items on the table with memory significance such as household items (I believe were from her grandmother’s house after the grandmother died), with faded images around photographs. A good metaphor for (fading) memories, journeys travelled and the present time.

My feelings – How do I feel seeing this in person for the first time after researching this artist for two years:

Emotional, overwhelmed, much more impactful than I ever expected, too much to take in, didn’t want to leave.

Size is much bigger than I expected: each piece is around 7ft x 7ft. Painting is on paper – I wouldn’t normally do such a large painting on paper so it was good to see how it could work and I liked the way it was hung – with clips around the edges. No framing or mounting which made the piece feel lively for me.

MA Y1 U1: Developing narrative – Time after time

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

One of the two parallel development strands of my practice is to develop my narrative. It is my intention to maintain complete freedom in my making in this strand. Meaning that I am not going to overthink when making work here. If an idea comes to mind or something comes up and triggers a memory, then I’ll just go with my instinct and make work. I believe that is the best way to develop my narrative and capture as much of my thinking as possible through my art practice. Whereas the other strand of developing my style is a much more structured development path with planned explorations and experiments.

This piece of narrative work came about when I played one of my favourite songs from the 80s – Time after time by Cyndi Lauper. The song has always resonated with me. Its meaning is explained very well on this website:

https://neonmusic.co.uk/time-after-time-by-cyndi-lauper-a-deep-dive-into-a-timeless-classic/

The website describes this song as treading a fine line between hope and despair making it relatable.

This piece of work is a quick capture of an idea using my sketchbook and a digital drawing tool. This kind of work will form an ideas bank when I may come back to at a later stage to make more substantial work from.

Finished ‘quick capture’ work:

METHOD

I felt compelled to write down the lyrics, it was a way to experience the lyrics. I wanted to write in a circular way to echo the time clock mentioned in the song. I experimented with two versions, one to fit the rectangular page of the sketchbook and another in a circle.

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I preferred the circular version hence that image was chosen. A photo of that sketchbook page was imported into Adobe Fresco as the background of the piece. I wanted to overlay it with an image that represented the sense of moving from one place to another. I decided to use a blue IKEA bag which today symbolises moving one’s possessions around making it a contemporary and iconic image. Then a blue swirl was added using the Fresco digital paintbrush to represent the cyclical nature of my constantly moving around during that period of my life. Different parameter settings were tried for the Fresco paintbrush.

The image below shows the layers I created in Adobe Fresco for the finished work:

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REFLECTIONS

– Considering the process: This was a more informal way of making compared to my usual work. I liked it as I was able to capture my thoughts quickly. Then the digital Fresco tool enabled me to capture the idea quickly to come up with the finished work. In the past, I would have drawn or painted the IKEA bag which would have taken time and perhaps if I didn’t like the idea part way through then I would have felt bad about abandoning the work. I am still getting to grips with tools like Fresco and it’s a good way to capture an idea and I may well come back to work on this more at a later stage – either to build on it digitally or create a physical painting from the idea.

– Considering my narrative: I struggled with this one. Digging deeper can be scary as it makes one feel vulnerable or remember periods of vulnerability. When this song was on the chart, I was moving between boarding schools and temporary lodgings during the holidays. I didn’t go home to my family during holidays, just because. So seeing Lauper (in the music video) going back to her Mum’s in times of troubles (in her case a heartbreak) was heart warming but perhaps heart warming was not the most accurate phrase, it seems insufficient. I recently learnt a Welsh word ‘hiraeth’ – it means a deep longing or nostalgia for something lost or departed. I wonder if I could extend it to include longing for something that one didn’t have. Hiraeth doesn’t have an equivalent English word (according to google search and the person who introduced the word to me who was a linguistic academic). I like the word hiraeth and it fits my narrative here more than any other word I could think of.

– A further thought about the use of language… when the word ‘hiraeth’ was introduced to me (by a UAL tutor), we discussed how languages can influence how we think because we can only think or describe things such as our feelings in words that we know. This made me think about the impact of the soft power of colonialism where the coloniser brought their language to the colonised and in many cases replaced the native language completely. What part of the native culture has been wiped out and lost as a result? ‘Hiraeth’ is a good example because Wales is part of the UK and English is the language spoken in most parts of Wales nowadays as the dominant language. Yet such a powerful and useful Welsh word has no equivalent in English.

LEARNING

– Using Fresco has really helped me to develop ideas quickly, especially experimenting with the different paint brush parameters was helpful. I must use this tool more.

– One of my objectives for developing my narrative is to capture as many of my stories as possible as input to my main making process. Since I’m a fairly slow maker when making physically, I am pleased to have discovered this digital tool as a quick capture tool but yet enabling me to finish the piece to a more complete state than say a traditional sketchbook drawing. It was particularly useful that in this case I could incorporate my sketchbook work as part of the piece.

– An increasing understanding of my new word ‘hiraeth’.

– For my personal narrative development, I need to have more courage in my exploration. Music has always been a good catalyst for stories, I need to explore that more.

– For a wider narrative development, more thinking and research are required in the impact of language as a colonial soft power. What words can I think of in Chinese where there are no English equivalents? E.g. words to describe food and tastes since the food culture is so different?

NEXT STEPS

– Continue to use Fresco to quickly and informally make work. Capture as many stories as possible as a key objective for developing my practice.

– Consider other pieces of music as catalyst or memory triggers for my stories.

– Research more about words that I know and feel strongly about but have no English equivalent to see if it would help me to delve deeper in my narrative.

MA Y1 U1: Exploring media – Oil and cold wax – Part 7

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND:

This is an experiment to complete one of the actions from an earlier blog – Exploring media – oil and cold wax Part 6. The action was to:

– Experiment with a barrier or masking fluid to prevent the oil from seeping into the Chinese brush painting images.

This experiment is required because the Xuan paper (rice paper) used for Chinese brush painting is very thin and absorbent, therefore if the paper was laid over materials such as oil in my transcultural layering work, the oil paint underneath would seep through and ruin the Chinese brush painting image as happened in Part 6 of this blog series.

METHOD:

The three barrier fluids chosen for this experiment were: Dispersion liquid; PVA glue and matte Mod Podge.

Some small images painted using Chinese ink were used for this experiment. The back of each image was painted with one type of the barrier fluids with one image left bare as ‘control’ for the experiment.

A paper canvas was painted with a mix of oil paint and cold wax:

The Chinese painted images were cut out and pressed onto the oil and cold wax. The images were pressed hard onto the painted canvas using a palette knife to robustly test the barrier performance.

Below is the result – an overall image followed by close-ups of each test area. 

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Result: The best outcome was the Mod Podge.

REFLECTIONS

I am happy with the outcome of this experiment. This was a quick experiment but a very important one because, as shown in this blog series, it has been challenging to incorporate Chinese brush painting onto oil or oil and cold wax – the latter being my chosen ‘Western’ medium for my current series of transcultural style development work. The outcome of this experiment has helped me to find a viable way forward and I can now move onto developing colour palettes and aesthetics for my style knowing that I have found a way to combine the materials from different cultural origins without losing any material integrity.

LEARNING  

The learning here is a straight forward one. Mod Podge worked well as a barrier fluid to protect the Chinese ink work before incorporating it into the oil and cold wax ‘collage’.

NEXT STEPS

Pick up from the previous post (Part 6) and resume the next actions from there. The immediate next action will be to research and develop colour palettes that can help to communicate my transcultural narrative.

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ADDITIONAL EXPERIMENT

I was given two pieces of specialist Chinese painting paper by my Chinese art teacher. They are:

– Beijing bark paper, and

– Cicada wing paper (because it’s so thin that it resembles the wings of cicadas).

Both types of paper are of beautiful quality and feel very delicate. They are both very thin which would be ideal for what I’m looking for in my transcultural layering work. I.e. overlaying Chinese brush painting onto a more viscous medium such as oil.

I repeated the above experiment with these papers. I wrote some Chinese calligraphy characters on each sheet:

Then painted part of the image on the reverse side with Mod Podge as a barrier and leaving part of the image bare to compare:

Once the Mod Podge was dried. The two sheets were pressed onto a base layer of oil and cold wax. A palette knife was used for the edges, blending the paper with the oil paint to bury the edges. Then I used my finger to press the image into the oil:

Below is the outcome with the cicada paper performing well compared to the Beijing bark. The cicada paper appears to have an inbuilt barrier to protect the image, meaning that a barrier liquid would not be required as there was no perceivable difference whether Mod Podge was used.

Then more oil and cold wax was applied on top to blend in the image whilst avoiding the characters. Final result:

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REFLECTIONS / LEARNING

Out of all the Chinese painting papers that I have tested in this series of exploration, the cicada paper was the best material for the purpose of my transcultural layering work involving Chinese brush painting and oil based medium.

Additionally, it was useful to discover that a barrier liquid (e.g. Mod Podge) would not be required with the cicada wing paper. This will help to reduce the process complexity.

NEXT STEPS

– Create a new piece of work that uses the new discovery with the cicada paper to refine the process and to learn more about the material.

– Source more cicada paper and find a long term supplier for this paper.

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This experiment ends the series of blogs on ‘Exploring media – Oil and cold wax’.

MA Y1 U1 Exhibition visit: Spike island – Ofelia Rodriguez

| elizarawlings

This is my second visit to this exhibition and it was a guided tour by the curator. Below are the informal notes I took on the tour. I also noted some points for personal reflection and a question I posed myself to help my search for a unique transcultural style for my practice.

Notes made during tour:

Despite using textiles and stitching for her work, she hated sewing.

Landscape as a hostile environment. Threatening to nature:

Use trim of fabric to give cultural content (like this, note – to use for my work).

Plaster for healing. Landscape suffered violence. (Like the use of plaster, resonates with me.)

Above work has plaster also. The photo was a found image of a western morality philosopher from 17th-18th century. It was a photo she found in Times magazine and she felt the irony for the damage that had been done to the world.

Then her work changed to flatter colours. Started to bring in her hands (holding onto something) and ears:

Above is a surrealist box. Note – like the idea of using a box to tell stories. Could use HK letter boxes with family photos. I can write letters or just have an envelope addressed to my family.

Idea – use my hand as image to reach out to my brother’s hand and tea in a piece of work that I had done recently.

Idea – use biology picture of heart, to take out the emotions of a symbolic ‘red heart’. A biological heart is symbolic for me.

Boxes:

More plaster denoting healing wound in the violence in Latin America. Columbia being attacked, with God’s watchful eye (at the bottom). Bleeding heart is used a lot in her work:

Boxes bringing objects together trying to provoke conversation, with objects found in street market:

Boxes are like shrines or alters.

REFLECTIONS – some captured within notes.

Question: (to be answered)

What makes her style her style? Look at this series of work and analyse the elements that make her style unique and recognisable, then think how those points would apply to my style development.

Further notes:

All her work was about memory then she had dementia. It was like she knew…

MA Y1 U1: Exploring media – Oil and cold wax – Part 6

| elizarawlings

BACKGROUND

I want to use this experiment to explore the Next Steps that were identified in Exploring Media – Oil and Cold Wax Part 5.

https://eliza-rawlings.com/2023/12/24/ma-y1-u1-exploring-oil-and-cold-wax-part-5/ 

The actions were to:

-Try out more Chinese brush paint collage onto oil and cold wax to refine this part of the process.

-Try exposing a larger area of the background image to see if that can work with the abstraction approach on the top layer. Experiment to find the right balance between revealing the base layer image without losing the sense of abstraction on the top layer.

-Try spray painting on top of the oil and cold wax surface – try when wet and then when dried.

Finished work for Part 6:

Mixed media on paper, A3

METHOD

A printed photo image of a tapestry that was gifted to me by my brother many years ago was used as the based image for this piece. The image was transferred onto a paper canvas using dispersion liquid. The paper used was 250 gsm oil paper.

After the dispersion liquid dried, the printed image was rubbed off with a wet sponge to reveal the transferred image on the canvas. This was the first time a paper canvas (as opposed to a cotton canvas) was used in this series of experiments and it was clear that the paper canvas was not robust enough for the process. See below image for damage to paper. However, there was sufficient integrity in the paper canvas to continue the piece. I was hoping that a thick layer of oil and cold wax would hide the damaged areas. There was also excessive buckling on the paper canvas.

Recalling my disappointment with the colour palette that I chose for Part 5 (pink and grey), I decided to research into abstract paintings that I like to learn from the colours used. One of my favourite abstract artists is Lee Krasner and below is the painting that I decided to study and learn from in terms of the colour palette used.

Desert Moon (1955):

A layer of oil and cold wax was then applied to the canvas:

Areas were scraped off to reveal the base tapestry image. Learning from Part 5, I wanted to reveal a larger area so that it was clear what the base image was about. Then additional oil and cold wax colours were added:

For the Chinese brush calligraphy, I chose a delicate silk fabric as a substrate that was almost transparent because I wanted the substrate to become as invisible as possible.

After writing the Chinese calligraphy onto silk, it was cut out and carefully pressed onto the oil and cold wax layer.

A small palette knife was used to press the silk into the oil and cold wax, taking care to avoid pressing the areas of the calligraphy characters which was challenging due to the complex shape of the characters. The yellow circle shows where part of the character was pressed into the oil and cold wax, partly obscuring the writing.

Additional marks were made – some were painted on and some were scratched off. The tapestry image was about children playing with lanterns and I have a lantern stencil that was made for previous work. So I wanted to experiment with spray painting onto wet oil and cold wax to see the effect.

Further spray painting was done – the phrase #3RD SP (for third space) was sprayed onto a dryer corner of the painting. All spray paint used were Montana GOLD 312g aerosol cans as popularly used by street artists:

Finished work with border tidied up:

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REFLECTIONS

I am happy with:

– The colour palette. I am much happier with this painting than the previous one in Part 5. A more considered approach in selecting the colour palette paid off here.

– The experiment with using an almost transparent substrate for the Chinese brush art worked well. The pieces (there were two in total) adhered well to the painted surface. Although the substrate was not completely invisible, it was acceptable as a solution.

– The scratched mark making especially the part at the top to echo the revealed based image of the children playing with lanterns.

– The overall look of the spray painting, especially the words – they added a contemporary feel to the piece which was what I was looking for.

– Feeling more confident using oil and cold wax as a medium.

I am not so happy with:

– The paper canvas, it was not robust enough. Although the damage by the image transfer process was covered up with oil and cold wax, it was clear that this would be the wrong material to use for this process.

– The spray painting of the lantern – it was sprayed onto very wet oil and cold wax. The outcome was not satisfactory – it felt and looked ‘gooey’ and not the intended effect. I believe this was partly due to my reluctance to place the stencil close to the wet oil paint as I didn’t want the back of the stencil to pick up the oil paint, causing the spray paint to loosely disperse around the stencilled image.

– Although I was happier with the colour palette, I felt there was more that could be done to add more complexity to the palette to increase depth to the piece.

General comment: the Chinese calligraphy is a famous ancient Chinese poem about being homesick. It is one of the few Chinese poems that I know as most children growing up in Hong Kong in my era were made to learn it, partly because it is a good poem and very easy to remember. Going forward, I feel that if I were to use more Chinese calligraphy then I should learn more about Chinese poetry so that I can use a wider variety of content in this respect. It will also help me to understand more about my Chinese heritage.

Other thoughts that came to me some time after completing this painting:

– Throughout the making process, my mind kept going back to celebrating the Mid Autumn Festival when I was a child in Hong Kong. The highlight as children was to be given a lantern each to play with. The choosing and buying of the lantern in preparation was always a source of excitement. The lanterns were lit with small candles. The children would use a long stick as handle for the lantern and go around the neighbourhood exploring with their lanterns, just like the children in my painting. The Mid Autumn Festival celebrated the fullest moon of the year and celebrations would only begin after dark when the full moon came out. Since we were not usually allowed out at night, it made the Festival especially popular with children. At times a lantern would catch fire which added much excitement. There would be lots of fruit and snacks laid out that were specific for the festival. I remember one year when we were older children (over ten years old), my brother and I went to a local park, sat on the swings and chatted all evening. It was when my family was going through a difficult period and to share that moment with him was very special, especially when we ended up spending most of the rest of our lives living in different countries. He gave me the children’s tapestry that I used for this painting which evoked all those memories while making this piece of work.

LEARNING

– More work is required to develop my sense in choosing an appropriate colour palette for the piece. This is increasingly important because my work is about storytelling as well as narrative and I believe having an appropriate colour palette helps to tell a story. So more research and experiments should be done in this respect.

– The silk substrate worked well for the Chinese calligraphy. However, I know there is a wide range of other delicate Chinese substrates and I will experiment with different materials to find the optimum.

– Layering the Chinese substrate onto oil is a risky process – as seen in the image with the yellow circle highlighting the part obscuring of the brush painting if pressed too much into the oil. To help with this, further experiments are required to improve this process. E.g. paint a barrier layer, such as a masking fluid that dries clear, onto the back of the Chinese brush painting or calligraphy to shield the image from the oil seeping in from underneath.

– Spray painting, especially words, adds a contemporary feel to the image which is a style that I want to incorporate into my work. This is relevant to me because I take much inspiration from the extensive street art scene in my home city of Bristol where many famous street artists work or have worked.

– Using the tapestry image evoked many memories, perhaps I could explore that more.

NEXT STEPS

– Research into colour palettes for the type of stories that I want to tell. Build confidence in this area.

– Continue to build experience and explore using oil and cold wax.

– Experiment with other transparent Chinese substrate materials to find one that is as close to invisible as possible when layered onto oil.

– Experiment with a barrier or masking fluid to prevent the oil from seeping into the Chinese brush painting images.

– Experiment with more spray painting – be bold and push boundaries.

– Ongoing learning – research into Chinese poetry to find more poems that resonate with me to use in future work.

– Explore the evoked memories.

ADDITIONAL WORK

After visiting the exhibition of Ofelia Rodriguez again at Spike Island in Bristol, I was inspired by the way she used fabric as a border to her paintings.

This gave me the idea to try that with my work, especially to use Chinese imagery border for a recent piece of work to add to the transcultural narrative.

I started with some patterned paper that I had to make a collage frame. But I was not happy with the effect. It seemed too busy and rather random as an idea.

I then returned to the original tapestry that I used as the base image for the painting. It was a tapestry that was gifted to me by my brother many years ago.

Image to show the border of the tapestry

It is a typical border for small scale tapestries of this type. Then images of the border were printed and cut out to create a collage border for the painting:

Final finished work:

Mixed media on paper, 54 x 41.5 cm.

REFLECTIONS

I am very happy with the outcome of this experiment inspired by Rodrigues. It has completed the painting for me and added a more transcultural feel alongside the painted images such as the spray painted words.

To improve this approach, I would spray paint the # words to partly cover the tapestry image frame. I think that would increase the contemporary feel for the piece juxtaposing the traditional Chinese tapestry border.