Chinese Bottle

 Chinese Bottle

(Acrylic on board, 8x8 in)

Last week’s failed Whitby Harbour boat finally resolved into a still life. You've heard of a boat in a bottle, right? Here's a bottle out of a boat.

Chinese Bamboo

Bamboo (detail) (Chinese ink on Xuan paper)

Today I finally overcame the obstacles preventing me from attending a meeting of Gateshead Art Society. As I've explained previously, I won't be able to work in oils there so water media of some sort will be what I have to get to grips with. Finding subject matter to work that way and a general mental resistance have held me back, so when I realised that today's session would consist of a workshop in basic Chinese painting techniques I figured that that at least would relieve me of the need for subject matter.

The tutor was enthusiastic and demonstrated the basic strokes for painting bamboo stems and leaves very clearly. I have to say, however, that by the time I'd covered the (quite large) piece of paper with bamboo and leaves, I'd probably had enough of bamboo. What I did enjoy was using the brush and learning how to get the best out of it.

When we finished the session by learning how to do the "8 stroke panda" I began to lose patience a little. While I understand the tremendously long tradition behind this kind of painting, it goes against all my instincts to learn a "how to" technique to paint anything. It's like students I've heard asking "How do I paint a tree?" or worse, tutors who tell you "This is how to paint a tree." You learn how to paint a tree by looking at it. I guess you learn how to paint a panda by looking at it too.

As painting an 8 stroke panda was on the cards, I did one. But it looked lonely, so I painted two more. If only there was an instruction on how to paint a bowl of porridge.



Pandas (Chinese ink on Xuan paper)

Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh

Canongate Kirk, Edinburgh (Oil on canvas, 30 x 30 cm)

Unravelling a bit of string, I left the darkened corridor last night to see if I might get at least one new painting finished this year. I knew this Edinburgh churchyard painting could be brought to a conclusion very easily; all it needed was the addition of some grave markers and crosses and a bit work on the tops of walls. 

I didn't much enjoy the experience of painting while wearing my near distance specs, but later it occurred to me that, given the small size of the painting, I might have been better off using my reading glasses.

Following the string back along the dark corridor, I'm standing here, finger tips on the wall, musing on the quaint Chinese method of making the stretcher on which this picture is completed. It has three sides 30cm long and one, 12 inches long. An interesting problem for my framer.