...and other observations

acrylic and pen on somebody's published book, book dimensions are 6.25" x 4.25"

It's bad enough that i took the liberty to deface somebody's book but now i can't even remember the original title and author of the book. The title is something "A___ and Other Observations". If anyone happens to know it, would you let me know? I would like to purchase another copy to keep in its original state.


This was one of the people i had sketched while riding the bus a few years ago.

I do miss this kind of sketching but for some reason, just can't seem to get back into it.

about them sketches

So before i made my paper leaf dropping last week, i had been beating myself up for not sketching as regularly as i used to.

Years ago, i would sketch almost everyday, going through maybe 3-5 sketchbooks a year. Drawing/collaging while watching tv, talking on the phone, riding on the bus, blah blah blah.

Today i still have the one sketchbook started in 2003 and it is still barely filled. Mostly just skimpy [half-assed] drawings in there that i forced myself to do. It nagged at me all the time since i was pretty stuck on thinking i got to draw everyday because that is what all artists *should* do. But i just had no desire (or not enough discipline) to dwell into those blank empty pages.

Instead, i found myself mindlessly wrapping the dried gourds. Just wanting to cover up the raw dirty-looking surface and make it like new again, not really caring where i was going with them.

While wrapping one of them, i noticed some scrap wire pieces lying around. So i grabbed those and started twisting them into loops for more wrapping to do. What came out were those paper wings and this guy here:


Japanese mulberry paper over wire and clay, about 5.5" across*

I don't know why it took me so long to realize that i've been sketching all along. If i knew i were, i would be making so many more of these in the last couple of years! I didn't know where the heck they were going so i couldn't allow myself to spend too much time on them and of course, no wasting of those precious Japanese papers! nooo, gotta be painting and making masterpieces all the tiiime!

It's funny stupid how the mind works sometimes.

Bend, Mind, bend. Bend and twist like your paper wire sketches...


*Please note that this little guy has a little genitalia. Either that or that thing that hangs in the back of the throat.
(Ma, don't be embarrassed to look. Click for larger image.)

polka dots and nipples

pencil and oil on wood panel, detail of the panel for June letters [work in progress]

Okay, i have to put off writing about those 3-d sketches i had been posting up lately. It is just looking too bland here when in real life my head is just spinning with colors.

Above is the new panel i painted for the June letters which i think is going to be repainted again because i'm just not too crazy about how it will go with them newly painted blue-grey letters here...


It's a vicious cycle with this painting and repainting when i don't have the letters together on the panel to compare and contrast. Got to just hammer down the letters onto the board once everything is dry and get going.

And at the exact moment while i was thinking about this today, look what caught my attention:


I saw it on the ground out of nowhere on my way home. Is it a sign or what? same color as the painting that i was just thinking to repaint!

It happened to be dead, which saved me from agonizing over whether to take it home with me or not just so i can take a picture of it. (I am also starting a bug collection, by the way.) It is now sitting on top of one of my gessoed papier mache bowls.

my paper purse

paper on wire and clay, about 10" across [a sketch]

wings

paper on wire, about 5" across [work in progress]

Another 'sketch' i made (two years ago?)...more on these 'sketches' later...

It's been hanging out in this little vase i made (2.75" x 2.5"):

...maybe to be used for a still-life painting.

one paper leaf dropping

paper on copper wire [work in progress, a sketch]


leaf dropping (the loop with the text) is about 4" x 3" in diameter

Note to self: See this as a 3-D sketch, a sketch made by touch rather than by a pen or a brush as what you were so stupidly stuck on...

pink skies

oil, string & mixed media on Masonite board, 16.6" x 20" [work in progress]

When i was little (around 10 or younger?), i remembered one time noticing how red the sky was turning as the sun was going down. I was outside walking with my dad at the time. All around us, there was this sudden pink glow everwhere. I loved it.

For some reason, i started skipping to this rhyme in Chinese without really knowing what i was saying. In translation, it goes something like this: Red red sky, the elderly is going to freeze and die.

As soon as i said that, my dad scolded at me and told me not to say that again. I was a little taken back because my dad, in all his gentle ways, hardly ever snaps at any one of us. I stopped to think why and immediately thought of my grandmother sick in bed all the time.

It was then that i understood how important my grandmother was to my dad even though he never expressed it. I started to see my dad in a new light, knowing that a lot of what is unspoken runs deep within him.

It is like what my mom says: If you want to see how much the man loves you, just look at his actions, not any lovey dovey words that he doesn't say.

Happy Father's Day, BA!

grape stem

woodcut and chine collé on grey BFK printmaking paper (woodcut image size is 8" x 5" on 20.5" x 14" BFK printmaking paper; shown above is not all of the grey BFK paper)

The image of the woodcut was first hand-printed onto the cream color Japanese mulberry paper, which is like thin tissue paper. Then methylcellulose adhesive was applied to the back of the mulberry paper so that it would be glued down onto the heavier BFK paper when running it through the etching press.

pineapple pinecones

Do people know that pinecones could look like this?

I never knew that the top (bottom?) could be so round and flower-like. I picked it up to do something with it, thinking that it's some kind of special mutant one. I showed it to John and he made it like that is how all pinecones look like when i expressed my amazement at it. So i told him, No, actually, it is a pineapple. A baby one. And guess what? He believed me. ahahha. let's all point and laugh at him. heheh.

But he was kind of right though...it's not really a mutant one. I found these all over the ground yesterday! I forget that pine trees got their own blossoms in the springtime, too.



Below is the same pineapple cone from the first picture, which looks more like the pinecone i'm familiar with. Can't believe it took me so long to see the other side of it.



And guess what else? Those letters (letters for June) you see in the background are not fitting the way i want them to on any of the black series paintings i'm working on! Too BIG. After all the cutting and sanding and painting them. Now still gotta go and make some more new ones. This time i'll do some measurements.

Or should i make a bigger panel to fit them fat letters? hmmm...

cut me something beautiful

dried gourd with the top cut off, wrapped in Japanese mulberry paper, with cotton thread hanging at the ceiling, 1.5" x 2.5" [work in progress]

This was the first (and only, so far) cut i made on one of the dried gourds. After sort of nourturing them for a couple of years (drying, cleaning, drying, painting, scratching and wrapping them), it wasn't too easy to take the knife and decide to cut into one of them. They have become rather precious in a way one is drawn towards salvaging something fragile that has been abandoned and almost forgotten. But you gotta cut your hair sometimes. And the new cut isn't looking too bad so far, right?



On a *separate* note, can i just share how giddy with joy i was to find that Diana Fayt from One Black Bird has stopped by here? Totally unexpected and immediately felt a rush like having a secret crush on someone.

I stumbled upon One Black Bird late last year and was crazy about how Diana incorporated printmaking techniques into her ceramic work. And the best thing is that the whole blog is devoted to sharing the process of her art-making. Every post has at least one picture of something related to her studio and art. All really well-composed pictures, too. And her writing takes you close and delicately into her world of things lovely, and times struggled and conquered.

(It is also where i got the idea to have a blog rather than a portfolio website. Thank you, Diana.)

the forgotten one

dried gourd wrapped in Japanese mulberry paper, 2.5" x 5" [work in progress]

Forgot to include this in my picture of the baby gourds line-up.

pins

monotype with embossment on Somerset printmaking paper, 13" x 21.5", 1998

Some close-ups:



Safety pins were taped onto a clear sheet of acetate, then painted with watercolor (where you see the dotted line running across is where the tape was holding the pins in place).

When the watercolor wash is good and dried, the whole thing (with the pins and all) is then printed on slightly damped printmaking paper (to pick up the watercolor paint) on the etching press. The pressure of the press creates a pretty clear embossment of the safety pins, not sure if you could tell from these images though.

Here is the back of the print, showing the embossment of the pins on the paper a little better:

pomelo vase the pomelo man*

half a dried pomelo over a vase i made, 3.75" tall x 4.5" fat

Thinking to use this as a still life for a painting...

*Thanks A.W., for a new and cooler identity!

letters for june

Yesterday i came up with a very good use of a door i found. I used the backing board of it to cut out some letters to use for one of the black series paintings i've been working on.

There is this line i really like from some poem mentioned in one of Anne Carson's books. It has the words JUNE and BUTTERFLIES in it. I've been trying to paint the text onto the painting but kept messing up. Now i can just cut out the letters and paint them individually as sloppily as i want, and then glue/nail them onto the painting. I hope it works...

<-Current state of the door found in the dumpster area outside my apt->

It's from the apt across from me, and apparently, my recent ex-neighbor had punched a hole in it. He was a very angry person at times.

There was stuff moving around inside the hollowness of the door when we picked it up. I thought it was some secret hidden treasure, like some family jewels or something. John thought it might be drugs.

Well, it turned out it was just some pieces of wood that came loose inside, probably when the angry neighbor dude punched it.

falling in place

acrylic on paper with vellum covers, book dimensions 5.6" x 5", 28 pages
See all pages in sequence at Flickr: red red day








Above is the back cover flipped over 'upside down' (text reads rightside up). Images on the pages can be viewed again in reverse orientation.



More pages in sequence and upside down at Flickr: red red day

white light

Sometimes, i wish it could be like this in real life.

cry

oil on masonite board, 43.5" x 47.5"

Recently took this out of storage to rework it. The way the arm is cut off was a cop out and i knew it even though i had rationalized that the intention is to have that severe cut-off effect all around the subject. I think i may need to physically cut it up or put some clothes on the girl.




[old Chinese characters referring to good fortune, luck, etc.]