Time Drawn: February 2010
I’ve mentioned once or twice that I took a Chinese Painting class, since I’ve mentioned using the paints and brushes I was introduced to there. This was drawn as part of this class. Well, sort of.
This is a series of four practice pieces when I was learning the traditional Chinese way of drawing bamboo. This was all done out of class, as I was figuring it out. Compared to those who have mastered this art, these are solidly amateur. And for good reason, since I am still an amateur at this. I may like the paints, brushes, and the look of the art, but I don’t fully care for actually doing the techniques. It just doesn’t fully mesh with the way I approach art.
Traditional Chinese painting is all about mastery. Practitioners will spend years just studying one technique, painting it over and over again until they get it right. And since many great artists in the past have both gotten it right and then told others how to do it, there are set paths for doing things. Which, alas, means there’s less room for experimentation.
I’m very fond of experimenting, you see. Even in this piece, it’s apparent. I could have just kept these in their original form, in black and white and separate. Instead, I took my four best pieces out of the twenty or so I did and arranged them, colored them, and added a border. This is not at all traditional Chinese style.
There’s advantages and disadvantages to being so solidly an experimenter. On the plus side, I’m pushing my boundaries with every piece, trying something in a way I have not done before. I toss in odd compositions, throw together techniques I read about from different sides of the planet, use materials in new ways. On the other hand, these experiments sometimes fail, and parts of the piece just don’t work. Plus, I’m not heading directly to mastery. I’m taking too many side paths instead of heading straight for the goal. And this means my work is nowhere near as good as other people who have been artists for just as long. I may be able to do more things, but they are very good at the one thing they have specialized in.
Still, it does mean art is always new to me, and my experiments do work sometimes. For instance, the four practice pieces in this would be nothing if I hadn’t arranged them together, letting one bolster the composition flaws of another. And while I may not be following a traditional path to mastery, I may just be forging my own path to a new mastery. It’s just always tougher to be the one who cuts through the brambles and finds the pass through the mountains, instead of someone just walking on a set trail.
