Monday

Painter's block




I have reached something of a wall with my current painting, mostly because I am not entirely pleased with the composition.  As I cannot post a piece of my work yet, here are some beautiful pieces by iiiis, which I have scanned from my book.  I'm feeling very much like the girl with the birds flying around her head at the moment...

計白當黑, ji bai dang hei, is the Mandarin term for the Chinese technique of leaving blanks of white paper in a watercolour painting.  The blank paper is part of the finished painting, an idea I personally like very much because I am very much of the 'unfinished' school; I cannot bear to, as it were, 'finish things' and cover a whole page with paint.  I remember my art teacher constantly chiding me for never completing a painting, so imagine how delighted I was to find out that not finishing things was actually an ancient and viable technique!

7 comments:

Raylee said...

these paintings are gorgeous. my art teacher was the opposite- "leave the white, leave the white!....sometimes i would remember...sometimes not. i know what you mean about the birds around your head.... a bit like that myself lately.

Hannah said...

these painting are amazing, I wish I was good at art but alas I can't draw to safe my life haha!!!

Hannah {Culture Connoisseur} said...

I also like the unfinished look. Very Japanese. Reminds me of the classic paintings of tsunamis and such. The crests of the waves were always blank paper.

Beautiful

Winnie said...

Lovely scans, I can definitely see how you take inspiration from them and I definitely came round to loving your unfinished pieces of work in the end!

The Chocolat said...

Enchanted :)



The chocolat*

Cassiopeia said...

Oooh! They're so beautiful. Hope the inspiration keeps flowing. Thanks for your lovely comment.

Xxxc

Victoria Stitch said...

these are beautiful thanks for sharing! also thanks for the blog award, very chuffed! hope you get passed the 'wall' soon!