Tuesday, October 10, 2017

The people -- Plan B


When I started making daily people in January, I was intrigued by the way limp fabric could become firm simply through wrapping and tying.  A few friends to whom I showed the project were surprised to find that the people had no armatures, because they had a lot of structural strength -- that was the whole point of my exploration.  But most of the little guys didn't have enough structural strength or balance to stand on their own.

So when I got the opportunity to put them all into an installation, I needed to retrofit some skeletons into practically everybody, extending into a peg that could be fit into a drilled hole on the base. 






















Some of the people were constructed so I could easily run a support wire up under their skirts or thread it up inside their legs.  Others had been wrapped so tightly, and perhaps had some internal folds and creases, that I couldn't force wire through the center of a leg, so I had to snake an external wire up the back of the body, secured by their original wrappings.






















That's how I spent my weekend, with wires and wirecutters.  I could have saved a lot of time by putting the wire inside in the first place, but would that have been any fun?  Heck no!

I'm almost done with the installation -- I'll show it to you soon.


Monday, October 9, 2017

"Demo at Lijiang 2017"


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After left Shaxi, we have moved on to a famous city in Yunnan: Lijiang. The city has been commercialized too much. There are too many shops and too many people. This painting was done at a park call the Helongtan Park. I forgot to bring any mineral spirit, and I had to paint directly with out of tube colors. So I was not able to use my wipe-out technique. With many dry marks, the painting has an unusual look. Plein air painting is just like life, we try to be prepared, but there is always something unexpected will happen. We are out of control, but have to deal with whatever happens as much as we can, The result can be surprising, but not always bad.

Sunday, October 8, 2017

Spirit, Stallion of the Cimarron Scene

One of my painted scenes as featured in the movie.


My favorite things 41


My mother gave me a crystal ball -- not for fortune-telling, but to hang in my kitchen window.  It's about the size of a golf ball.  When the sun is at the right angle, and if I have wiped the ball clean of grease and dust, brilliant little rainbows dance throughout the room.






















It varies with the season, of course, but this week rainbow time starts about 8:30 a.m. and lasts maybe 20 minutes, 20 minutes of pure magic.



Thursday, October 5, 2017

"Demo at Stone Forest Yunnan China"


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As matter of fact, this is my very first demo painting in Yunnan China. The Stone Forest is a very special geological formation. The rocks there have extraordinary shapes. I took many photos, I will paint them in the future.