Face Flaw

I painted this sumi portrait some years ago. Like most of my figurative work, its a portrait of imaginary friends. I don't paint from models and rarely from photos, but rather memory and imagination. Sometimes this can create little problems if your not thinking it all through––for instance there's a subtle ( or not so subtle if you see it) flaw in this face. If you think you know what it is, tell me with a  comment below. 

 

This is a detail. Look in the sumi gallery to see the full image. 

kalalau valley Journey

Using the camera of our minds

I've added another in depth discussion page sharing my process for a new work-in-progress entitled  Kauai Night Dream

 

Kauai Night Dream, Detail, Size TBD, 2007 

 

Click on the image to go to the page and see the entire piece as it stands now. Check back later to see how it turned out.  Like many of my Digital Alchemy Pieces, this one incorporates painting, photography and computer graphics.  But Somehow the style seems different to me. Maybe I've morphed into a new genre. Should I call it Bio-Alchemy?  This piece excites me because it is starting to capture something I've seen in nature quite often, but have always found impossible to get with a camera. I'm talking about that luminous, almost hallucinogenic quality nightscapes have. Our eyes see remarkably well into the vagary of night, but it's our a vivid brains that do the magic. You see our eyes are getting very little color information at night and loosing most of the shadow detail. But despite this deficit our brains use our past experience and knowledge of what the landscape should look like to fill in the the detail, and sometimes, create a sublime moment. I find this eye/brain relationship truly remarkable. This example goes a long ways towards explaining how the eye/brain organ  functions radically different than a modern camera.

How many times have I left the studio late at night, exhausted from working on a deadline project, only to feel instantly revived by the fresh cool air and the  transcendent moon back lighting the giant maples and cedars around the house.  Such moments are worth at least an hours sleep.

Once I was doing a film in Jamaica, and had a few days to explore the island. this would have been around 1986, and essentially in a pre-digital photographic age. I rented a motorcycle and headed into the Blue Mountains with my still camera. Just after sunset I found myself on a ridge road near the summit and looked westward across the jungle to the sea. My view was shrouded my massive trees and hanging creepers and fireflies glinted in the shadows as the last chromatic ribbon of light faded into the water.  I pulled over and took it in with a bitter sweet chord ringing in my heart, for though I was looking at a scene of extreme aesthetic beauty, I knew that it would be pointless to get out my camera and try and shoot it. What I was seeing was beyond the technical limitations of the equipment, of any equipment.

It occurred to me sometime later how to capture this type of image. I was camping at Mono Lake on the desert side of the Sierra Nevada Mountains when  scene of similar delicate beauty occured.  The full moon rising over the desert lake became partially obscured by cloud;  Lunar light turned the diaphanous mist into silver poetry. I realized then that while my camera might not see  I could. So I decided to think and observe like a painter, studying the visual mechanics of light and tone blooming before me; Memorizing all that I could about what this moonrise looked like.

And now I find myself  living in an age where digital tools allow me to recreate these moments. Combining the skills of photography and painting, I can pull on my magical observations and 'print' what I saw.  I now realize that I was able to take that long lost picture in the Blue Mountains of Jamaica after all; I only had to be patient while the scene remained latent in my memory, awaiting the visual renaissance happening in visual art today.

The Zen Wave: Art and Processing Disaster

 

Zen Wave, Sumi Ink and Pigment on rice paper, 2005

When the Christmas Tsunami hit, I was as appalled, amazed, fascinated and in the end, pretty much disturbed by the whole event. It remained intellectual to me until I heard a bereaving father tell how he could not keep a-hold of his children in the flood tide, and lost them forever. Suddenly the emotional grief welled up out of me. As with earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, it is strange when the world that nurtures us suddenly becomes so violent.  Its hard to imagine living a peaceful existence by a sea that provides fish and warm sandy beaches, and then having that consistent friend and provider well up and smash your whole life into ruin.  A few days after the Tsunami event, I found my self compelled to paint images of waves. At first They were large and terrible, dark pigments and overwhelming shapes. I put crude calligraphic figures in the water, people trying to get away.  As I painted the waves began to tame, the colors became rich and luminous again, and the victims turned into body surfers and  happy swimmers. In the end, like my paintings, I too had regained some sense of peace with the world. The painting you see here, The Zen Wave, happened toward the calm end of that creative arc.

Everyone processes grief in different ways, Perhaps for some people the process of depicting traumatic events with art, becomes therapeutic and healing.  I went through a similar experience right after 911. Perhaps I can share some of those images one day.

Recent Sumi Art

I'm also adding the Sumi Art Gallery to show some of Sumi styled work I've done in the last few years.

Inkwell's Lilac Nose, Detail , 2006, Acrylic Paint and Sumi ink on mulberry paper

I love the immediacy and energy that abounds in painting in this style. The pieces happen very quickly and I don't always have a very specific plan for where I'm going with the images. I'll make a few strokes and find that a floral piece suddenly wants to become a nude or vice versa.

Back to Sumi Painting

The last Daniel Colvin Fine Art invitation I sent out contained this image, Iridescent Ikebana painted on mulberry paper with Sumi Ink and Acrylic Pigments. I am beginning to arrange the studio to do more of this work on Asian Paper. Hopefully, if the weather is nice, I can paint outside, where I feel free to really splatter and swish the paint around. I've developed a style where I can use modern pigments, including metallic and iridescent colors and paint in this ancient style. The iridescent pigments are mostly lost on the computer screen so its an extra treat to see the original paintings and all the rich depth of color that exists there. I love this kind of painting because its very immediate and dramatic to do. check back in a week to see the first results.

Iridescent Ikebana by Daniel Colvin  Sumi ink and Acrylic on  Mulberry paper, 2005,  24" x39"

 Ikebana  refers to Japanese flower arranging and I'm often inspired to make 2d versions of this on paper. Or at least when I look at the result of some of my Sumi style still life's, I think of Ikebana. By the way, this original painting is still available for purchase. I hope to have a gallery of my Sumi Paintings up soon.