Two Paintings in Progress

After so many blogs about museums and galleries, I start to think more about my own works. Currently, I'm working on 8 canvases, large and small.

I'm most actively working on two pieces, a semi-abstract landscape painting and another Greek mythology painting, Prometheus Forgotten:

A New Begining in the New Year

I just started a new painting, inspired by a passage in the book I'm reading now - Europe Central. Though we all hope for a better new year, I still feel like I am being threatened:

Sonette an Orpheus

I just finished re-reading Sonette an Orpheus (Sonnets to Orpheus) by Rainer Maria Rilke and am in a trance. I have just started a painting on the subject of Orpheus - I cannot tell if reading Rilke triggered the project or the project propelled my reading.

Out of the fifty-five poems, the one really impressed into my mind is the last one (No. 26) of Part I:

Du aber, Göttlicher, du, bis zuletzt noch Ertöner,
da ihn der Schwarm der verschmähten Mänaden befiel,
hast ihr Geschrei übertönt mit Ordnung, du Schöner,
aus den Zerstörenden stieg dein erbauendes Spiel.

Keine war da, daß sie Haupt dir und Leier zerstör.
Wie sie auch rangen und rasten, und alle die scharfen
Steine, die sie nach deinem Herzen warfen,
wurden zu Sanftem an dir und begabt mit Gehör.

Schließlich zerschlugen sie dich, von der Rache gehetzt,
während dein Klang noch in Löwen und Felsen verweilte
und in den Bäumen und Vögeln. Dort singst du noch jetzt.

O du verlorener Gott! Du unendliche Spur!
Nur weil dich reißend zuletzt die Feindschaft verteilte,
sind wir die Hörenden jetzt und ein Mund der Natur.

An online English translation is available:

But you, divine, to the last resonating
when swarms of scorned maenads were bent on your murder,
you drowned out their shouting with beautiful order,
from out the destroyers rose uplifting playing.

No one there damaged your head or your lyre,
however they rushed you or rested apart;
and all the sharp rocks they threw at your heart
grew soft when they touched you and able to hear.

In the end they dismembered you, driven by vengeance,
but your sound yet lingered in cliffs and lions,
in forests and birds. Even now, you still sing there.

Oh desolate god! You unending trail out!
Only since blind hatred strew you about
are we now hearers and a mouth for nature.

This project will be the continuation of my Mythology Series.

Below is a quick sketch I made in Cafe Milano, Berkeley and the painting in the very beginning stage.

The Progress of a New Painting

Finally, the "new work" I previously described is finished. Below is the progression:

March 21, 2009:

















































June 7, 2009:

















June 12, 2009:

















July 26, 2009:

Two New Works Started

Even before I called Daphne finished, I started two new paintings yesterday.

The Sky piece was inspired by the view I had on an airplane earlier this year and the Yellow and Blue piece by a vision in my dream, which though became very vague and I have to make it up on the go, and bring in more intellectual vigor into it, rather a foreign process for me.


















Sky (Working Title)


















Yellow and Blue (Working Title)

Cave Painting Is Finally Finished

On March 9, 2009, I posted six works-in-progress My Work In Progress.

Two of those six paintings were completed and posted on March 28th Two Newly Finished Paintings and one more on June 1st Two New Paintings.

Now, a fourth one is finished as well:

Now:

















and then:

Sketch on Paper to Sketch on Canvas

The day before yesterday, when I was working out, suddenly an image came to my mind - I quickly sketched the image on a piece of note paper. Today, still excited, I started to transfer the image to a canvas. Below are the sketches on paper and on canvas:


















Sketch on paper

























































Sketches on Canvas


I'm eager to see the development of this painting.

Two Newly Finished Paintings

I just finished two paintings on Thursday and Friday respectively, after a six-month drought. The one I finished on Thursday (Bruges, Impression) is a painting inspired by my memory of Bruges, Belgium and a 1897 novel The Bells of Bruges (Le Carillonneur) by Georges Rodenbach. The one finished the day after (Progression) was a portrait half-surrounded by collage of familiar iconic images. Previously, I published the images of these paintings at near finished stages on March 9, 2009.

During last a couple weeks, I carefully evaluated these paintings, slowly inching towards the finish-line, so as not to ruin them at the last moment - disaster has struck before. Little by little, I fine tuned the color balances and a certain small details without altering the composition. Finally, I judged that I could not add anything more to them, thus I determined that they were finished. Excitedly but carefully, I signed and dated them. Voilà!

















Bruges, Impression






















Progression

A New Work

The dream that gave me the orange motif to the "Girl with a Doll" painting, also made me start a new one. Below is the very beginning of the process. All three photos were taken on 21 March 2009.

In My Cocoon (continued)

Following up my post of "In My Cocoon" on 19 March 2009, I started to play with light and shadow and tried to add complexity to the painting - at the moment, I am calling it Girl with a Doll.

The picture below was taken on 24 March 2009:
















I didn't like the gesture of her right hand (18 March 2009) and adjusted it a bit. Her left foot was different from that on the picture taken on 19 March 2009. Now I have a second thought about that and might revert it back or place her left leg in between the position of now and then.

In My Cocoon

Yesterday I had a conversation with a writer regarding our working processes. Such conversation -- almost a follow-up to my post Literature Inspired Paintings (March 17, 2009) -- helped me to articulate how I work. I said: "Sometimes, I feel I am encapsulated in a soft-walled cocoon, and move little by little to find my way. In darkness, I move up, down, left and right, pushing here, pushing there, trying to find my way out of the shell, desperately struggling for air and light. Through such trial and error, I, if successful, will be able to poke open the resilient membrane, and slowly creep out of the confinement."

These pictures below demonstrate how I have been feeling my way around recently.
















"Picture taken 031909"

















"Picture taken 031809"

I've posted this painting on March 9, 2009 - My Work in Progress. Ten days later, it moved into a direction I did not foresee then. The orange branch was suggested by a flower-patterned corridor I dreamed of last night. This serendipitous direction gives me shivers, and delight.

My Work in Progress

Even though it's most satisfying to show finished work, people have wondered what my unfinished work looked like at various stages. Unfortunately, my unfinished paintings are currently in similar stages, but they still give a sense of my working process. Below are the paintings I'm working on: