ON THE EASEL

'Ancient Waterfall Scroll'

I am carving into a beautiful piece of birch plywood.  The dark part you see here is actually the glue between the layers of ply. I am thinking Japanese scrolls, Japanese woodblock prints, the floating world of Japan and the work of 

Katsushika Hokusai (葛飾北斎) 1760 – 1849

http://www.katsushikahokusai.org/

 
 https://www.artsy.net/artist/katsushika-hokusai

You may know of his work:

I find this quote attributed to Hokusai most inspiring:

In the postscript to this work, Hokusai writes: “ From around the age of six, I had the habit of sketching from life. I became an artist, and from fifty on began producing works that won some reputation, but nothing I did before the age of seventy was worthy of attention. At seventy-three, I began to grasp the structures of birds and beasts, insects and fish, and of the way plants grow. If I go on trying, I will surely understand them still better by the time I am eighty-six, so that by ninety I will have penetrated to their essential nature. At one hundred, I may well have a positively divine understanding of them, while at one hundred and thirty, forty, or more I will have reached the stage where every dot and every stroke I paint will be alive. May Heaven, that grants long life, give me the chance to prove that this is no lie. ”

So I study his work and then carve and paint my interpretation. In my un-mastered skill of carving and seeing. The older I get the more I realize how much more there is to learn.

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Here after much carving with chisel and hammer I finally get to the details.

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And now I begin the painting.  I use thinned acrylic paints and ink in many layers and go back and carve into the color. It is a process that I have worked out over the years that gives me the depth and feel I enjoy.  I will also leave much of that beautiful grain show through. It looks like water already near the bottom of the scroll doesn't it?  
Oh, I love to trick the eye. 

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I am planning on completing this work in the next few days in time for the up coming 
May, 2015 exhibit at my favorite gallery:

Ciel Gallery
128 East Park Avenue
Charlotte, NC  28203
phone: 704.496.9417

704-496-9417

hours: Tuesday - Saturday 11 - 6, 
Gallery Crawl, Southend, Charlotte - first Friday of every month 11 - 9 

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I thank you for visiting my blog.

ON THE EASEL - to be continued