Ooops

Japanese art history lecture this morning. I had some idea what he was talking about as it involved many slides of european art, then japanese art and discussions (somewhat) about influences between them.

Painting, started working on the background. Matsumoto Sensei for thursdays is very nice, but does not have much confidence in her own english, though she writes very well. So most of our communication is in writing. I learned a lot more about the process of a nihonga painting, gained an overall understanding of all the steps, but at the same time brought about a situation I thought was very very funny.

Up till now, in three of my studio classes I've been working on the same 18"x24" painting, they're somewhat slow showing me things simply because each layer needs to dry before going on to the next and they haven't really explained things in advance. I get the impression that they only expect me to do a single painting through the entire semester, which is what the japanese students are expected to do (though theirs is larger), and I only really see other students working during class time. The mentality in my upper-level classes is very much, work slow, don't take chances, don't make mistakes. That's not how I work, and as part of my stated intent, I'm here to focus on studio work, which involves many more hours than just class time. I've been working slowly and with focus, but I will take chances with some things, as that's the only way I can learn the limits of the material.

Anyway, the funny situation was from miscommunication and japanese indirectness. We were working on the background of my painting, and I was trying to ask questions and gain insight into what was, and wasn't possible as far as color usage (ordering my layers), direction, and brush (as far as different effects). I don't think Sensei really understood everything I was trying to say, along with not wanting to make decisions for me, so I ended up mixing up too dark of a color and at first had striation problems, which I agreed when she told me the striations between my brush strokes were not beautiful, she tried to demonstrate a way of covering these over with fluttering brush strokes, but I didn't have the gentle touch she had and made somewhat of a mess. The look on her face, she was just horrified. Then it got even worse when Maraoka Sensei (who speaks better english) came in and saw how horrified she was. I did my best to explain what my intention had been, and a bit about my own learning philosophy, and it was fine in the end. I'm not about to stop working on that particular painting, but I'll start some others and be more careful now that I know more.