はな

Continued today on a flower drawing for 1st year nihonga. This class has been about specific technique, and I've really enjoyed it, but still, I can always do better. One facet of doing better is scale, and positioning. On my first class drawing, I was big and bold, but the rest of the class was smaller objects with lots of surrounding space. Mmaybe it's subconscious, because since that first painting it has been the opposite, I feel like I'm working too small and leaving too much empty space, while the rest of the class has gotten bigger and bolder.

Thats not to say my drawings and paintings are not good, but they can be better. With the flower drawing, I captured the details of the leaves, and then later the details of the blossom as it opened. But I was impatient. I transfered my drawing to washi, pasted it down, let it dry, then outlined the form in sumi. Then I made a mistake, thinking the paper was dry, I tried to continue into the shadows, but the paper that was dry to the touch was not really dry. The carbon spread outwards, beyond the lines, and was not smooth.

An obvious mistake, and could have been avoided. It can be fixed, covered up, none would be the wiser, but still, it disturbed me. I like to work fast, let the creative bursts out, but with nihonga, there is waiting. Always waiting. I've seen my sensei create an ink drawing, layering and layering with a practiced hand. He rarely needs to stop, because the sumi is so light and perfect. As one part dries, he works somewhere else. There is no pause, only deliberation. A wiser man might say to slow the hand, is to slow the mind and to see more. But I am not so wise.