four 2011 studies in gouache on paper of the work of ike taiga
11:20 AM: as i prepare to start my painting day, i was just perusing one of my books on ike taiga (1723-76). why do i keep coming back to him? why is he one of the only painters whose work i have made studies & copies of? 19 years have passed since i made the 4 studies you see ABOVE. as i begin constructing the history of my work over six decades, taiga could be considered a landmark; a turning point in my journey.
if you take a look at my recent watercolor/collage series, you will see the clear influence taiga has had on my work. click on the 2020 watercolors drop down menu at the top of this page & scroll down. i’ll say more about this later, but for now, click on some of these watercolor/collages, especially the first few rows, make them full page and look carefully at my marks. then make the 4 studies i just posted full page and see if you can identify what it is about taiga’s marks that i relate so strongly to.
i’ll leave you with this for now so i can get to work, and come back to it later in the afternoon.
1:17 PM: as a direct result of revisiting taiga, i made some modifications to a few of my recent watercolor/collages. BELOW, if you compare the previous version of watercolor 147, you’ll see what i mean. first i went over the entire watercolor with a very light tan wash, which left faint vertical marks because of the fan brush i used. if you take a look at my taiga studies, ABOVE, you’ll see that i did something similar, but those marks are beneath the painting rather than on top of it.
then i worked into the watercolor with small leaf-like marks. for now, that’s it. you can observe how the stark white background has transformed as a result of these small changes, and the mildly annoying starkness of the dark geometric shape to the right is integrated more into the composition.
i’m now turning to other recent watercolor/collages to see where this might take me. but i have to be careful not to disturb the integrity of what i’ve already done by doing something i might regret. i’m going to continue working till about 3, when we’re taking our stupa walk. i’ll add more to this post if something interesting happens between now and then.
3:06 PM: i also made a few modifications to watercolor/collage 135. this one has undergone modificatoins over the past few days. today the most obvious is the addition of subtle verticle tan-ish stripes, which, as with watercolor/collage 147, which i worked on earlier today, add coherence to the composition by modifying the stark whiteness of the background. as well, the area to the immediate right of the figure has, for the 3rd time, changes to a pinkish color, and the blue marks to the lower right of the figure were broken up a bit.
BELOW is the before (left) and after.
