User:Chen Junyu/Graduation Project Seminar/ project proposal/3rd

what is my thesis?（ Outline )

over the past years I have been trying to clarify my work and find the topic in my work.

1）What is the process of drawing and what is drawing that I think it is meaningful for me.

2) Where is my motivation and inspiration from

3) How can I improve the process of drawing physically and conceptually

Introduction

The earliest scene I can remember till now about drawing is when I was at the age of four or five. There was a national children drawing competition on during that time, so the teacher asked me to participate. The way she guided me was, she made a picture first, a pink pig jumped into deep sea, then she displayed the image on the wall and asked me to draw one as what she did. Then I got a honorable mention and a hard cover book included all prized works by sending 50 RMB to the sponsor.

This story has confused me for a long term, it keeps recalling questions as " What is drawing? What does a valued drawing should be? and Why do I need to draw if the scene is already there? ".

This thesis is looking for answers, of course there is not the "correct only one", there should be countless aspects to think about it. However, by going through these questions, I try to clarify my thoughts about drawing and summarize them for a full stop of the story.

Chapter I. The Process

1. what is the physical process? 2. what is the interaction during the process? 3. what is the spiritual process?

When I am doing pencil sketches, the shadow lines attracted me deeply. Imagine the shadow lines in Ingres sketches, those lines sometimes constitute the grey area, or hided in the drape of clothes or skin, and grows from the drape becoming the edge between brightness and darkness. If we look at those lines carefully, we can see those lines start with thickness and end up with thinness. The contrast of the thickness and thinness needs to be dealed with carefully, it impacts the whole work essentially. Each line, point, is all the basic and important element to constitute the final work. When we starts transferring the scene -- either in our eyes or in our mind-- to paper, each movement we make for a line or a point, is becoming an independent "work" itself which is depicting a certain part of the reality.

The movement of making lines onto paper, is not a single-track activity, it is interactive. The roughness of paper, sound generated by the friction between paper and pen point, and the continuing change done by the lines which reflects to whole drawing , somehow triggers us to make the next step and influence us on decision making. And this "interactive movement" has an even stronger expression with ink painting. The feature of ink painting is, the skilled usage to material and tools is the fundamental standard to judge a work or a painter. I am not saying the material and tools for ink painting has more difficulties to be expertly mastered, it is fundamental because the way how to control it and the connections between each controlling stages : 1) The material is "soft". Even rice paper which has the best quality can be stored for thousands years, when it encounters with water, it suddenly becomes fragile. And "being fragile" is a necessary step to achieve a work. This characteristic shows most in landscape painting, which is particular strict to the shades and moisture of the ink. Brush is soft. For the very traditional way to make ink painting, teachers usually emphasis on the usage of "Zhongfeng" which means the central hair of the brush should always stay in the middle of the line while drawing. Surely this rule has been ignored for many ink painters who activated since last century, and I don't think to stick on a certain way to paint is a good thing to keep this traditional art growing, however, the concept of "Zhongfeng" does have a deeper meaning. The action of "holding a brush vertically " and "keep the central hair in the middle of line" is a meaningful and effective way to train the painter physically and mentally. It asks for two things: the fully control of hand, wrist, arms, shoulder and back -- stable of the body; and a clear mind without distraction. 2) The process of Chinese ink painting is uncontrollable. Ink has liquidity, and differ with watercolor, the paper ink painting uses has less resistance to control it spreading. For example, if we use a fully watering brush draw onto a watercolor paper, almost without time difference, we can see a clear edge of the color without obvious spreading, oppositely, if we use rice paper and brush with same moisture, the ink will spread for a while until it half drys. The edge of the ink is unpredictable. And it is exactly part of its charm. Painters do not try to control the material, instead, they accept the unpredictability and generate beauty and vitility out of that.