flameelf

I had intended to come, fully prepared to blog this week. So far, nada.

I need to shoot about a million photos, so I hope to get that done later on down the road. In the meantime...

I often use the term "sumi-e" to cover EVERYTHING I do with ground ink in the Oriental manner, although for me this can include not only calligraphy, or painting landscapes or still life(s), but also brush-painting innerscapes. I once did a set of "The Bride With White Hair" images; most of them sucked, but a few of them were good (one even despite the wayward drip of black ink). I also started a series of possible characters for WhiteWolf's "Masquerade"--I do not play the game, but figured my on-going stuff with vampyric Faeries was not that far out of line and might get me in the door with illos. This project slithered away as I dealt with some really nasty stuff at the time on the job front, and then I switched over to writing and wrote both the first novel of the trilogy, but also started in writing the 'alternate universe' stuff that began the whole The Siege Perilous writing.

Basically, I'm fully-brained, but if I write, I do not paint. If I paint, I do not write. The switchover between right and left brain only allows me one real form of communication, so I have to try to plan accordingly.

I sometimes had to stifle the urge to paint while I was working toward a deadline in a 'book proposal contest' where I was finishing up the novel and back-writing the outline after-the-fact. I do not and cannot outline before-the-fact, simply because I write stream-of-consciousness. Doing that, I can sit down and simply Start Writing and can also watch all the action happening like a movie in my head. I type as fast as the dialogue is spoken, so I can shut down my outward consciousness and just concentrate on what I'm seeing...and let my hands do what they do naturally. I understand that makes me very 'non-professional', but what can I do? That's how my brain works. Besides, I rather like allowing the story to go where it will without my dictating--it means that characters sometimes do things I could never imagine, or that they're more insistent upon going their own way instead of in mine. I deal; they're more or less 'alive' in that transfer from mind to hand and computer.

I could never have written anything of any length were I limited to handwriting. Having word processing and the ability to type so quickly allows me a freedom that was unimaginable only twenty years ago.

However, there is a freedom in brush writing/painting that is only available in that format. Oriental brushes have minds of their own and are not like Western art brushes; they carry more fluid and yet react in ways that are indigenous to their pieces...this past week I finally received two rooster tailfeather brushes, and I am excited to see what they do on paper with ink or watercolour.

I also found new sets of coloured 'ink' sticks; again, excited to try them out.

Perhaps most fun was receiving an antique Chinese inkstone from what I was told would be "Arizona"--and expecting it to be 'generally inkstone-sized'. This thing came in a HUGE box from Mainland CHINA, weighs like a brick, and it appears to be solid jade. It's BIG, but as 'a scholar's duan stone', I think that might be how it really is meant to be. Having expected it to be about half the size, it's amazing to have this smoothly-shaped, handcarved jade piece just waiting to caress ink out of an inkstick. I can't tell you how surprised I was, or how cheap it really was to get this thing! *grin