On your travels you collect souvenirs which sometimes get lost. I am very sorry I can't find photos of the four paintings I have lost. They disappeared when we moved flats. All our stuff went into storage. The more expensive removal people will catalogue everything. The cheaper and quicker option is to take a few lads who just pile stuff into boxes. You risk losing items.
I have lost the four paintings, long vertical scrolls, I had of the four beauties, classic Chinese figures. Now I wish to recreate them. Wikipedia gives lots of detail. I need to select what is vital to my painting. I shall put the answers in bold.
I console myself with these thoughts:
1 At least one of the four paintings was not a pretty woman but ugly or glum. I would rather have pretty and happy. Many classic pictures and sculptures of ladies naked and clothed and couples also have faces in repose which do not excite me. I am firmly in the 21st century where the fashion is to grin at the camera. To me a 'thoughtful' person just looks depressed and depressing. Rodin's thinker is a great pose for a body. But I look at the face and I think, he needs therapy.
The same goes for those exquisite Balinese carvings. And most temple figures.
Maybe the introverted artist is a depressive type. If either the artist or model had any get up and go they would not be sitting for hours in a studio alone but out partying with people.
More likely the reason is that the models posing have to look vacant. It's tiring to keep up a smile for several hours. Sitting in one place sends you half asleep.
It is easier to draw somebody who is sleeping (or dead!) than somebody who is smiling and laughing and jumping about playfully.
Stories
I have drawn caricatures for fun at parties in Singapore. At one party, I was not paid money but paid in kind. I admired the blue necklace worn by a girl. She said it was from a shop in a nearby street and cost very little and I could easily get one the next day. Unfortunately I was flying off at dawn (we had postponed our flight to make the party). I offered to buy it from her, the cost price - or slightly more. She refused.
I drew a caricature of her friend, kept the original and give her copies for her phone and Facebook. Then the girl with the blue medallion asked if I would draw her. Yes, I would never miss an opportunity to practise drawing and capture somebody. Also it would be good to have a record of the medallion.
I drew her and gave her an email of the picture - which was in my opinion neither particularly good not particularly flattering. She asked if she could have the picture. I said no. The same thought struck us both. I looked at her medallion. I conceded, self-deprecatingly, which I should not have done, "I expect other artists have done better pictures of you.
She replied, "I've never had a caricature of myself - or any kind of drawing of myself. I don't even like having my photo taken."
Then she said, "If I give you the pendant, can I have the drawing."
I said, "Done!"
If you are drawing people at a party, make sure their friend are not allowed to stand nearby (behind the artist or the model - or coming and going) pulling faces, making jokes, making the model move and react.
2
Names and place
Who were the beauties? Were they real people or legends?
Time Zones
From which centuries?
Clothing
Whether real or legendary, if we can establish the era the stories describe, or the later century the stories were created, we can follow the classic pictures and re-create them, or create a modern version.
So wearing what era and style of clothes?
Which symbols are in the pictures?
Do they need to be Chinese or can I draw them as multi-national?
Clothing or Naked?
I prefer clothes. That gives opportunity for colour, glamour, individuality. More suitable for a family audience.
However, if I am not sure of the time era or style of clothing, must the ladies be clothed or could they be naked and concealed with hair whilst bathing, like the Venus de Milo emerging from the shell and sea?
Sea? Are they by rivers or lakes or seas? (So could they have waves like the Japanese classics?
(I'm off for coffee. More later.
Angela
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