Started on a New Painting

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After a few weeks break, I've started on a new painting, the second one since the lull after my October painting exhibition.

My work on this oil painting was triggered off by being upset over some traumatic current event. The painting will have a lot of smoke and fire.

To explain the process, I first had to decide on the proportion and select the canvas. By now I don't have many new canvas and the only one suitable was abandoned after being partially painted. Tnus I had to cover it by painting acrylic gesso over it.

I then started the painting by applying a thin coat of yellow oil colour (Cadmium Yellow Light) over most of the canvas. I then had to wait for it to dry a bit before adding other colours. If this layer is still wet, this colour will gradually filter up into subsequent layers of other colours.

This below is how the WIP looks like after applying two more colors, red (Cadmium Red Medium) and black (Paynes Grey).

I'm surprised what can be painted with just three colors. And I have not added white yet.

Size: 30 x 40 in.



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What to do Next?

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Sigh! Due to the many wrinkles on my round mounted printing, I think I'll give up looking for a suitable rubber hose to make the rim for this.

In the meantime, I've started some clearing up of my sculpture workshop. Some of the scrap materials are very unlikely to be used, and they do gather dust. Rats love this type of environment.

It is surprising how much rubbish we can collect over the years.

It is similar with our world. Over the years, it is collecting too much greenhouse gas, and is still adding more.

One of the new activity which I am doing is to write Blogs, this one and two others. I seem to enjoy this online writing, writing one episode at a time, and easy to go back and edit.
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Bad Wrinkles on the Round Printing

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After a few days, bad wrinkles appear on the round printing, see above. [Click to see a larger image]. Possibly the spray adhesive shrinks when it dries causing these wrinkles.

Sigh! Possibly this problem cannot be remidied.
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My Round Printing is now Mounted

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I've now got an extra pair of hands to help me, and have now glued the printing on to my round mounting board. The mounted printing can now be placed on the pivot at the floor stand and can be rotated, see below.




This looks all right from afar. But on detailed inspection later, defects can be found.

Firstly, the printing is slightly off centre. This causes a narrow red rim to be seen at about 1/3 of the circumference. Secondly, narrow wrinkles can be seen. These two cannot be remedied.

Thirdly when lights are right in front, it can be seen the surface is not flat. This means on display, lights have to be from the top, not in front.

Fourthly, some parts of the edge are spayed. I have now put masking tapes around the edge, in case the glue is still tacky and will set tight later.

Anyway, on this point, I intend to add a rim around the edge later on. Currently I am testing different types of rubber hose as the rim. A 1/2-in. hose is of suitable size. My neighbour hardware shops (stores) sell this size, but only the soft transparent type for acquariums. This is not suitable. I also have a sample of 1/2-in. hose that is nearly white. The color is all right, but this is a bit too stiff to be easily installed. I'll have to continue to work on this problem.
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Things I can do in an Art Blog

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This Art Blog is relatively new. Even writing a Blog is also new to me. I started it partly to get familiar with its nature and features, and with the things I can do in it.

One of them is to explain and show my work in progress (WIP). The final picture of my art can then be shown in my Art Website.

Another is to do some thinking aloud while working on my art, especially any artwork that is complex and require much thinking.

I'll elaborate on this thinking aloud. I have been taking part in online art forums, one of them which I go in more often is the Artspan forum.

Recently in this Artspan forum, I have been doing quite a bit of thinking aloud about planning and pursuing the works on my art. Talking aloud about my thinking process on my art is of benefit to me. It helps me think more clearly, and modifying the things that do not seem right. But actually an online forum is not a suitable platform for this type of talk.

On the other hand, an Art Blog seems a better place for this type of mainly one-directional talks. Thus it is likely that I am going to do more in this Art Blog.
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Mounting Board for this Round Printing

Continuing on the task in the earlier post, I've found a spare 4 x 4 ft foam PVC plastics board of suitable 10-mm thickness. With my portable jigsaw, I carefully sawed the circular profile with a diam slightly smaller than that of the printing. A central pivot hole is then drilled.

This round board is sufficiently stiff, and not too heavy. It's round shape makes it sligly awkward for one person to move it around. But fingers can be slipped into the central pivot hole to help with this task.

I then got a short pvc pipe for the central pivot and mounted it on my wooden A-shapes floor stand.

The arrangement shown below in my workshop is now ready for the gluing operation.



For this gluing, I plan to use spray adhesive. But I need to buy a new can as what I have now is a bit old and not working well.

But then, one thing bothers me. The circular edge needs to be framed to avoid the edge spaying. Frame materials in frame shops are all straight. This frame material has to be flexible to make it follow the circular profile. A split rubber hose is not the best frame, but there seems to be no other choice.

A Printing of my Round Painting

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I am working on this task now.

At my recent painting exhibition, there was a backdrop with a large printing of my round painting "Our Upside Down World". After the exhibition, I took this printing sheet back and looked at it recently. It is a 4-ft diameter glossy printing.

The original painting of this, shown at an earlier post, is of size 6 x 6 ft, built up from four 3 x 3 ft painted canvases. At the exhibition, the assembly was hung faced down below the hall ceiling for viewers to stand underneath to look up at it. Also viewers had to bodily rotate themselves to see the eight paintings in the right direction. Hanging this painting under the ceiling was a difficult operation that required a few men.




Now that I have this slightly smaller quality printing, I decided to do something about it. I'd mount this on a 4-ft diam round board and pivot it at the centre. This means it can be rotated when hung up on a wall.

Thus viewers can stand in front and view the eight scenes at the right alignment when the printing is rotated.

Now I have to think through how to make a 4-ft diam mounting board and glue this round printing at the exact position on it. For this, I'd make a central pivot hole on each of them and rely on these two holes to guide me while gluing the two items together at the correct position.
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Racks for Drying and Storing my Oil Paintings

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Oil paintings take time to dry, perhaps three to six months to get them very dry. This means by then they don't get tacky when leaning against each other. In the meantime, they have to be kept separate from touching each other. This means suitable racks.

I have been building up my racks for drying and storing these stretched canvas paintings. The individual items of the racks are bought from Ikea, the furniture chain store. You can see them in the picture below. There are nylon fishing lines stretching tight between the paintings to keep them separate.

Give Us Clean Water

This is the photo (not too well taken) of my oil painting showing three composite scenes. On bottom left, a child is shown scooping dirty water from a stagnant pond for drinking. On bottom, a child is shown using a cheap but non-permanent solution to dirty water, sucking water through a special filter. At top centre is shown a long-term, but more expensive solution. It is a properly constructed deep well. It is cement lined with a rim around the well to avoid dirty water going back down the well shaft. Size of oil painting 30 x 36 in.

"The failure to provide safe drinking water and adeaquate sanitation services to all people is perhaps the greatest development failure of the 20th century. The worst consequence of this failure is the high rate of motality among young children from preventable water-related diseases."

Child Soldier

This picture shows my oil painting showing a sad looking young girl soldier holding a gun that can kill. Size 30 x 30 in. Click image to enlarge.

It is a regrettable fact that throughout history and in many parts of the world, children have been extensively involved in military campaigns even when such practices were against cultural morals. Some of these children are orphans, while some are captured and kidnapped. They are then easily trained and forced to kill.

Our Upside Down World

This complex painting needs a bit of explanation. Ideally, to see the eight sectors of this round composite painting well on the computer, you'd need to rotate your r screen. It is not planned to be hung up vertically on the wall like other paintings. Instead, it is planned to look like a round ceiling painting. The viewer stands underneath at the centre looking up facing outwards while rotating.

In reality, the oil painting is to be hung facing down underneath the ceiling. It is built up of four square stretched canvas paintings joined together. The total size is 6 x 6 ft.

In terms of content, the painting is built up from four pairs of paintings of scenes that are viewed from above. Each painting pair shows two contrasting scenes, or scenes before and after disasters. Together, they serve to illustrate how upside down the world can be, arising from recent events.

On the top left of the photo above, the painting pair shows our world's rich poor divide. One of them shows the glittering night scene of the gambling/entertainmemt city Las Vegas. The other shows the tents at a crowded refugee camp where people including women and children are living in subsistence conditions.

The painting pair on top right shows people and their crops in poor countries are badly affected by bad climate conditions, either severe drought or deadly flooding.

The painting pair on botom right shows a over-crowded over-loaded ferry boat with a few hundred on board before and after it was overturned by stormy seas drowning many on board.

On bottom left, the painting pair shows the New York World Trade Centre Twin Towers before and after they were attacked causing the two tall buildings to burn and collapse completely. A few thousand people died from this horrid event.

Modern History - #16, #17

These are the last two in my series of oil paints depicting significant events or people in the modern world.

On the left, painting #16 symbolically depicts the final tsunami or global financial crisis sweeping across the world starting from the New York Wall Street since September 2008.

Painting #17 on the right depicts the tough efforts by political and financial leaders in many countries trying to save the world from being drown in a sea of recession since September 2008. Economic recoveries are still not certain at the US, Japan and Europe.

These six panels of 17 paintings can form another mini-series. Like the earlier mini-series, this can also be displayed at a semi-formal show.

Modern History - #13, #14, #15

Continuing on the series of my oil paintings on significant events and people in modern history.

On the left, painting #13 is a semi-abstract depiction of the internet revolution that has, since the 1990s, caused a paradigm change in the world's business, economic and many other human activies, anc causing the world to change faster and faster.

Painting #14 at the centre shows the twin tower of the New York World Trade Center were in thick damaging flame before their final collapse killing thousands on the eventful morning of Sept 11, 2001. This was the result of deadly attacks on the US by the al Qaeda terorist group lead by Osama bin Laden.

On the right, painting #15 is a composite showing two events. One was a bronze statue of Saddam Hussain in Baghdad being pulled down. The other shows a gaint Buddha statues in Afghanistan before and after bombing destruction by the Taliban forces. These depict the US lead Iraq 'war' from 2003 and Afghanistan 'war' from 2001. Both 'wars' keep dragging on for so many year and the US has not been able to end.

Modern History - #10, #11, #12

Continuing on my series of oil paintings on significant events or people in modern history.

On the left, painting #10 shows the two leaders Nikita Khrushchev of the USSR and Richard Nixon of the US angrily facing each other. It depicts the all out confrontation between the two camps in the 1960s during the Cold War.

Painting #11 at the centre shows the comforting relations between the two leaders Margaret Thratcher of the UK and Ronald Reagan of the US. It depicts how they effectively advocate the free market economic system in the Western world since the 1980s.

On the right, painting #12 shows a man dramatically wielding a long hammer to try and break down the Berlin Wall separating East and West Berlin. It depicts the collapse and breakup of the Soviet Union and its satellite countries, ending the Cold War at around 1990.

Modern History - #7, #8, #9

Continuing on my series of oil paintings on significant events or people in modern history.

From the left, painting #7 shows China's Mao Zedong at Beijing in 1949 declaring the birth of the People Republic of China.

Painting #8 at the centre shows the contrasting figures of Earl Mountbatten representing the British crown and Mahatma Gandhi of India at their final talk in London on the forthcoming independence of India in 1947.

On the right, painting #9 shows a scene at the 1975 'Fall of Saigon'. This was the traumatic attempt of many S Vietnam elite to leave Saigon boarding an US helicopter on top of an US embassy building. It depicts the end of the long bloody US Vietnam War.

Modern History - #4, #5, #6

Continuing on my series of oil paintings on significant events or people in modern history.

From the left, painting #4 shows the second US atomic bombing of Japan, this one at Nagasaki. This resulted in Japan's surrender. At that time Italy and German had already surrendered. This event depicts the final end in 1945 of the 2nd World War.

Painting #5 at the centre shows Winston Churchill of the UK, Franklin Roosevelt of the US and Joseph Stalin of the USSR at their meeting at Yalta, Crimea, near but before the very end of the 2nd World War. These three together carved out the spheres of influence and control of the post-war world. They did it without the agreement of affected countries and territories, nor the need to inform them. This painting also depicts the start of the post-war Cold War.

On the right, painting #6 shows the United Nations Headquarters building at New York city, depicting the 1945 birth of the world body.

Modern History - #1, #2, #3

This is the first three of a series of my oil paintings on plastics board depicting significant events or personnel in modern world history during my life time. Each panel is of width 48 in. Click on the image to enlarge.

Painting #1 on the left shows Germany's Nazi leader Adolf Hitler in salute to depict the start of WW II in 1939.

At the centre, painting #2 shows the Blitz, a sustained German bombing of London to break the spirit of the English in 1940-41. This depicts te European theatre of WW II.

On the right, painting #3 shows the 1941 Japan sneak bombing of the navel vessels and facilities at Pearl Harbour at Hawaii causing the US to enter the War. This depicts the start of the Pacific theatre of WW II.

Fifth Economic Era on Creative Human Talents

This is a very new economic era that has recently started. It is ongoing in only some parts of the world, like the US, some Europe countries, and is starting in Japan and some parts of many other countries, including Singapore.

The change is due very much to the powerful and extensive internet supported by other information and communication technologies. They cause a continual accelerating change to most human activities. As a result the most important driving force is the human talents with the knowledge, entreprenaurial abilities, and especially creative abilities.

The picture above shows my oil painting depicting this era, showing some of these creative human talents. Size 36 x 30 in. Click image to enlarge.

This and the previous four paintings on the Economic Eras had been displayed in my recent solo painting exhibition in Singapore. As this exhibition, which is a relatively large one is now over, these five paintings can be re-displayed as a mini-series, say in a less formal setting in one of the libraries of my old University.

Fourth Economy Era on Capital Intensive Production

Throughout the 20th century in industralised countries, the productivity of manufacturing had very much increased due to advances in technology, business organisation, law and banking. This saved much labour but required much larger capital investments.

While other forms of manufaturing and economic activities were being pursued, the main economic activity of the world was dominated by these productions that required very large capital investments, like production in petrochemical plants, pharmaceutical complex and wafer fabrication plants.

The above picture shows my oil painting depicting this economic era. It shows a complex petrochemical plant. Size 30 x 40 in. Click on the image to enlarge

Third Economic Era on Manufacturing

The industrial revolution which started in England in the late 18th century caused the main economic activity of many parts of the world to change from agriculture and farming to manufacturing.

The term manufacturing means the use of machines, tools and trained labour to make goods for use or for sale. It first started as handicraft supplement to agriculture and farming and progressed to craft guilds. The industrial revolution in England introduced textile mechanisation and the making of iron, steels, machine tools, steam engines, steam ships, railways, as well as factory production. Soon in many parts of Europe and the US, manufacture overtook agriculture and farming to be the main economic activity. Gradually other countries followed.

This picture above is my oil painting showing skilled workers in an early industrial factory working on machine tools powered by a steam engine through shafts, pulleys and belts from the ceiling. Size 30 x 40 in.

Second Economic Era on Agriculture and Farming

Gradually human beings formed communities and settled down in suitable places. The gathering of wild plants was slowly replaced by agriculture culturing selected plants, and the hunting of wild animals by farming rearing selected animals. The main activities were grually replaced by agriculture and farming.

While tools were still useful, the main resources were land without which no agriculture or farming could by pursued effectively. For this reason, different communities under some leaderships sometimes fight other communities with hunting tools to occupy good land. The concept of terrorites, kingdom and countries were formed.

Bartering exchanges were slowly replaced by exchanges through some form of money.

The transition from the first to the second era occured around ten thousands year ago. This varied very much at different parts of the world.

The picture above shows my next oil painting to depict these activities of agriculture. The size is also 30 x 40 in. Click on the image to enlarge.

First Economic Era on Hunting and Gathering

Ever since the prehistoric stone ages, human beings for survival relied on hunting of animals and fish, and gathering of plants and stones for protection, food and fire and to help with shelter and clothing. Hunting and gathering were thus their main activities.

To pursue these activities more effectively, human beings needed appropriate resources. The main resources they relied on for their hunting and gathering activities were tools like sharp stones, spears and bow and arrows .

When basic survival was sufficiently ensured, excess animals, fish and plants that they obtained were exchanged by bartering for a improved quality of life. These are the main economic activities.

For most parts of the world, this economic era was very slowly superceded by the second economic era.

This picture above is my oil painting to depict this era. Size 30 x 40 in. Click on the above image to enlarge.