Sasa's Sketchbook

Black Hibiscus / 黑芙蓉, 2011 (371), 100 X 52 cm, ink and color on handmade rice paper

Spent all day taking photos of my new ink brush paintings, tweaking the photos, naming the paintings, putting them to Flickr, etc. My neck hurts, I need a massage!

Inspiration / 灵感, 2011 (355?), 41 cm, ink and mineral watercolor on rice paper

I got back a bunch of ink paintings, all of them round. My technique is quite 'violent' and my paintings are often torn and rumpled when sent for 'double-papering' (Or should I say mounting? In Chinese it is 裱.) My teacher said it has become my trademark, which is probably a Chinese way of saying they hate me at the mounting workshop for making their life so difficult... Anyway this one missed a piece, which (I think) makes it just more interesting :-) And leaves a nice place for a stamp. The stamp here is just 'photoshopped', I think I am going to use a smaller stamp, and maybe place it a bit more down and left?

Got back 14 ink paintings from double-papering, 9 of which happened to be round, which is also Illustration Friday's theme this week. Lucky me because otherwise I would have been too busy to create anything. So here is just one of 'the nine', not necessarily my favorite one but seems to fit the theme quite nicely. (I have still not decided which way this painting should be, maybe rotate a bit anti-clockwise, hmmm?)

Little Orchid / 小兰花, 2011 (346?), 43 cm, ink, mineral water color, and oil pastel on rice paper

Got 8 small ink things back from double-papering. Here is one of them:

Shadow / 影子, 41 X 44 cm, 2011 (331), ink and mineral color on rice paper

Got a set of new ink paintings back from 'double-papering master'. Spent yesterday taking photos of them and then processing the photos (I need a new computer, it was so slow...). Here is one of my favorites from the group.

Fire Flower / 火花, 2011 (304?), 100 X 50 cm, ink and Chinese watercolor on rice paper

I created my own website! Now have a dedicated place for my ink paintings: sasasaastamoinen.com, cool!!

P.S. After couple of days of benchmarking, I decided to use Cargo as the publishing platform, happy with my choice, it is a really great tool!

I painted a series of paintings last July that were inspired by news images featuring captured Somali pirates (below), Vietnamese soldiers returning from Cambodia or London riots. Most of the paintings are not 'double-papered' yet but here is an example of 'Somali pirates' series. (There is more in Behance.)

Explosion / 爆炸, 2011 (266), 74 X 44 cm, ink on rice paper

Created a new Behance project after a long long break. Below one example from that series (did this one already in January 2011).

Wing / 翅膀
(148), 2011
76 X 48 cm

Yesterday I got 15 ink paintings back from 'double-papering'. Today I took photos of them. The day was cloudy so photos didn't turn out that great but they are okay enough. I am quite happy with this group because it contains several seeds of new direction. One of them below, with thin outlines and calligraphy - something new to me.

Hokusai Flower / 北斋花
288, 2011
74 X 47 cm

I published some of my ink paintings in Behance: Tonghua Vase Series Part 1 and Part 2.

I painted them in July 2011. After painting so many wild flowers I wanted to try capturing tamed nature - flowers in vases. I especially enjoyed the vase part, using brush strokes to express man-made objects was an interesting change. Here is one painting from the series:

Date / 约会
(254), 2011
77 X 47 cm

Published another set of ink paintings in Behance Network: Wild & Tamed. Below one painting from that series.

Feelings / 表白
(251), 2011
100 X 50 cm

Leaving to Mongolia tomorrow, so no updates for 1+ week. Hopefully when I return I have sketchbook full of Mongolia sketches that I can share with you.

I have finally started to take my ink paintings to be 'double-papered' (i.e. to be glued to another thicker paper). Only after that it is possible to take decent photos of them. Below is one example of my paintings and in Behance Network you can find more (mainly ones painted in 2010, newer ones will follow asap).

Hidden Flower / 隐花
(114), 2010
77 X 44 cm

Painting from imagination but my teacher says there is really a flower like this growing in mountains of Yunnan.

My teacher also told me that when she took the painting to be 'double-papered', they asked her whether it was hers. Maybe the biggest compliment I have ever got...