Seal Carving

Korea National Museum sponsored a seal carving class for foreigners to familiarize foreigners with the long-term cultural practice of using a seal instead of a signature to show authority, status, power, wealth, and so much more. Even now seals are used in bankbooks, to sign contracts, and for professional and financial reasons, not to mention their heavy use in most art forms. 

I'd already taken the seal-carving class from Korea National Museum but thought I would join again, because artists need many seals to sign off on their work, and in particular calligraphers need three seals: 

• the mood seal to express sentiment, season, or mood of a work's creation (can be either yin or yang design)
• the name seal in yin design
• the 호 or nickname/artist name seal in yang design

name seal, yin design
(must be stamped first or above the yang design nickname/artist name seal)

Since I had commissioned a mood seal to be carved in Chinese character with the meaning "the overflowing of creativity", and had already designed my yin name seal, I still needed the yang nickname/artist name seal ... so I joined the class.

My Korean name Min Se-ra, given to me long long ago but never really used, is the name that I can pick out of any conversation and answer to. I identify with it and claim it as my artist name so today I completed my set ... Now I just need time to write calligraphy, or paint pictures (although for painting using one seal is quite appropriate).

penname/artist name, yang design
(the yin and the yang design of real and artist name balance each other;
yin supersedes yang and is always stamped first)

A design, date or mood etching is always put in the thumb position on the body of the seal, so the person using it can easily pick it up and know he/she will always stamp with it in the proper upright position.

This gold pigment was rubbed into the side etching to give it a professional high-class appearance.

In our class a Vietnamese woman was particularly talented with brush and calligraphy ink. We were all told to write a postcard and stamp it with our new seal, but this lady went all out with her simple yes graceful pictures of bamboo and traditional Vietnamese settings, which she stamped and gave to whoever wanted one. She was very controlled with her brush.

Arranging a Marie's Chinese Watercolor Palette

After using the excuse that I don't paint as much as I'd like because I need to put together a wet palette before actually painting a picture (working with wet paint is the way to go), thought I would just bite the bullet and make a "dry" palette, so in the future, seeing a whole arrangement of colors already laid out would inspire me to just grab a paintbrush, a cup of water and sit down. 

I've read the debate between choosing "good" watercolors with rich pigments versus student-grade watercolors with fillers replacing pigments and think there's a lot to be said about starting with the more professional grade. Shinhan Professional Watercolors and Mission Gold Pure Pigment both are quite highly regarded as professional grade while still being reasonably priced -- wonderful! That said, I'd like to paint sometimes on Chinese scrolls which have hanji (Korean traditional handmade mulberry paper) or Chinese/Japanese rice paper, but traditional watercolors aren't designed to be painted on the thinner paper. They bleed horribly. 

According to what I've read ... and seen with Chinese watercolorist Lian Quan Zhen, Marie's Chinese watercolors have a special binder that suits them well for painting on the thinner paper. The names of colors are only written in Chinese but they do have numbers -- not sure what the numbers mean but they can at least conveniently be used for refilling the palette -- so with a 24-watercolor set, arranged and filled my first non-travel palette. 

Paints for rice and other traditional handmade papers

Before filling the 28-well palette, I washed off the residual manufacturing toxins, dried the palette and then buffed the 5 mixing wells with a scrap of sandpaper. Have seen paints don't spread well on glossy plastic so other artists have learned the trick of dealing with the problem -- rough up the plastic a bit.

Of course I arranged the colors in the palette according to my taste. Didn't use the black and at the last minute decided to go ahead and use the white ... might use it to tint a color, who knows. Didn't use one of the greens (#592 and #593 are just too similar, and wish I didn't use one of the blues as #492 and #493 are too similar as well), so that left me with 6 extra wells. Filled those with colors from ShinHan Professional, a Korean brand of watercolors; they are not Chinese watercolors with extra binder so not sure how they'll work, but thought because they extended the color range (5 of them very earthy colors), I would at least add them to the palette and use them on rice paper with caution. [A comment on Marie's 24-set: rather weak on yellows with only #218 and #242. A bit of a surprise as yellow is one of the primary colors, but the many oranges, reds, blues and greens do reflect the more stylized landscape and botanical painting style of Chinese painting.]

Be aware that Amazon markets two different boxes of Marie's watercolors x24 sets. One set has the more traditional range of Western colors (colors are also written in English), and then there are the Chinese watercolors without English and whole different range of pigments, and evidently, binders as well.

Marie's Chinese Watercolors, 24-paint set

Filled the 28 wells with 22 Chinese watercolor paints and 6 Shinhan Professional Watercolor paints

A quick study of a swan

Painted the swan using only two colors only (#495 a Prussian blue and #406 a Bordeaux) and a Micron 001 pen.
Mixed Media drawing-dessin-pastel watercolor 200 g/m paper, 5 3/4" x 8"

Made the classic mistake of beginners ... not maintaining white space to show contrast. Aw well.

Giraffe Runs from Lions

Painted this without enough background color to bring the giraffe forward so tried a glazing method that Steve Mitchell teaches in his "Mind of Watercolor" Youtube series. The glazing helped add depth. Thanks, Steve Mitchell!

Canson 300g (140#) Cold Pressed (Not) 10.6" x 14.2" - "Giraffe Runs from Lions"

Flying Parrot - Watercolor

"Flying Parrot" painted with Korean Alpha watercolors on 6" x 8" mixed media rough texture paper. Mixed media - watercolors and Micron 01 pen.

6" x 8" mixed media painting - "Flying Parrot"

Bird Woodblock Carving

Made my second weekend-long visit to the Gopanhwa (Ancient Asian Woodblock Prints) Museum and Temple-stay. In the program are three hands-on activities using woodblocks: woodblock printing on a t-shirt, carving one's own woodblock, and then embossing booklet covers plus printing inner pages with one's own woodblock and other woodblocks before sewing the booklet together. The highlight experiential activity for me is the carving of the woodblock. I don't know what kind of celestial bird this represents but the design is kind of cute -- not my design, by the way, just a small woodblock at the museum that appeared more interesting than the fish and the butterfly for beginners. As for the wild edges, that was accidental. I was under time constraints so didn't put much thought into carving the edges well and am actually impressed with the wild electrical force emanating from the bird. 

4 3/4" x 6 1/4" woodblock

Watercolor Fawn

Painted with my second Altoid paint box, which has rather cheap Korean Alpha watercolors. Principle color used was olive green, with light background washes and touches of Vandyke brown and yellow ochre. Black for the eyes and the nose, and white gel pen to lighten the fawn's spots and put a small reflection in the eyes. Painted in a motel room, with all "tools of the art" tucked into a pocket in my handbag.

"Fawn in the Forest" - 6" x 8" waterbrush painting on mixed media rough texture paper

Altoid Paint-box #2

I really like my first attempt at making an Altoid box painter's tin. With 15 colors it has enough color variety so that I don't have to constantly double-dip the brush tip in multiple colors to get the variety I need. Double-, triple-dipping muddies the tip, especially because the tip isn't cleansed in water frequently. The one downside of this set however is because I used really cheap paint (why not? needed to learn and not waste more expensive paints till I get technique). I found the colors didn't blend well but stayed separate. It's not really important because I'm using a small waterbrush instead of the broad sweeps of a typical paintbrush which require more color blending, but still, I do notice a difference between my inexpensive Korean set of Alpha paints and the dollar-store cheapies I used in the tin. Since a friend gave me a new set of 18 watercolors (Reeves, also cheap but figured they'd be better than the cheapies in the tin), thought I'd make another tin.

Pictured: original Altoid tin with dollar-store cheapie paints (adequate but colors stay separate when attempting to blend)

4"x6" mixed media paper for marker, pen and ink, and watercolor
"Bluebirds & Flowers"

"Bluebirds & Flowers"

Prepping the Reeve Watercolors

Before I squirted colors from the tubes into the new 21-hole palette made from Fimo, I first made a color grid (saw this online somewhere) to check out the transparency and opacity of the new (Reeves) watercolors.

Made a five-columned grid, basically each color name followed by a long swatch of color. However, before (and then after) the color was painted, a vertical stripe of first oil-based marker and water-based marker were painted down the sheet. The idea is to test and see how transparent or opaque each of the colors are both before and after the colors are used. Watercolors are thought all to be transparent but this is not so, and colors differ (sometimes significantly) by brand name. 

Then in the wider last column, a wet brush was used to scrub a bit at the painted colors to see if the colors could be lifted off or if (and how much) they stained. These Reeves colors do not lift off but do stain quite noticeably. I noticed two other downsides: like the dollar-store cheapies, the Reeves don't blend well, and, when dry, their color is noticeably granular, especially in large swatches. Sadly, after all this work of testing, I've decided not to use the Reeves in my new 21-reservoir Altoid tin. From a very old set of Korean Alpha, I made my new Altoid paint tin. Though quite cheap, the Alphas flow better, blend fairly nicely, and most can be somewhat lifted off the paper. A few colors from the Reeves (like flesh tone, crimson, burnt umber and payne's gray -- all somewhat opaque colors) will supplement the 18-color Alphas to fill in the 21-hole paint reservoirs. I'm omitting the white as many watercolorists carry a tube of white gouache for painting quick contrasting highlights.

"testing" transparency and opacity of Reeves watercolors

Making the Altoid Paint-tin

This time I made two tins at the same time, the second one is for the professional-grade paint ... when I finally make the investment.

To make the uniformly spaced holes, mom gave me the tip of using a hole-punched grid. And then looking around the kitchen she suggested using the base-end of the walnut-cracker for systematically imprinting holes in the Fimo clay. Wow! Both ideas worked fabulously! Then after shaping and baking the Fimo, I sprayed one with white rust-proof outdoor paint we had on hand. I'll wait to spray the other with white ceramic paint since that's the recommended paint and I'm not needing the second tin for a while.

Finished Altoid Tin

My 21-reservoir Altoid tin, and a second one almost ready too. They look good against my handmade hanji-art pen box.