Chinoiserie, Sort Of
- Kaaren Poole
- Mar 17
- 3 min read
I thought I’d continue to work on my fox and florals painting and that that’s what I’d be posting about this week. But instead, inspiration struck, and I have a new work-in-progress to show you. So, here it is, a new art journal spread with drawings of a marten and a mouse.
Drawing is nothing new for me, but what’s new in this spread is my focus on borders on pieces of artwork. The boarder acts as a visual frame, and I’ve long been an admirer of them, especially since I don't like formal, traditional framing. But in this spread, I wanted to push the border idea.
I began with a subtle border. I decided I wanted to do my drawings on old book pages. I selected two of different sizes and slightly different colors of off-white, then coated them with gesso so that the text was hidden enough for the drawing to show, but not so hidden that the viewer couldn’t tell that there was text behind the drawings. I like the texture of text.
Anyway, I painted one side of the spread with a pink and the other side with a peach of similar value, then glued the pages on. Already, I had a border. But then I did a little more. I added broken strokes of light blue around the edge of both pages, then applied some white over much of the peach and pink. I used a palette knife and was looking for broken, random coverage. But I was careful to leave some of the peach/pink showing along the inner and outer edges of those frames of color.
Then what?
Well, I’d just bought a hydrangea in a container with a chinoiserie design of blue on a cream background. So I decided to try a chinoiserie border over the pink/peach borders.
I lightly sketched the main branches and the outline of the birds. Then I colored them in and added leaves with a blue watercolor pencil. After applying water and letting it dry, I outlined everything with a blue metallic gel pen.
I finished the left edge first and was disappointed that the outlining didn’t show up much. So, for the rest of it, I tried to keep the watercolor pencil lighter. That was all I could do, as I didn’t have a darker blue pen.
I found the fake chinoiserie process fun and also strangely relaxing. Once I had the few motifs set—three kinds of leaves and a pomegranate—it was repetitive work, but also soothing.
Sadly, both the gel pen and the watercolor pencil will smear if I apply anything water-based over them. I’m feeling that this border is too bold and I’d like to push it back a little, maybe with a coat of thinned gesso. But once the animals are finished, the borders might be OK as is, so I'll wait on this.
I finished the drawings then sprayed the spread with two coats of workable fixative. I hope this works, as in the past I’ve had penwork smudge even with fixative over it. I’ll let it dry overnight to give myself the best chance of the pen and watercolor pencil actually being fixed. (Update: It worked. The watercolor and penwork didn't smudge, but the metallic of the pen was lost.)
Painting the drawings is next. I’m looking forward to it, but it may be a challenge to get to it before next weekend.
You may be wondering what connection there is between martens and mice on the one hand and chinoiserie on the other. As far as I know, none!
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