Artist's Statement

Wen Ting Dong

History & Distinction
Every culture has myths and legends unique to it. Chinese culture is rich with mythical legends and stories and has inspired the mythical cultures of many nearby Asian countries such as Japan, Korea, and Vietnam. My project was inspired by the artwork of the Chinese Artist 杉泽 (shān zé) who creates beautiful paintings depicting creatures from Chinese legends. 
 
Question/Issue. 
But in the American Society, western mythologies, such as Greek and Roman mythologies, are usually more well known than eastern mythologies.  The primary text for Chinese mythology could be hard to understand in their non-vernacular Chinese text and rather than rough illustrations that could make them hard to interpret. 
 
Approach
For my project, I started by researching the creature I want to illustrate. For each creature, I would read the description of the creature from excerpts of ancient books such as “the Classic of Mountains and Sea” from the 知妖 website and encyclopedia websites like Baidu for more vernacular descriptions. Then I will create my illustration with reference to these descriptions and the original illustration in the ancient texts. The mediums I used are mainly watercolor and alcohol markers on watercolor paper. Most of the background was painted with watercolor. I use mainly wet on wet technique when I wanted to blend colors out and a wet on dry technique to glaze colors over an existing layer. The alcohol ink from the marker doesn't react to dry watercolor, making it easier to create distinct layers, smooth out, and darken certain areas.
 
Audience & Impact.  
The audience for my project is anyone who is interested in Chinese mythology or enjoys learning about legends of different cultures. So I illustrated my picture in a more popular 古风 (gufeng) style and included a short informative paragraph about each creature I illustrate. My goal of presenting this way is to make it easier for my audience who are less familiar with East Asian culture to be able to better understand Chinese mythical stories.  I hope that through this project, viewers can have a better understanding of Chinese culture and enjoy the myths and legends more.
 
References.
1) “山海经释义.十八卷.图一卷.郭璞注.王崇庆释义.明万历时期大业堂刻本_1.” LeGuan Museum,

               www.lgbowu.com/leguanmuseum/vip_doc/8168112.html.
2) “知妖(中国妖怪百集) 收集中国古今妖怪.” 知妖(中国妖怪百集), www.cbaigui.com/.
3) 杉泽. 微博weibo, www.weibo.com/yourviki.