Houtushen

Houtushen 2023 Graphite ~ gold leaf

I had to draw Houtushen twice

The first version was more complex and I tried some new ideas that I wasnt 100% happy with in the end and it bothered me so much I started over. Even if the first version had been in an exhibition already :D.

The first version had bits and bobs that worked out better and were more fine looking but I didn’t let it bother me too much.

Maybe the hurry to get it finished right before the exhibition was the reason it went sideways. I really don’t perform well under timelimit and stress. Flow state can’t flow under pressure.

I have noticed this with painting too, in a hurry I start to do stuff that takes me to the wrong direction. I think it’s also a selfesteem issue. The right decisions usually feel uncertain because they are new and you don’t know where it’s going and it might take some time to navigate..

And so unless you have enough trust to the process and yourself, you take the safer quicker option which turns out to be wrong.

I think one should always take the option that is wild. That feels illegal. Childish play. Something between those lines.

It’s the only way to find new territories.

We are not here to paint the same old thing over and over again. After all.

Anyways.. second time drawing my pace slowed the f down while it was almost in the finish lines. Summer came and hammock time. I really liked how slow and stressless it was at the end when I just could take my time with the curls. And draw when ever I felt like.

Theres a big difference between hasty and slow arting.

Houtushen

She is of course Mother Earth. In Chinese mythology Houtu or Houtushen is the ‘Sovereign Earth’, the soil deity. The goddess of the Earth.

Very little in the internet about Houtushen but I found one book that mentioned her in an online library that you could read for free. How cool is that. If you’re broke.

This drawing is a pair to Traveller. They both had the tiny rowboat in the original sketch and it was in the first version of Houtushen. I’m bummed that I didn’t have the drive to draw it the second time around. It would have made the pairness more obvious. And I like to stay true to original ideas.

I intend to do a digital collage from Houtushen too so maybe some of the stuff I miss from the first version can be in that one.

In the first version I wrote different names of Mother Earth into the drawing and Houtushen was one of them. There is energy in names. And some names just call. Like a spell. What the artwork wants to be called. I like answering those calls.