Rhapsodies

I hadn’t been to the Seattle Asian Art Museum so I was back to drawing a few old friends. This one of a Monk Achieving Enlightenment from the Yuan Dynasty (1279-1368) is one I’ve drawn many times (nothing in the archives, sorry) but due to numerous reasons (pose and drapery) I’ve never gotten quite right. This time I focused on the face and I’m mostly happy with it.

It’s fun how you start writing stories in your head about certain pieces even if they have absolutely nothing for to do with what they are actually about. For me this statue had a definite Wu Xia vibe and the strange pose was a martial artists stance as if he would be taking out a dozen mooks in the next instance. I also like the way you can find new things in an image even after you’ve been looking at the image for years. For example I think this was the first time I noticed that the odd expression on the face here was the Monk biting his lip.