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Posted on 11/27/2025 2:22:50 PM
By Donald Fox
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Life Raft oil on canvas 30" x 40"
The following, slightly edited, came from notes written in a small sketchbook sometime in August of 2017, just over eight years ago. I was rummaging today through old sketchbooks and journals (sometimes these also contain impromptu drawings) to find a series of colored pencil drawings from just a few years back. I’m meeting next week with a friend who lives on her family’s homestead in the countryside northwest of Houston. We will be doing drawing together so she can improve her understanding and skills, and I want to show her some samples of what I sometimes call controlled doodling. All she really needs, I think, is a bit of encouragement since she already has done a lot of her own doodling. I know she will appreciate this brief story below.
Zhang Guolau, also known as the bat spirit, was a mythological figure and one of the Eight Immortals in the Taoist pantheon. He was also said to be a real historical figure who lived sometime from the seventh to the eighth century. Among his legends he rode on a magical white mule for thousands of miles within a day. When the mule was not needed, Zhang commanded it to step onto a piece of paper where it transformed into a drawing of a mule. Zhang folded up the paper and carried it in his pocket until he again needed the mule on which he could ride.
A painter expresses his thoughts, his/her feelings, and his/her impressions about a person, place, or experience in his/her paintings. The painting is no more than colored marks that have been skillfully arranged on a surface to illustrate those thoughts or feelings. A viewer brings his/her experience to a painting even upon first viewing. To the perceptive viewer, the painting may speak about something other than person, place, or experience. It is potentially a window to another realm. The painting may hang on a wall within a room and appear to be a decoration, part of the décor, a framed spot of color and shape that echoes other colors and shapes within the room.
The painting may also be a portal that leads far beyond the walls of the room. It is the imagination of the painter connecting with the imagination of the viewer that makes the painting come to life. Whatever is portrayed now exists in a virtual realm, a magical realm, that transcends time, space, the confines of a frame, and the common materials from which it was made. It is a mute testament to human experience, and it is a white mule that can travel thousands of miles within a day.
