Bruce Ma’s ‘chain reaction’ theory: Feel the energy!

 

Imagine sitting at an easel in the midst of a bustling outdoor marketplace in a big city. You take in your surroundings, pick up a pencil, pen or paintbrush and begin to reproduce what is before you, hoping to maintain proper perspective while capturing the energy of the scene. But where do you begin? Surveying the chaos of vendors, customers, umbrellas, tables and various displays of produce, Methuen artist Bruce Ma might begin by sketching a single piece of fruit.

From that one apple, he might then sketch a banana, and then a pineapple. As each adjoining item is created, it is easy to keep the scale and perspective accurate. The busy scene builds, from the fruits and veggies on the tables to the tables themselves, and on to the people selling and shopping, the buildings in the background and the traffic in the foreground. From that single piece of fruit the scene grows outward, and with it the energy of the marketplace emerges until, at last, a complex scene comes into being.

From an early age, Ma was drawn to creating art. He sketched his first portrait at age 6.

“My grandma was taking care of me while my parents were at work,” he recalls vividly. “She was watching a drama on TV and I sketched a portrait of one of the actors I saw on the screen. My grandma jumped off the chair in disbelief when she saw the drawing.”

Ma grew up in Hong Kong. Recognizing his talent, Ma’s father enrolled him in a class at age 11 to learn Chinese painting.

“For two years, I studied the traditional method of painting with ink onto rice paper,” says Ma. “The technique was somewhere between realistic and abstract, with loose brush strokes but strong attention to details.”

Once a week after school, he learned to control the soft tips of the paintbrushes. While at home he was mostly interested in drawing comic book images, but he gradually became interested in watercolor painting. When the classes ended, Ma continued to study watercolors on his own.

“In Hong Kong, pursuing a career in art was not encouraged,” he says, “so I went to college to become an engineer. While I always felt like I communicated better through art than with language, I also felt that creating art for a living would not be as satisfying as doing it for myself.”

Graduating from college in Rhode Island with a master’s in engineering, Ma continued to create art in his free time.
“I have been told that my right and left brain skills are pretty equal,” he says. “I sometimes find that this helps my art; but very often the two sides fight each other. A painting can be perfectly symmetrical, yet this might make it not pretty enough,” he laughs.

Concentrating on painting with acrylics for many years, Ma attended a workshop at the Essex Art Center in Lawrence about a year ago, mostly just to connect with other artists.

“Up until that time, I had always painted alone, creating work for my own pleasure or gifting to friends and family,” he says.

He was invited by the group to attend what were called “Urban Sketching” sessions, much like plein air painting, but taking place in city locations as opposed to out in nature.

“We would set up at a location and have two hours to sketch with a pen or marker, filling in with colors. I was struggling and sweating, trying to get it all done quickly,” says Ma. “At home I would practice sketching, trying to go faster, faster, faster. I would still end up with very loose sketches.”

About six months ago, Ma developed his own method that has proven, for him, to be an effective way to approach urban sketching. With confidence, he begins his sketch with ink, not pencils that can be erased.

“Instead of lightly sketching back and forth, I just draw the lines. I begin by choosing one object in the scene and drawing it, before moving on to the adjacent object. With this method, I am not concentrating on the entire overwhelming scene, but on one detail at a time, and on how that one item connects with the item next to that, and so on. I am feeling the energy of what is before me as I visit each object. One leads to the next, and now I have two things. The drawing comes alive with this microscopic thinking. And because I am enjoying the process and feeling the energy, I am drawing faster and faster,” he says.

Back to the single apple.

“Most people would be intimidated by the complexity of recreating a busy city marketplace,” says Ma. “But if you can draw just an apple, and then a banana, then a pint of blueberries, without looking back at the apple, it becomes a chain reaction. You are developing a relationship between the objects, and the scale is judged by each previous object. I go to a busy scene, take 15 minutes to take it all in. What impresses me? How do I feel right then? I might sketch a bit then take it home to finish, but I do not take reference photos. My reference is my experience; I paint what I feel. It’s not just about shapes and lines; it’s something deeper. Hopefully what I do will resonate with the viewer, and they will feel what I have felt.”

Ma is about to move his home studio to a space at Lowell’s Western Ave. Studios, where he will be able to share his work and his technique more publicly. While he is currently teaching basic art skills at a daycare center, he has also been posting his work, along with his unique drawing method, online.

“My intention is to help educate other artists who might struggle as did,” he says. “I want to provide a tool that helps people enjoy the art process as I do. In the past, I kept my art and my philosophy to myself … but why not share?”

Instagram: Bruce.ma1
Patricia Bruno is a Methuen native, currently living in Haverhill. A writer and photographer, she is also the owner of The Winged Rabbit gift shop in downtown Haverhill.