Sunday, April 17, 2011

Qiang Huang ~ Day 3


A quick paint morning before the afternoon lecture about the business side of art. Qiang is a wonderful teacher, both with the artistic side and the business side. He's very clear, precise and detailed. Did I mention he's an engineer in real life? I definitely would recommend his workshops.


Today's painting is a detailed study of high-key still life from yesterday. Christa & I had planned to change it, but we arrived after our 3rd artist, who had already begun to paint it. Oh well, it felt good to sleep in a bit.


I played with the style of painting. Normally I'm pretty tight and controlled. So today I went loose. Only wiped the canvas twice (but it was in the drawing stage.) But, as they say, "No Pain. No Gain." Later, I had some wonderful and uplifting comments from Qiang and fellow artists. It was great learning experience (but, boy, am I tired!)

Saturday, April 16, 2011

Qiang Huang ~ Day 2


Oh, the pain of a high key painting (light background) and a light pink rose. And Cobalt blue glass bottle? And a silver bowl.... I love a challenge, but hate it at the same time. Again, not a finished piece, but an exercise.



Qiang did a demo that included 3 different color roses. It is so beautifully done, I could weep. Here's a detail from his painting.


Friday, April 15, 2011

Qiang Huang ~ Day 1

Day 1 of a 3 day still life workshop with Qiang Huang at the Coppini. Qiang started out talking about composition & set-up. The way he presented "clicked" with me and made it easier to set-up a still life for our afternoon painting session. Qiang did a demo for us that made it all look so easy.





We worked in groups to set up a still life, then painted and squinted. We had a lovely set-up, great composition and tones. I loved my painting sooo much that I wiped my canvas after 1.5 hours of work, right after I said I would "use this as a lesson" and try, try, try. Yea. Didn't happen. That artistic/red-head temper kicked in. It was either wipe it all off or pack up and leave. Plus, I was having easel problems that caused a big problem (more later).


So, with a little over an hour left, I flipped the canvas to a vertical format and began again. Much better. It's not complete or perfect. I had to make choices about where to spend my limited time. But it's 1,000x better (and no, I didn't take a picture of the first one.)



About the easel/tripod problems, the tripod wouldn't lock the paint box upright. The box kept falling backwards when attached. This was the first time I used my new easel. I thought it was me, but several fellow artists tried to fix it and couldn't solve the problem. I ended up calling the company for help. They were fantastic and tried several things that unfortunately didn't work. But they're sending me a replacement and Charlotte is letting borrow her tripod for the rest of the workshop.