Tag Archives: #zhisuart

Turquoise in Earth’s World

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If you are interested in portrait art, you’ve probably heard of “earthsworld” – a photographer that took Candid photographs of Americans at county fairs. Over the years, I have multiple artists recommended this photographer to me. Take a look at the website or the Instagram account and you’ll know why this is such a rich resource for portrait painter, character designer and people watcher. To me, it opens up a side of America that beyond my natural habitat.

I picked a few photos from the collection as references to practice portrait painting, and only to notice that the ones I chose all features a touch of bluish green. Hence the title of my small series – “Turquoise in Earth’s World:”

A few notes:

  • Again, the above paintings all used references from various earthsworld’s county fair collections. They are all painted with oil on canvas board.
  • The collection is very helpful in practicing non-typical studio model expressions and props.
  • The nature of the subject matters do push me to loosen up a bit (not as much as I wished) and be creative with the composition and background design.
  • It’s such a wonderful treasure. Do check it out!

Our turn, finally …

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Years ago in a watercolor class, we practiced rendering glasses by choosing from a couple of setups. I got ambitious and turned the practice into a full painting:

Still Life, watercolor on paper, 14 x 20 in, c2015

The roses were supposed to be a different setting, and I didn’t choose it because I thought apples would be easier. However, in composing the whole piece, I thought the glimpse of the flowers would be interesting. As you can see, I indeed didn’t know how to handle those petals and leaves back then, but I think they added liveliness to the scene. I remember some fellow artist commented, “The roses are saying,’We are here! Our turn! Our turn!'”

Recently when looking through some old reference photos, I was surprised to see that I actually took a few shots of the roses at the time. Hence, their turn:

Red Roses, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14 in, August, 2022

Hehe, the petals and the leaves are still challenging, but I feel they are happy to be in the spotlight!

Oil and Watercolor

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The way I learned to paint in oil, is to start with an underpainting. It could be a monochromatic value sketch, or a diluted full color draft. Either way, the underpainting would be covered by thicker paints as I progress and hopefully the process took the work to a better place. Once in a while, I just fell in love with the underpainting, and the continuation of the work was saturated with doubts.

This river landscape (a Watts homework) was an example. The one on the left was the underpainting and the one on the right, the final work. I hesitated quite a while after the first draft about whether I should proceed at all. There was a liveliness and richness of color that I loved and didn’t know how to preserve when I added more paint to it. Also got lost was a sense of flatness, something more graphic and watercolor-y. This is not to say the underpainting was a better painting, but it makes me wonder the different directions I could have taken in finishing up this work (if it is not a homework in realistic landscape). Even some of the pencil marks begged to stay!

Moreover, can I achieve a watercolor effect with oil paints? Well, somebody can.

Those men were children once. Julian Meagher, 100 cm x 100 cm. Oil on linen, 2015

That’s Australian artist Julian Meagher, who painted in oil but managed to achieve the transparency and the lucid aesthetics of watercolor. Apart from his website, Amber Creswell Bell’s collection Still Life: Contemporary Painters has a good section on Mr. Meagher’s work. He painted with extremely diluted oil paint, and did not hesitate to use the white of linen canvas instead of white paint. The result is a good combination of precision and fluency.

His works remind me of Giorgio Morandi (1890 – 1964), one of my favorite still life artists (as I mentioned many times before). The technical approach couldn’t be more different. Morandi is opaque and static, while Mr. Meagher is more colorful and vibrant, cleaner and much more scaled up. However, the solitude, the quietness and the thoughtfulness are there.

The more I see good art, the more I am wowed by the range and the potential of the each medium. We are only limited by our skills! (Is this a good thing or a bad thing? :))) )

Another Digression – MidJourney AI Art

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You heard the buzz: there’s another way to do art. You type a few text prompts, and the AI will return results. One of the recent AI generative art lab is Midjourney. You can try it for free on MidJourney’s Discord server with a limited number of images.

Here are some of my attempts:

The prompts I gave are: “oil painting, still life, bronze vase, light pink roses, curtain, table, realism, expressive strokes, worn palette;” – basically, a Watts’ Atelier homework. The first result it returns contains 4 choices:

You can choose to further develop them and make variations till you are satisfied or give up. Some of the “final” ones:

Here are some of my Kandinsky (kandinsky with expressive bold strokes, fish, abstract colors) and André Masson (André Masson drawing, colored pencil, street musicians, metro, gloomy):

A few notes:

  • It’s a lot of fun. Thanks to the limited number of trials that I didn’t end up spending my life on it.
  • I don’t really know how to make the best out of this Midjourney. I have seen amazing artworks coming out of it. I assume the the prompts you give make all the difference, but I didn’t spend time digging what the algorithm handling better, more general or specific instructions, more or fewer words etc.
  • Also, if the attempts are not limited (with a subscription I assume), you can keep manipulating them. The result may get much better or worse.
  • If you are into digital art, this can be a tool, and if you are making abstract art, this can be a great idea generator.
  • But, who can claim the authorship? In a few pieces, there’s even an attempt of signature. Whose signature? It seems to me like Kandinsky or Mason. So does the algorithm aims at creation or imitation?
  • I also like the fact that in some cases the painting comes with a frame.
  • One thing for sure, if the big names in art history and all the prodigies online haven’t stopped us attempting new artworks, AI wouldn’t either. Back to painting! 🙂

The Still Life Batch (2)

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All done, for now:

Red Roses and Pot, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022
Roses, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022
Pomegranates and Vase, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022
Flowers and Vase, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022

According to Mr. Watts, there would be many more levels of still life courses after the gesture one. However, the people at the Atelier see no plans for new releases. I still have some catching up to do in the landscape area, but otherwise, I will focus on my own practice and projects in the coming months.

The Still Life Batch (1)

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Speeding things up …

Lilies, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022
Flowers and Shells, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022
Sunflowers, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022
Still Life, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022

The first one is a Zorn palette without time limit, and the rest are supposed to be gesture with an open palette. My plan is to finish the still life course soon, and I will write more about it when it’s all done.

The Recent Batch of Portraits

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These are the final ones from Phase IV of Watts Atelier’s portrait painting courses:

Oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022
Oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022
Oil on canvas board, 9 x 12, 2022
Oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022
Oil on canvas board, 11 x 14, 2022

A few notes:

  • This phase focuses on the “loose style and expressive edge work of gesture portrait painting.” It’s quite obvious that I need more practice and confidence to be more gestural. It takes a lot of effort to achieve the look of effortless.
  • Color wise, this stage is pretty open, but I still start with Zorn, and add others if necessary. It’s nice to have a familiar starting point.
  • According to Mr. Watts, there would be several more levels of portrait painting courses after this. However, I don’t see they have any plan for new releases in the near future.
  • For the time being, my “guided practice” of portrait painting will take a break and I will move on to “independent study.” The plan is to continue focusing on the looseness, giving more variety to the background design and trying to achieve a less rendered but more finished look.

Show News

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I am not a particular fan of insects, but the sound of cicadas is a constant in my childhood memory. Summer time in Beijing when the city was still haze free, kids with long bamboo sticks were searching for cicadas in the canopies of trees. The molt makes good ingredient in traditional Chinese medicine, probably for treating cold. When I first saw the picture of a blue cicada I was delightfully surprised. I never knew cicada could be this pretty. The ones we had in Beijing were black and brown. Yet, we all romanticize our memory, don’t we?

Acrylic painting of Blue Cicada with a microphone
Sing, acrylic on canvas, 18 x 24 in, 2020

“Sing” participated the annual show at the Pacific Art League last year and this year’s Santa Clara Valley Watercolor Society‘s annual show (accepting all water media now).

“Summer Dream,” which currently on view at the Pacific Art League gallery, was inspired by two of my previous pieces. The design came from “Marching” (not obvious, I know, long story still developing), while the color theme “Landscape.”

Summer Dream, acrylic on canvas, 22 x 28 in, 2021

By the way, naming the artwork is probably the hardest part of the creative process, at least for me. While “Sing” may be self-evident, it was still an afterthought. As for “Summer Dream,” hehe, I grabbed it out of nowhere the minute before submitting it for the show, and had to check the register sheet to remember what it was when I brought the artwork in. 😂

Colors Getting Loud

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These are some of the portraits I’ve done recently. Palette wise I have pretty much opened myself to everything now:

Japanese Girl, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14 in, March, 2022
Male Model, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14 in, March, 2022
Female Model, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14 in, April, 2022

Here’s an old Zorn palette one:

Female Model, oil on canvas board, 11 x 14 in, December, 2021

A few notes:

  • The first three paintings are supposed to be gesture studies. I obviously overworked.
  • On the other hand, spending more time designing the background makes the process more interesting and the painting more finished. I like that.
  • Managing an open palette did distract me from better value control and cost more subtlety in skin tone.
  • I am thinking a two-step approach to improve: first spending more time preparing the palette – premixing most of the colors like I did with the Zorn palette; and then use a timer to push for a more gestural result. Two hours? Three? 🙂

Master Studies – Facial Features

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It’s been a while since I did any master studies, and luckily the Watts’ program forced me to catch up. Here are some of the facial features I copied recently:

Eyes – Fechin

Nose – Rembrandt

Lips – Leyendecker

Ear – Bouguereau

A few notes:

  • The reference photos I used are provided by Watts Atelier, and some of them are not very close to the original. For example, I believe the last one is from William-Adolphe Bouguereau (1825 – 1905)’s Portrait de Gabrielle Cot. The original painting is high on realism. This doesn’t really affect the study though.
  • The most difficult thing I found is to re-create the texture, which is achieved by either manipulating the surface (Fechin) or brush strokes (Rembrandt). In the former case, it’s hard to guess how the manipulation was done. As for Rembrandt, it’s a laboring buildup that can’t be achieved in a few hours. For now, I am still focusing on the basics. Texture and brush strokes are like signatures. They are very personal and take long time to form.
  • I find choosing a topic and taking a small portion of the masterpiece to study is more effective than copying a whole painting. I also like the exposure to different styles. Bouguereau and Leyendecker are completely new to me and I find the highly stylized approach from the latter very refreshing.