Painting with a North Light

Qiang Huang, a prolific painter and art instructor, will be teaching a Still Life workshop at Whidbey Island FineArt Studio in May 2013. Qiang’s paintings show remarkable accuracy under lush brush strokes. This is partly due to his focus on light distribution as well as his manipulation of values, colors, and edges.

Many years ago, Qiang watched a video with David Leffel painting Still Life. David talked about the importance of using a natural north light when painting. Wanting to have as natural north light as possible to paint by, Qiang set out to find an artificial light that would replicate natural north light.

Qiang began to experiment with lights. He discarded using a fluorescent light because it does not have a continuous spectrum light like the sun, so it does not give the color accuracy of the pigment. Instead, Qiang focused on tungsten and halogen lights. He discovered that the best solution was to use Philips’ Natural Light Plus (Par 16 Flood), 60W and add color correcting light filters.

These blue tinted transparencies are easy to use. You simply clip the filter on the reflector of your lamp. Once you do this, you have created your own north light. You can read more about creating your own north light and ordering color correcting light filters on Qiang Huang’s website.

Qiang shared with us a little more about his painting.

What is your standard palette of colors?

My Palette: Naples Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Yellow Light, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Red Light, Alizarin Crimson, Transparent Oxide Red (or Burnt Sienna), Ultramarine Deep, Phthalo Blue, and Titanium White. I like Rembrandt oil colors, but other brands are fine too. I use Winton as well.

What type of canvas do you use?

I like to use primed and stretched canvas. I also use canvas panels from RayMar, or loose canvas. I do not use paper backed canvas panels. They are too absorptive.

What kind of medium do you use?

Most of the time, I don't use any medium. I use paint directly out of the tube. I occasionally use Liquin if I want the painting dry faster. I use mineral spirit to wash my brushes.

Do you use retouch varnish when your paintings are dry to the touch?

Yes, I do. I use Demar retouch varnish spray a week after the painting is done. If I have the painting more than three months, I coat the painting with a permanent varnish with a soft brush.

You can view more of Qiang’s paintings on his dailypainting blog.

Staying Focused with Gregg Kreutz

“Gregg Kreutz is a glass-half-full type of guy.”

“Gregg is a wonderful teacher and superb artist.”

“Gregg is the nicest, most humble, and personable teacher, while being a wonderful and gifted artist.”

“It was wonderful to see Gregg paint. He just smears the oil paint on, dividing it into light and shadow parts, and then pulls out the details.”

These are just a few of the comments students have made in regards to Gregg Kreutz and his teaching style. 

Gregg Kreutz is a full-time painter and teaches at the Art Students League of New York, as well as art schools around the United States. He is also the author of the book Problem Solving for Oil Painters. Gregg’s book is not a typical how-to art book. Rather, he describes principles and techniques that keep a painting unified and free of fussy details.

"Learning to paint is learning what things really look like," Gregg says. "Details are always trying to lure us to our doom, but you have to be strong and keep your eyes on the big issues. That's more interesting than saying 'make the sky darker.' If you're only copying the look of things, there is something dead or useless in that."

You can watch Gregg paint in this YouTube video. Over the course of three hours during a morning class, Gregg demonstrates how to paint the figure from a live model.

In addition to being a painter, and the author of a book, Gregg has also written three full length plays that are published by Samuel French. They have been and continue to be performed worldwide.

Whidbey Island Fine Art Studio has the privilege of hosting a workshop by Gregg Kreutz in April. This four day class will focus on the art of picture making; how a person, a view, and/or a collection of things can be turned into a unified whole. Through demonstrations and one-on-one instruction, Gregg Kreutz will explore different strategies to turn the seemingly random into a harmonious unit. 

Gregg will have encouragement for each student. For he says, "In any painting there's always something that's working. Expand on that, and don’t slip into this-is-a-disaster feeling."

Tip of the Month

YouTube is filled with videos that give drawing, painting, and sculpting tips.

If you want to improve your drawing, watch this video is by ProkoTV. He has a series of eight videos showing how to draw facial features. The video starts with the eyes.

Watch and learn!

Discipline and Hard Work

Discipline and hard work. These are two essential ingredients to being self-supporting artist. Just ask Anne Belov. 

Anne tries to be in her studio by 9 AM every morning to paint. In her 35 years as an artist, Anne has painted landscapes, still life, and interior imagery. Her bold and direct brushwork results in captivating imagery that expresses the bond she feels with her subject. Anne says, “My paintings are about my life…where I live, work in the garden, sit in a comfortable chair to read. I refuse to be limited to one subject matter or even one medium. I have worked in watercolor, oils, printmaking (etching, lithography, and monoprint), egg tempera, and drawing.”

Hard work and discipline has kept Anne busy even with the recent slow-down in our economy. With slower sales, Anne decided to use her free time to push the boundaries of her creativity into new directions. Using Kickstarter, Anne ran a successful campaign to raise almost $7,000 in funds to self-publish a wordless children’s picture book, Pandamorphosis. The book was fueled by her obsession with pandas and her panda cartoons which she has been drawing for the past five years. She started a blog, Your Brain on Pandas, in 2009 to showcase these panda cartoons because she says, “My friends got tired of me chasing them down the street with a stack of cartoons clenched in my fist yelling, ‘Tell me they're funny!  Please!  Hey! Wait, you didn't read the one about the panda kindergarten yet!’”

Anne will be teaching a class on Egg Tempera for Whidbey Island Fine Art Studio in April 2013. Anne primarily works in oil on linen glued to hardboard. She uses traditional recipes for egg-oil emulsion rabbit skin glue gesso to create a more absorbent ground than acrylic or oil based gessoes. Subsequent layers of paint create the depth and luminosity that characterize her evocative paintings.

You can follow Anne on her art blog at http://nothingoverlooked.wordpress.com.

Sculpture with Edward Eyth and Tip of the Month

Did you know we will be having a sculpture workshop next year in June.

Edward Eyth 

Figurative Sculpture

Edward Eyth provides artists with insights attained throughout his extensive career as artist, designer, college instructor and director of the Richard MacDonald Masters Workshops for over five years.

His drawing and sculpture workshops include discussions and comprehensive demonstrations that provide participants with methods for genuine artistic advancement. Working from a live model each day, students come to understand and assimilate the habits and methods that facilitate a solid, consistent artistic process. A dependable studio process promotes self-reliance and an inherent freedom for unhindered creative expression.

In the three day program we do a new pose each day, and while it doesn't provide time for a lot of detail & refinement, it DOES motivate a faster process.  With the luxury of 5 days, we could still do three figures, but spend two days on two of the poses.  Or 4 figures, spending 2 days on one of the poses.
check out our website at: http://www.whidbeyislandfas.com/workshops/eeyth_2013.html

Tip of the month:

 Fast Gesso Panel:

You can easily mount linen to a board with gesso.

Just seal the board, paint gesso all over liberally. Then paint gesso all over,: the cut to size linen.

Lay it on the board both painted sides facing. use a brayer.

Paint Gesso all over the right side of the linen. Brayer again. Wash brayer.

Let dry, sand down and gesso again, sand again or leave the texture.

The linen will shrink a bit. After this process, you can use Gamblin Ground for an oil finish, or use it like it is. I like my substrates smooth and will sand and layer.

Cary

Wow what a wonderful workshop with Michael Klein, we all painted with natural light and the result is so different. Michael was a patient and dedicated instructor and we hope he comes back next year after his trip to Argentina.
See his website at www.michaelkleinpaintings.com and his video magazine : http://www.americanpaintingvideomagazine.com/

A Standard for Painting

American Still Life painter Jeff Legg will often tell his art students to just stop and really look at what they are painting and figure out how to paint it.  Jeff emphasizes three things in his art workshops:

1. Basic setup
2. Composition
3. Paint color and quality

These three things are pretty much Jeff’s standard for painting. 

Jeff Legg’s artwork is often described as "masterful, ethereal, and timeless." Every painting is an intimate conversation between artist and viewer. One believes you can reach into the scene and actually touch the objects.

In his art workshops, Jeff spends time demonstrating his approach and techniques. There is a lot to be learned from watching other artists paint. Spending time watching Jeff paint and discuss each step of his work brings a rich learning experience to the student in Jeff’s workshops.

Of his painting, Jeff states, “"My desire is to convey a personal vision through classical methods using the various visual tools and principals, not expressly to make a record, but to re-create the mood or feeling of the person, place or object before me." And he will teach you to do this also.

To get a sense of Jeff’s teaching style and technique, you can watch this video from a previous class Jeff taught at Whidbey Island Fine Art Studio where he demonstrated techniques for still life painting.

Jeff’s work is represented by some of the nation’s most distinguished galleries coast to coast. He is honored as an Oil Painters of America Master painter and has won numerous prizes. We invite you to come to WIFAS and learn from this master painter next month.