Saturday 3 May 2014

It has been three months since my first oil painting in Qiang Huang's workshop at the Scottsdale Artist School in Arizona.  As I  become more proficient at manipulating oil, I am starting to think about how to use the medium in terms of expression. 

Qiang, paints mostly still life.  His work uses broad lush strokes in high key colour and tone.  This type of painting style is loose and the paint shimmers and dances as it portrays how light falls and reflects off of it's subject.  I have not done much in this style as one needs a bright light source - and I profess that right now, I can't wrap my head around adding more stuff to my small studio.  Other possible approaches to painting include colour, line, pattern, texture, shape,or space. I hope to explore them each on their own merits as I keep exploring oil painting.  

In previous years, my watercolour paintings have explored and pushed the use of space, or volume quite a bit.  Here below are three dry brush watercolour paintings.  
Last Years Maple                        17 x 14". 
The Plight of the Bumblebee        22 x 30"
Sweet Ravages of Time               22 x 30"

Mr. Bumblebee won Best Watercolour in a Botanical Artists of Canada exhibition, while Ravages received the First prize in a Canadian Federation of Artists Show. 

PS: You can check out Qiang Huang at   http://qiang-huang.blogspot.ca