Thursday, May 5, 2011

"Green Rhythm" --- Sold

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I feel happy about this one. In my standard, my art has been dwindling in a plateau stage for a long time. These a couple of years, I tried many approaches. However, I have not seen any real break through happening. Now this one is interesting. Why do I say so? Well, let us compare this painting with the one I posted previously. When you see that one, you may say: you painted 5 leaves. However, when you see this one, you may feel I painted many leaves. But that fact is I have seriously painted maybe also 5 leaves. How to make viewer lose count with very low numbers of things depicted is the drama I want to achieve with this painting. I have seen some of Richard Schmid's paintings. You feel he had painted a bush of lush foliages, but if you count, you will find that he only painted 3 leaves with details.

For many years, I was pondering why there are two groups of artists: one group can paint great landscapes but can't painting still lifes and portraits. The other one can do wonderful portraits and still lifes, but bad with landscapes. I think I belong to the second group, but working hard to come out. Very few can excel both. If we analyze, we will see that the landscape painters delineate many things with one or few strokes, and the still life painters depict one thing with many strokes. (BTW, I have an English question: what is the difference between depicting and delineating?)

20 comments:

  1. Hi Qiang Huang

    The Paintings of you 're very beautiful and look lively.

    I like them.

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  2. I have seen much growth in your work Qiang. I think you have peaks and valleys, which is just life. When you have more free time you can do more paintings from a variety of subject matter. I believe you are talented in all subject matter. Your portraits are wonderful as are your still lifes. What makes your work really stand out, is your purity and accuracy of light and color. No mudd!! Your paintings have beautiful clean color. Keep them coming!

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  3. Lovely painting! I do agree that you are moving forward with this one. Regarding your English question, let me see if I can explain the two words. "Depict" means to represent or describe something. "Delineate" means to describe with precision. To "depict" something in a painting might involve a very loose painting with just a suggestion of the subject. To delineate something would tend to mean (I think) that there is more precision, more crafting of boundaries and outlines. A depiction that delineates a subject would be detailed. So, a delineation would be a subset of depiction. Does that make sense to you? I don't know if I have explained this adequately. (I'm not an English teacher by trade--I teach psychology, sociology and political science.) KPF

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  4. It's interesting in my limited years studying great painters of different genres I have made the same discovery -- the great landscape painters are usually mediocre in their still life work and vise versa. I was puzzled by this observation and couldn't figure out why, until seeing your blog today! It's definitely something to keep in mind when analyzing and trying to improve my own work. Thanks for sharing your thoughts on this!

    And the work of the leaves in this one is quite different from your previous posts -- definitely more abstract implication on the supporting ones, instead of more literal depictions. The melody in this painting smoothly fade out on the supporting leaves. Beautifully done! I've learned so much by looking at how you carried it out...

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  5. Hi Qiang, I look forward to your posts in my EMail! I am quite new at art, but I think it is normal to hit plateaus and then feel like we've leveled off, especially when learning something new because it takes time. I am still waiting for my plateau! I think your work is wonderful. You always seem to be growing. You add much beauty to the world, and you do it with a quiet humility. Thank you!

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  6. Those leaves look so REAL! You are really singing these days with your paintings! It's so much fun to see how beautifully well you are doing.

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  7. Love your work.

    Depict and delineate can be interchangeable (according to this dictionary but I think of it this way (in art)...

    Depict just means to show or describe something using a picture.

    Delineate suggests highlighting a specific thing, in detail, by outlining it. In visual art (painting), this would usually mean that you use your brushstrokes/lines to make one thing stand out more than others.

    So you could depict a bowl of fruit and, using shadows, contrasts or other "tools", you could delineate one lemon.

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  8. It's a marvelous painting, Qiang.

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  9. I like both of these still lifes but I must say I agree with you that the latter is more successful. That said, I see that what you were attempting in the first may be harder - to say something simple in a delicate way. The second is more powerful and has that lovely reddish shadow that complements the edges of those three leaves!
    As an old English major I love to ponder questions about language. Or are you being rhetorical? Depict is to picture or show as delineate is to line or draw. When you depict you stir the viewer's imagination and when you delineate, you demand the viewer to agree. As painters or beholders, we prefer the former.

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  10. Beautiful pretty much describes it!

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  11. Depict means literally give/show a picture of in the sense of describe. Delineate also suggests describe but is more the idea of giving an outline of something and would involve giving an outline with words like: plan/idea/scheme/proposal.

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  12. These are some of the most beautiful leaves I've ever seen in a painting. The clean color is what I love the most. Regarding still life, portrait and landscape painters, I think that no matter what the subject, everything can be broken down into correct shape, value and color. If we get those right, our paintings will look right. Learning to apply this in the portrait, landscape and still life situation equally well is the challenge. I think practice is the key, and an excellent painter who has put the time in can paint anything. Or am I just being naive? I would like to hear other opinions.

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  14. Superb painting shared by you SEO this platform

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  15. The sale of Green Rhythm has been completed, and we are now officially a part of the Arbor Day family! To celebrate, we are offering a 10% discount on all orders placed before April 30th. Use Arbor Day discount code at checkout Coupon Followers.

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