"Golden Time Stories"

 

"Golden Time Stories", Sims Library, Waxahachie, TX. Painted plein air plus a few studio touches.

Qiang Huang Still Life Workshop Reminder

 

The last workshop I teach in 2025 will be at home. As a matter of fact, I have not taught workshops in Austin for quite a few years. I travelled too much.  So I feel wonderful to have this opportunity. The workshop is almost full. I may have only a couple of openings. For the artists who like the way I paint, I hope you take this last minute chance to sign up. I will share all I know about painting with you. Please check: https://www.qhart.com/qiang-huang-2025.

Colorful Cactus

 

Many landscape artists start their paintings with intense warm colors (like red, orange, yellow, or pink). They use those vibrant colors to do a transparent wash as the under painting, then they put more realistic colors on top. I don't understand why they do this. I thought this approach destroys our ability to judge color correctly. If we put a color on top of a massive red color, its appearance will be affected by its background. It will shift toward the green since we judge this color relative to the red background.  You can't say my logic was wrong, so for many years I use neutrals (brown or gray) to start my painting. It is safe, but I ended up many boring paintings... I have just woke up recently.   I started this painting with a bloody red wash. I had to overwrite the relative color deception. I like its turned out. It is much more exciting. 

To the mountain

 

I did the 2nd mountain painting in the village. I paid attention to the layers difference from the near to afar. I feel very satisfied with the painting conditions here. It is different here and I don't have the painting gears I used to use in the States, but I managed get job done. The way of living is so different. I have to use a whole different set of apps on the phone to conduct my everyday errands. It is inconvenient at the beginning, but I have adapted the life here and start to enjoy many unique advantages. 

Backyard Plein Air 062125

 I am all over the place. A couple of days ago, I was into monochrome. Now I am with the high chroma colors to depict the feeling of light. You never know what is in your heart, but simply follow it.

Still Life Study 061925

 

I was having lunch with an artist friend yesterday. He asked me: "You have done so much research about color, but how come you paint so many paintings that there is NO color on them?" That was a very good question. Yes, I did a lot in my color study, and have learned a lot, but understanding "why" would not give me immediately the "how" to show effects on my paintings. However, painting with no color is actually a good practice of understanding the basics of color. This value study shows how important of the black-n-white relationship making a painting work. Secondly, this one shows how to make the transparent and opaque paints work together. Third, even on this monochromatic painting, the color temperature relationship from dark to light is still playing an important role to hold the painting together. 

Still Life Study 060425

 

I really enjoyed my quiet time. By alternating painting and researching, I let my heart to decide what I do. I did this one a few days ago. I am pondering if I should move my still life painting into a different direction.

QH Art Studio 2026 Workshops

 

June is the month I plan the events for the coming year 2026. I feel the time goes by much faster now than a few years ago. As usual, I will travel quite a lot and teach workshops all over the country. I also invite a few top-notch artists coming to Austin to teach. I know it is still early to register workshops for the next year, but it is always good to take the opportunity as early as possible. I am pretty sure the time will go even faster after June 2025. When I was in science, we took for granted that time is constant. Now I am in art, all the rules are made to be broken.

Lavender Lilies

 

Keep on posting my Wayne paintings. This plein air piece was done at Chanticleer, an astonishingly beautiful garden in Wayne. When I got there, I saw a few giant tanks full of water, and the water surface was beautifully decorated with floating flowers. The gardener who did this must be a great color designer. She used the left over flowers from pruning the flower beds, and created the beautiful arts of color. So I had no choice but painting them.

The plein air festival has ended, but I still have quite a few paintings displaying at the Wayne Art Center. If you are happen to be in or near the area, please go and check them out. 

Yao Zhi Study

 

During my quiet time at home, I decided to go back to the drawing board, literally. I like the drawings by Yao Zhi. This is my study of his way of black-n-white relationships and his edge control.

Quiet Time

 

I have got some quiet time at home, and want to paint a few large ones. Getting a period of time for self use is really a blessing. It rare nowadays to have a chance for just to BE. Not being anybody or anything, just to BE.

Spectrum of Terrain

 

Continue posting my Wayne paintings. I did not have a good starting that day. I thought I had a good idea for my first painting, but it did not turn out the way I wanted. I felt puzzled after lunch, and had no idea what I wanted to paint. So I let it go. Started this one without too much thought. I was under the sun and the wind was strong, but I was enjoyed the process. The turn out was much better than my first one. Recently, I have had so many experiences that things did not happen the way I planned. I had no control, and the art was not created by me.

Still life painting workshop in Austin

 

I have got quite a few comments mentioning that I have taught painting workshops in many places, but I have not offered one in Austin ,where I live, for a long time. That is definitely an issue I need to improve. So I have scheduled one. I am please to announce that I will teaching a "Painting Dynamic Still Lives" workshop in Austin (Volente to be exact) in December 2025. The detailed information has published on my website. I really appreciate a few friends who have already signed up even before this announcement. For other friends, if you are interested my painting approaches, please check: https://www.qhart.com/qiang-huang-2025. Thanks.

 

Snowball Azalais

 

This is my second plein air painting at Wayne.

Farm Blossoms

 

I have participated the 17th Wayne Plein Air Festival from May 4 to May 11. I have decided only painting floral subjects this time. I want to use this opportunity to experiment my new limited palette. My new palette has only 6 colors plus white. They are cadmium red light, transparent oxide red, cadmium yellow lemon, phthalo green, ultramarine blue and quinacridone magenta. Floral painting requires high chroma colors. I want to test the mixing capacity of this limited palette. I have seen positive results. This is my first painting at Wayne.

Backyard Pansies

 

I have not painted plein air for a while, and soon I will participate a plein air competition. So I did this one in my backyard to warm up and check if I am adequately equipped before travel.

Richard Schmid Study

 

I just love Richard Schmid paintings. I don't think my life time is long enough for me to learn from him. Copying his work is one of the best ways of learning from the master. 

 I will teach a 4-day Flowers and Still Lives Painting workshop in Landgrove, VT. We still have a few openings. If you want to learn my painting approaches, please check: https://www.artworkshopsatthelandgroveinn.com/huang-still-life-workshop. Thanks

Demo 4 at SAS

 

This is my 4th demo on the workshop at Scottsdale Artists School. The students liked my high key painting better. Low key lets the value to tell the story, but high key gives more opportunity to the color. My color still needs a lot of work, but I think it gets closer.

China 2025

 I am cordially inviting you to join us to this one of a kind of touring and painting trip this September. We are organizing a 15 days painting and sightseeing in China trip. The detailed information and itinerary of this exotic trip are listed in the webpage: https://www.qhart.com/china-2025. 

We are living in a very special time. The world is changing. There is too much information, and we don't have a clear idea who is telling the truth. However, I still believe that most people are kind and companionate. We want to share the beauty of the world, and enjoy reuniting with old friends and meeting new ones. I think the best way to know if a piece of information is right is to check it with your own experiences. The world is full of beautiful and peaceful places. We should spend our limited life time wisely. We have organized successfully six international painting events so far. I hope you can take advantage of this unique opportunity.

Demo 3 at SAS

 

My 3rd demo at SAS last month was a floral painting. I hope you like it.

Painter's Guide App on iPhone

 

We have been developing computer apps for helping artists to paint better. So far I have used my website as a carrier so artists can use the apps for free. Since we designed the apps mainly for computer and iPad users, these tools do not display well on phones. Recently, I spent some time redesigned the user interface of the "Painter's Guide" app so it looks well on iPhones. If you are a plein air painter, you may simply snap a photo of the scene, and view the color data immediately with the app on your phone. Please follow the simple instructions shown with above images to use this app. I hope this simple tool can help you to clarify the colors you see. Painting practice shouldn't be confusing and ambiguous any more.

SAS Demo 2

 

Demo 2 at SAS was emphasized on value. The chromatic effects got minimized. If you can manage the value right, you are not far from successful. You know I have spent massive amount of time doing color research, but I know that is all icing on the cake. 

SAS Demo 1

 

I have taught a workshop at Scottsdale Artists School about a week ago. Thanks to all the artists coming from all over for attending my class. I have tried my best and will keep on trying to make my teaching more effective. I hope your art have been improved since the workshop. Because I believe the fare way to evaluate if a teacher is doing the job right is the progress of the students' paintings. I hope my work satisfies your requirement.

Water Cascade Study

 

Recently, I organized a painting workshop for the master artist Albert Handell, and I did this one on his class. I am still in the mood of researching of grays. I have enjoyed the color subtlety and it is closely related to my previous village paintings. I hope my color will have more chromaticity soon, but now I want stay in grey a little longer.

Painting Pingyao

 

I am painting a scene of Pingyao, an ancient city in Shanxi province, China. This coming September I will stay at this place and do plein air painting with a group of artists. So I am better to be prepared. This painting is not done, but I want to share with you how I started. It has been so enjoyable seeing the painting evolves right in front of my eyes. This time I don't want the painting to be too tight, so I deliberately to keep of my early spontaneous marks. As the details come more and more, it will gets harder to keep it loose. We will see. If you are interested in going with me to this exotic place, please check: https://www.qhart.com/china-2025. We will have a lot of fun there.

Painter's Guide App 4.0

 

I have just upgraded the "Painter's Guide" app. The major change is the data display dashboard. I have added a new color parameter called the "Tint", which measures how green or purple a color is. As a matter of fact, the color temperature and tint are two orthogonal axes forming a Cartesian coordinate system crossing the color wheel. The conventional hue/chroma polar system and the temperature/tint Cartesian system can be transformed from each other. We artists usually emphasize on color temperature, but not on tint. So we have only 50% of information the nature offers us. After I put the "tint" bar on the data display, the dashboard shows a marvelous symmetry. I was stunned by its mathematical beauty.  If something looks good, it usually means something is significant.

The "Painter's Guide" app is a computer tool created by two engineers and myself. It helps artists to see color more accurately. It is also a measurement tool helping us to understand the behavior of the color. The app is free for anybody to use. Please visit: https://www.qhart.com/apps and press the "Painter's Guide 4.0" button. I hope it will help you to make your painting process easier. 

Derek Penix's painting workshop

 

Although we still say "Happy New Year" to greet each other, 2025 has already passed its first week mark. I am getting so busy alternating painting, color research, communications with friends, plan for future events, and so on. Many of you are probably living and working very similarly. No matter how much out of control I am, I try to keep cool, at least I appear to be. However, when a real master works, the situation is the opposite. They are in control for sure, but they appear they can achieve what they want casually. They have all the freedom on their side. This kind of feeling reminds me Derek Penix's painting process. He seems start his painting pretty randomly, but he is in control for sure. His mind follows his plans. His colors and mark making appears arbitrary, but he establishes accurate relationships in value, temperature, geometry, and all other design elements. It is so exciting to watch Derek paints, and his teaching has wealth of information about his think process. I am so happy to let you know: Derek Penix comes to Austin again and teach a 3-day painting workshop next month. We still have few openings at this moment, please take this opportunity to sign up at https://www.qhart.com/dereks-workshop-2025 as soon as possible.

Village painting study 2

 

Continued working on this painting. Concentrated still on the accuracy of the greys. Measured and compared numerically. This is rather an engineering project than an artistic one, but it is OK. After I figure out all the engineering issues, I will then do art. I feel content so far, even I can't really verbalize what is going on. I feel I have adequate amount of tools now to put "grey" under control. I feel I am learning like an AI robot. At the beginning, I am so slow, and clumsy. Until one day, I really get it. I will .......  

China 2025

 

I am very excited to let you know that I have just planned a "Painting in China" trip for the coming 2025.  It is called "Painting and Sightseeing in China 2025". It will be on September 14 - 28, 2025 for 15 days. From 2013 to 2019, we have conducted 5 China painting trips. For each trip, a group of artists traveled together in China for two weeks. In the middle of the trip, we stayed in a special place and had a casual painting workshop. During the two weeks together, we developed a long lasting friendship and improved our painting skills. After a thorough investigation, I have selected the Pingyao Ancient City in Shanxi province as our main painting location for China 2025. After so many years of economic development, the old Chinese culture has suffered significant damage. Old buildings have been destroyed and replaced by high-rises. However, Shanxi province has preserved its heritage much better than the rest of the country due to its relatively slow development. We will stay in a genuine historical place and experience the good old days. At the same time, we have arranged high standard accommodations to guarantee the trip to be comfortable and enjoyable. Please check China 2025 webpage for more information about this new China trip. Please be aware that the openings are limited, so please take advantage of this special opportunity and sign up as quickly as possible. I am looking forward to meeting you in 2025 and we will have another great time of painting and fun in spectacular exotic places.