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.

Village Plein Air

 

This one took me a long time. On the foundation of the previous painting, I have learned that transparent oxide red by itself will not give me accurate warm color. I have to add yellow ochre to drive my greys into the right direction. My ref photo wasn't good enough for this project, I have changed composition significantly. Thanks to Master Hsin-Yao Tseng, and Master Chien Chung Wei for helping me to compose the painting differently. Now I feel content for my warms and cools. I also investigated how to vary the "tint" of color to thoroughly move the colors in the color space. Tint is a parameter of color telling how green or purple a color is. Next time when I upgrade the apps, I will put tint in.  

A village painting study

 

I copied a painting of an infamous artist to practice my color temperature control. The warm and cool were varied by mixing proportionally transparent oxide red (TOR) and Portland gray deep (PGD). The objective of this project is to make the color temperature relationship correct for the light/shadow, and near/far fields. With a home-made color temperature metrology, I use my apps to measure color temperature numerically. If I did this project correctly, I should achieve two visual effects: 1, all 3D structures will looks vividly solid with a consistent local color invariance between light and shadow; 2,  although I used very low chroma colors (grays), the painting would not look muddy. Please be noted: this is a NOT a monochromatic painting. It has two colors: orange (TOR warm) and blue (PGD cool). I am working in the dark by myself now, but I want to keep you posted.

Albert Handell's painting workshop

 

Happy Holidays my artist friends. I can't believe that 2024 is almost over. I have been enjoying my holidays. Relatively quiet, I have been painting and thinking about both art and science. I have not posted much of my own work because I am doing so many experiments, and my images are not that showable. I am re-learning so many things. Meanwhile, I am in awe of so many wonderful master artists doing exceptional excellent work. I want to promote more of their teachings. So I want to remind you that the famous artist master Albert Handell will come to Austin again and teach an 5 days oil and pastel painting workshop in January 2025. With vibrant colors and exquisite textures, Albert's paintings are so phenomenal and his techniques are unique. It is a great opportunity to learn from Albert. Please check the workshop information on  https://www.qhart.com/albert-handell-2025 and sign up.

Qiang's 2025 Painting Calendar

 

As usual at this holiday season, I have made a desk calendar for the coming new year 2025. Sorry to said I am a little late this year to announce this. You may preview my painting images and purchase one or more on https://www.qhart.com/store/2025-calendar.  I can't believe 2024 is almost over. I am so grateful that so many of you are supporting me. Without your help, it is not possible I can survive in this treacherous time. If you think my painting, teaching, and all the related work I do are useful, that will make me very happy. Thank you so much.