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 .......