Summer head study 8

Available at Waterhouse Gallery.

The model agreed me to take a picture, so I post it here with my painting.

Lot of artists knows that the idea and technique are very important for an artist. Here is another element I want to talk a little bit today, I call it - Art taste.

The Art taste for me includes the taste of idea, the taste of technique, the taste of composition etc, and each element includes more sub elements, for example, the taste of composition includes the taste of shape composition, the taste of value composition, the taste of color composition and so on, each of them could be a big topic to talk but I can’t talk too much here.

The Art taste decides the painting style because the artist paint the thing that they think is good; also they pick the technique that they think is good too. It’s important for an artist to have a good Art taste when you choose the idea, the technique, the composition, and the color combination… for you painting.

If you have a good Art taste, then you know how to pick the things to paint when you face to your object. You will know what you need to paint even the thing (shape, value, color or texture) is not exist there; you also know what you don’t need to paint even the thing is just in front of you eyes. This is very important because we are artist not a camera.

How to improve the Art taste? I think it’s more from our life experience. Music, book, design and much more, see more and think more, LEARN FROM THE NATURE.

I don’t know where my seven years old daughter learned from, and she said this to me: Be smart, use your brain! I answered: Ok, I will. I think she was joking to me, but it works here :)

Summer head study 7

I did this study on Monday and just no time to upload it because I was busy in paint my house. Yes, my house, not my canvas. My wife wanted to find guys to paint it, but I bravely said: (I hope I didn’t say that) “I can do this because I can paint on the canvas so the wall.” Then I spent 3 days to finish this job, no idea needed here but lot of labor.

Today, I want to talk a little bit about my painting philosophy, hope it’s not too boring.

I never talked to anybody before but I find that my painting philosophy is from Chinese philosophy Dao. I don’t want to talk about Dao here, but it dose apply to everything in this world.

When I paint a painting, I will think about the shape (big and small), the value (dark and light), the color temperature (warm and cool), the texture (thin and thick), and the edge (hard and soft). That’s all come from nature, all belong to “Yin and Yang” which is Dao’s theory.

Dao talked about keep the balance of Yin and Yang. A good artist knows how to balance the Yin Yang too. I heard a chef said that add a little salt if you want your food sweeter. Same thing when I paint something, I may need something small if I want to paint something big; I will use dark if I want to show something very light; I may need to use some purple around if I feel my yellow looks not yellow enough; I may need to paint some part just by wash if I want to represent some thick texture. So in a painting, big supports small, small supports big, warm supports cool, cool supports warm and so on… this is nature.

Dao also talked about the nature, and I believe that too. I think my idea should from the nature; my paint technique should follow the nature because everything is from the nature. Two years ago, my friend Qiang Huang visited me when I just restarted paint, and we talked about need the power for our painting and we couldn’t get the answer, but now I think I found the answer – learn from the nature.

Summer head study 4