Qiang Huang Oil Painting Workshop

Shell Game
12 x 12 Painting
 by Pat Fiorello

 Feeling inspired tonight after completing a 3 day oil painting workshop with Qiang Huang.  The painting above is one I did while in teh workshop yesterday. Qiang (pronounced Chong) is an amazing artist and an excellent instructor.  While he is very accurate on shapes, value, color, and has a wonderful sense of design for his compositions, what I think his true genius is is how he handles edges. This elevates his work from merely a realist "portrait" of a still life, to a true piece of expressive art with a sense of life and mystery.

Here were Qiang's demo pieces from the workshop. The first 2 were more in the traditional style he's know for, with dramatic values and dark backgrounds. Today he did something totally different, a colorful high key painting with a light background.

Qiang Huang demo #1

Qiang Huang demo #2

Qiang Huang demo #3

I thoroughly enjoyed the workshop and am inspired to keep working at consciously making choices when it comes to edge work to bring a more "painterly" look to my own work. The thing that non-painters might find hard to believe is that it is harder to make a truly wonderful painterly/loose piece of art than it is to make a realistic painting. The masters we marvel at, like Qiang in oils and Charles Reid in watercolor, who I have also studied with, Richard Schmid  (and I'd bet John Singer Sargeant, Sorolla  etc..  if we could  have watched them paint)  work very hard and deliberately to have their paintings appear loose and painterly. Their paintings appear casually and spontaneously done, but believe me it's no accident. It requires careful design choices, concentration and self restraint to say more with less.

Thanks to Donna Thomas, owner of the Art School in Sandy Springs for bringing such a great talent for us to learn from here in Atlanta.

With Qiang in front of today's demo painting

I've been to several great workshops this year and have both participated and led many workshops over the past 20 years, so I decided to share some tips on "How to Make the Most of Your Painting Workshop Experience" in a series this week in my blog. So stay tuned ( sign up for email delivery if you're interested) for more...