Quang Ho Workshop Day 2

Day 2 started with my cutting azaleas off the bushes in our yard (and the neighbors) to take to class. In Houston the azaleas bloom for just a few weeks and it’s that time of year. I put them in water and headed to the workshop.

I was thrilled when Quang liked my pink azaleas. I thought it would be great to see him demo the flowers, I thought I would learn a lot that way.

There was a long table along the side of the room full of things to paint. Someone had brought some bright sunflowers in that red box. Quang’s eyes were constantly searching for something to great to paint and he noticed the sunflowers in the red box. So that’s what he decided to paint. Oh well, he painted a large 24″x24″ beautiful painting of the sunflowers. It made for a very interesting painting, how many times do you see sunflowers in a box?
Here he is in the beginning staged of the painting. It looks like a watercolor. He puts very turpentine-diluted paint washes on the canvas. At this point he’s just putting down broad shapes in the right place.

When he’s happy with his placement of the big thin shapes, then he starts the real painting. I wish I had a photo of this whole painting completed, it is beautiful.

I will summarize some of the things that I have learned so far, and I don’t think there will be any surprises, it’s just good to hear all this over and over again. Quang talked about drawing a lot, many times an artist just paints in a leaf with any old stroke, for example. But each leaf has in unique! You really have to look at that leaf and then make a stroke that represents that leaf, not some generic leaf. In nature, things do not repeat themselves. No two snowflakes are the same. No two leaves will be the same either. It is human nature to want to make things equal, but we, as artists, need to be conscious of making our shapes unique. This is not just drawing, but it’s what he calls “beautiful painting”.

Along these same lines he talked about making every stroke deliberate. Be clear about what is in the light and what is in the shadow. Enjoy painting and enjoy placing every stroke, otherwise we’re just in a hurry to finish the painting and “what’s the point?”.

In the evening I attended a 2 1/2 hour lecture, demo and slide presentation by Quang. He very generously did this for aboaut 80 attendees. Not everyone could (or wanted to) attend the workshop, there were artists and collectors at the presentation.

4 thoughts on “Quang Ho Workshop Day 2”

  1. Sounds like another terrific day for you…
    I can imagine you might be too tired again tonight but I appreciate you sharing the information and the great photos.

  2. …enjoy painting and placing every stroke…making every stroke deliberate. Perfect. Thanks for summarizing…you’re so right that we need to hear it again, and again, and then some more!

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