Quang Ho Workshop Day 3

The third and last day of Quang Ho’s “Light and Shadow” workshop was all about fun. I’ll attend another three days of a landscape workshop with Quang Ho starting Friday. He started the day with a demonstration. When Quang demonstrates, he doesn’t just paint, he really explains what he is doing. He sometimes sits on a stool and just talks to the class about art. Not only did I learn a lot about art (shape, line, form, etc.) but I learned something about how he has internalized all this information, processed it, and then used it to produce beautiful paintings.

As I said, this third day was all about fun. Quang started by doing a demonstration of a pear. He painted the pear, the shadow, and then the background. Once he had his values “correct” to his eye, he started changing colors. This was fun to watch.

It seems a lot of times we might think “I wonder how that would look if it were red?” and instead of actually doing it to find out, we (as artists) decide that it won’t look good so we don’t do it. Quang is so quick with that brush, painting is like breathing to him, that it’s nothing to repaint the background a different color just to see if he likes it. The pear in the photo above went through many mutations with Quang telling us what he was thinking the entire time.

Here is a close up of Quang’s finished pear on his easel. Beautiful!

By now it was time for lunch. Quang has amazing stamina, he’ll start his demo with a lecture at 9:00 a.m. sharp and he doesn’t stop til 12:00 or 12:30 pm! It hurts my head to try to digest all the information he is sharing. For lunch five of us, including Quang, walked to a nearby Bar-B-Q restaurant. Quang lives in Colorado so I think he wanted to have some Texas Bar-B-Q at least once this trip.

After lunch we walked back to the classroom and set up for our own still life painting. I had brought some pears and a blue and white kitchen towel to set up. You can see my painting in progess below, it’s almost finished.

There’s more . . . at the end of the workshop Quang did what most workshop instructors do: he sold some of his paintings. The procedure has been the same at every workshop I’ve ever attended. The artist puts a price on every painting. Quang did 6 demos during the two days and he brought two other paintings. Then a little bowl is placed by each painting, if you are interested in purchasing a certain painting, you write your name on a piece of paper and put that slip of paper in the corresponding bowl. Quang draws a name from each bowl. But, once you have bought a painting and your name is drawn again, you must pass and let someone else have the chance to buy the painting (another name is drawn). If your name is drawn for a painting, you can pass and hope your name will be drawn for another one, maybe one you want more. Quang also donated one of his paintings to the upcoming art auction to raise money for the art organization that hosted his workshop.

So, the good news is that I put my name in ONE bowl and guess what, Quang drew my name! Yay! So I came home with one of his paintings. I should have taken a better photo of the painting today in the sunlight, but I did take a photo of it during the demonstration. I’ll post that one. I love it! And it will always remind me of this amazing workshop.

Today I literally had to rest, but I’m recovered now and ready to start the three day landscape workshop with Quang in Friday. I’ll post about that workshop too.