ZIN STUDIO

Q&A

 

 

What are the good things of painting on location?

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• Your eye can see more colors than camera. Painting from live train your eyes to be sensitive to the original colors. It helps for you to imagine more colors, when you paint from photo. Many artists study value and color from live, bring the studies and photos to studio, and paint larger piece in studio.

 

I used to paint in studio. Would I feel strange when painting outside?

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• During your painting at your easel, you might see strangers, dogs, goose and kids are around you. Enjoy the time and thinking of them as a part of nature we are out to see. To reduce unwanted noisees I plug earphone and listen to my favorite music that would help me to stay within my rhythm.

 

How many canvases do I need? And the size.

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• We may need 1 or 2 of canvases or canvas panel or canvas board or canvas pads. Normally 1 is enough for the duration but 1 more extra for in case inspiration’s sudden come. Around 8 "x10" or 9”x12” size is good.

 

How different a color palette for landscape vs figure would be? 

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• Natural light is cooler than artificial (indoor) light and the nature (water, sky, trees, grass) gives bluer/greener reflected colors. So, cooler earth tone colors are used more than painting figure that is normally under arifitial light and has warmer skin tone.

• Each artist has his/her own palette. Instructor's color palettes for landscape (plein-air) painting are below.

 

Hsin-Yao

• Titanium White

• Naples Yellow Light

• Lemon Yellow

• Cadmium Yellow Light

• Cadmium Red

• Yellow Ocher

• Alizarin Permanent

• Transparent Oxide Red

• Burnt Umber

• Cobalt Blue or Cerulean Blue

• Ultramarine Blue Deep

• Viridian Green

 

Jacob

• Lemon Yellow

• Yellow Ochre

• Permanent Red Medium (Rembrandt) 

• Alizarin Crimson

• Transparent Oxide Red (Rembrandt or M Graham) 

• Viridian

• Ultramarine Blue

• Titanium White 

 

Zin

• Cad. Yellow

• Cad. Red

• Alizarin crimson

• Ultramarin blue

• Pthalo green

• Titanium white

• Ivory black

 

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Is there any basic method (step-by-step) for landscape panting similar to figure painting (i.e. dark values first, edges…)

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• Yes, dark value first and light value later is a general rule applicable for landscape, too. If you were figure painter for a long time and like the way you paint, you don't have to change the work order. Use your most trained method.

 

I find that paintings done outside often appear much darker when taken indoors. How to compensate for the excessive light outside? 

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• Use value scale as an aid. The value scale can be painted, printed or imagenary. When you paint, use the full range of value from lightest to darket.  

 

How to carry wet paintings safe to home?

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• 4 push pins on each cornor of canvas and put it in a thin box. 4 pin holes can be covered by extra paints around the hole, when it is still wet. If the pin holes are still visible, no worry. They can be hidden behind frame.

 

What would you recommend to avoid being distracted by too many details and try to overly render? In other words, how to recognize the shapes that matter and keep the painting simple and interesting?

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• Use large brushes to handle big shapes first and move on to smaller brushes to add details on top of the big ones. This way helps you to build simplified design first and then handle a few of area for more of detail.

 

Do edges matter for landscape painting? If so, should hard edges be around the focal point?

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• Edges matter for any subject. You can combine hard/soft edges in a painting. Creating hard edges around focal point is one of the good ways for strengthen the main area of your painting. (For a specific composition you can make all the edges soft or hard in order to make the even sharpness everywhere.)

 

Would you have any recommendation for the placement of the focal point, horizontal line within the composition?

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• 1/3 rule and golden section are widely used as a basic rule for placement of focal point and other features. By the rule focal point can be placed somewhere off from center and not too close to canvas edges. Horizon line will be 1/3 top or bottom. It is easier way to create efficient visual path on canvas. (You can break the rule for experiment)

 

I understand that for creating distance, more details must be added in the foreground. But what should we do if the focal point is located in the background?

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• If a focal point is in foreground, it's easier to create the both focal point and depth. In case  focal point is in mid-ground or background, make the focal point crisp and other area out focused. It could weaken depth. (But it's okay, cause focal point is more important than spatial depth in a composition.)

 

Composing and editing?

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• Basic aspacts of composition will be covered through lectures and demos. And you will learn how to edit the visual elements; value, color and edge in order to create interesting composition.

 

What a successful landscape composition must have?

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• Interesting value pattern, spatial depth, harmonious color and your soul.