Exchange with social media friends – Firm and Soft Edges in Drawing 答網友問 – 素描中的虛與實 Dear Mr. Yim, I love drawing and have watched your drawing video lessons many times. I’m mesmerized by the firm and soft edges and texture in your drawing and would like to emulate, but it’s hard for me to put the theory of firm and soft edges into practice. What is your advice for mastering firm and soft edges in drawing? 冉茂芹老师，您好，我是名素描爱好者，在网上观看您的素描的视频已经许多次，您画里的虚实让我着迷，想学习到，但在自己的绘画实践中总是找不到虚实的感觉。 所以想问问冉茂芹老师，您画里的虚实，有没有什么秘诀可以掌握呢？ My reply: Firm and soft edges in drawing is an artistic concept. The firm and soft edg ..read more

Happy holidays! We are offering 25% off for books and video lessons until 12/06. Please enter code HappyHolidays for checkout.   How to create narrative paintings (part 3)  This is a follow-up post of the previous two posts (links below) and part 2 of case study Taiwan Forefathers – Reaching Shore How to create narrative paintings (part 1) How to create narrative paintings (part 2)   Character changes Making structuring changes resulted in a very rough composition. The relationship of the characters also had to be restructured and this was what made this painting so difficult to ..read more

This is a follow-up post to the previous post about how to create narrative paintings. In this post and the next, I’m going to share my experience in creating Taiwan’s Forefathers – Reaching Shore in two parts: The first part introduces the conceptual sketch, pencil study and color study as well as how the oil painting evolved over major revisions to arrive at its final state. The second part details the study and creation of key characters in the painting. It also includes reference pictures I took when I went on a field trip to Fujian in Southern China where early Taiwanese immigrants came ..read more

Narrative painting is the most challenging genre in realistic art. It’s labor intensive and time consuming. It requires a solid foundation of drawing and sketching and adept portrait painting skills. It’s challenging and painstaking to create a narrative painting but perhaps the most fulfilling once you have the figures and story you have in mind rendered on canvas. I sometimes get questions about how to render ideas on canvas and how to select a subject. In this blog post and the next two, I’m going to share my experience in creating narrative paintings.   ..read more

Note: The article below recounts a painting trip to Xiangxi (Western Hunan), China in 1988, and is a snapshot of China at the time, roughly a decade after the end of the Cultural Revolution and Deng Xiaoping opened up the country, and right before the 1989 crackdown at Tiananmen Square in Beijing. It was a time of rapid economic development. The country was full of hopes and curiosity about the outside world. Thirty years forward, more than nostalgia, I wanted to introduce you to my hometown through some of the paintings I did on the trip, along with travel anecdotes and local history and cult ..read more

I have written about the benefits of small plein air painting and how and why it can help improve color observation skills. Suppose you are totally convinced and would like to give it a try or you simply love to paint outdoors, what should you bring? Sure, you can probably load as much gear as you want into your car if you’re driving. But what about plein air painting during your travel or hiking? Over the years, I have traveled extensively and painted wherever I go. The gear I carry with me are pretty much the same. I have listed them below in case you’re interested. Please note that this sup ..read more

I’ve been meaning to write about my friendship with Chen Yifei for a number of years. I put off putting pen to paper however because he had just passed away and it may give the impression of trying to ride on his coattails. Now is a slightly better time to write about it.   好幾年前我就想寫一寫我與陳逸飛的一段交往，但遲遲未動筆，因為陳逸飛去世不久，不好讓人以為我有攀附之心，今天再來寫就可以輕鬆一點了。   Chen Yi-Fei was a household name towards the end of the Cultural Revolution. Red Flag, a Communist Party magazine published by the central government, took the unprecedented step of including his portrait in gouache of Jin Xunhuaas a full-color in ..read more

I am best known as an oil painter. But before I took the path down oil painting, I spent considerable time practicing Chinese ink painting. My experience with the East and West art systems over the years have yielded some interesting observations, one of them being similarities in principles between Chinese landscape paintings and Cubism pioneered by Picasso.   作爲一名畫家，可能大家最熟知的是我的油畫。但在我走上油畫的道路之前, 我花了相當多的時間在中國水墨畫上。多年來, 我在東西方藝術體系方面的經驗使我有一些有趣的觀察, 其中之一是中國山水畫和畢卡索立體主義原理上的相似之處。   The East and West are two distinct art systems. How then are Song-Yuan Dynasty landscapes related to Picasso and ..read more

素描的長河   I was a student at the Affiliated High School of the Guangzhou Academy of Fine Arts in the early 1960s. When I first saw the drawings of the human form that Prof. Guo Shaogang (郭紹綱) brought back after studying in the Soviet Union as an exchange student, I was absolutely stunned! In the summer of that same year, I traveled to Beijing and visited the Xu Beihong Memorial Hall where I saw many of the original drawings made by the great master. Drawing has been my lifelong passion ever since. In the 1990s, I visited Europe and the U.S. There I gave particular attention to the drawings ..read more

In a movie, there are ninety minutes to two hours to tell a story which usually includes setup, confrontation, climax and resolution. In an ad, there are thirty seconds to catch the audience’s attention and hopefully persuade them to take some action with what marketers call reason to believe (RTB). But how do you tell a story in a painting that has merely a few seconds to catch someone’s attention so that he/she will stop and explore further. Inspiration of subject matter depends on one’s cultural background, education and life experience. It could be a book you read, a folk story in your cul ..read more