Xi Wang Blog: November 2011

I have recently been commissioned to illustrate a book cover in a photorealistic style. I reminisced at the time straight after high school where I attended Adam Chang's oil painting classes in Summer Hill. He has become the finalist many times at the Archibald prize which is a prestigious portraiture prize in Australia. I attended a few of his sketching and life drawing classes when I was 14. I saw a massive painting of Danielle Spencer (the wife of Russel Crowe) on his wall. It was just an image of her head and in an impressionistic style. From then on, I was so aspired to become an artist of his calibre. He taught me the importance of learning to draw and sketch well. If you can learn and sketch well then you can paint well. Even though I attended a few of his classes in oil painting I tried to absorb as much as I can and practise extensively at home.

These were paintings created from 2006-2008. These were referenced very closely to photographs and advertisements I found in Vogue and other fashion magazines. At that time, I couldn’t afford a camera so I tried to paint in a photorealism style to compensate for this and plus I wanted to improve my painting techniques. Looking back, even though for some people it might seem boring but I loved to spend time in front of my easel and large canvas and paint using oils. I loved the slow drying nature of it- how I can still blend into the wet paint underneath even after a few hours. I haven’t touched oils since 2009. I believe that even though I am still illustrating from 2009 to present experimenting with a whole range of techniques such as Photoshop, Acrylics, colour pencils, paper etc. nothing beats the good old oils which is why I’m making a goal to keep on painting with oils again.