Wennie Huang
Artist’s Statement
These watercolor portraits painted in the last year as live demonstrations for online studio classes reveal the irony, especially for city dwellers, that the pandemic rendered seeing faces a novelty isolated to digital screens.
Unlike opaque media, painting in transparent watercolor requires the foresight to reserve the white of the paper as the "light" in the painting. Creating light requires the restraint of not painting, or painting least, the lightest shapes. The following three portraits show how the white paper is preserved unpainted in different areas, depending on relative values created by light falling on face, fabric and background. Light reveals a painter's foresight in a watercolor painting, and preserving the light implies the soulful glow of human consciousness.
Father’s Foresight
9x12
Van Gogh Watercolor on Arches 120 Cold Press
2020
Father's Foresight is my very own painting of my dad, painted in May 2020 from a casual iPhone snapshot, using three "Old Master" colors, Ultramarine Blue, Burnt Sienna, and Alizarin Crimson. I reserved the white paper in the lit planes of his white cap and deepened the background for contrast. A mathematician, my father oftentimes has a faraway look in his eyes, and indeed he is wise. (But don't tell him I said so).
Portrait of Jenne in Rapture
9x12
Van Gogh Watercolor on Arches 120 Cold Press
2020
Portrait of Jenne in Rapture, was painted in October 2020 from a live iPad feed of the model posing over Zoom for my class demo. Using the "Old Master" primary palette, I reserved the white of the paper for Jenne's porcelain complexion and the lit planes of the white head cloth, recalling a nun's habit. I relished preserving white in Jenne's large sparkling blue eyes, where she was able to maintain for hours this expression of deep rapture.
Metallic Mamadou
9x12
Van Gogh Watercolor on Arches 120 Cold
2021
Metallic Mamadou, was painted in March 2021, using Van Gogh metallic watercolors. Here the white is preserved for the background, and in the sheen on Mamadou's deeper complexion, mixed using blues, sienna, reds and greens. Copper is especially ideal for highlights and reflected light over these deeper hues. Mamadou's soulful expression conveyed in my iPad screen during this synchronous sitting kept the class in rapture for hours.