Teaching 1: Introduction
In Canada, Jia Lu had her own art school and over 200 students of all ages. Since moving to California, she no longer has time to teach students, but we convinced her that the web was an ideal place to share some of her experience on the craft of painting. You may find these pages useful if you are an artist, and art student or a serious amateur. We have tried to condense a lot of information. Jia Lu believes there are no secret techniques in art, only hard work. She is ready to share all she knows, as you will see on the following pages
Teaching 2: Drawing
"Drawing is the single most important skill to acquire. It is the foundation of realistic oil painting. When I asked my father how I could become an artist, he went out and bought me a two-foot-high stack of blank sketchbooks. 'Fill these before the end of the year' was all he said. The only way to learn how to draw is to draw. Everyday. Everywhere. At that age, I was an actress in films. We had long waits while the director of photography prepared each shot. I spent the time, and every free moment I had, drawing in those sketchbooks.
"It doesn't matter what I drew. There was material all around me. Old shoes, objects on the dressing table, my own hands and feet, friends, relatives.
"I strive for accuracy by constantly looking between the subject and my drawing. I find the big shapes first, the bounding square or triangles, then divide them into component shapes. I check and double check the proportion of each part against every other part. First look, compare and think, then draw. That's what I've always taught.
"I also made sure I started drawing from life. The most important class in art school was life drawing, because the human figure is such a challenging organization of surfaces. I learned to see every surface distinctly, like the chiseled surface of a sculpture. Each tiny surface has its own value between black and white. I was taught to draw with hard pencils, which forced me to make clear, definite strokes. No blending. First each plan clearly defined. Later I learned to vary pencil weight and blurriness, softening only the areas in shadow. Highlights are filled with detail, texture. Shadows always contain a little ambient or reflected light. The edge between light and shadow is the darkest. In a good drawing, every material has its own texture and you can almost see the color."
Teaching 3: Observation
"After looking at a lot of objects, I get a feel for how light bounces and reflects. Skin reflects light from several layers, including blue-green veins and bright red capillaries under a semi-translucent surface. Light also bleeds, transmitting the color and energy of the surface it strikes to nearby surfaces. We see this often on the bright underside of chins when the face and chest are in sunlight. And skin has a specular reflection, scattered by the pattern of wrinkles on the surface, or bright on the smooth surface of the nose. Under white light, the skin shows bright yellows, greens, pinks and purples. Spherical and cylindrical like arms and cheeks have a succession of colors across its circumference from relatively warm to cool to warm and back to cool again."
Teaching 4: Composition
"My favorite paintings are those with strong, almost graphic compositions. For me, composition is about balancing the visual elements of the painting. Figures placed off-center are balanced by detail in the background or even empty space. My compositions are mostly inspired by Asian art, especially Chinese ink painting, which employ blank space as an active compositional element."