Just completed "Portrait of Bill" to be included in the upcoming Hard Times exhibit.  For up to date news on the development of this important exhibit, participating artists, venues and more, please visit the web blog below:
http://hardtimesart.spaces.live.com/


"Portrait of Bill" 36" x 24" oil on canvas (2009)

"Hard Times" is the name of an upcoming exhibit I'm participating in, that will travel to various venues throughout the country.

"Twilight in Santa Cruz" 24" x 36"

Detail to "Twilight in Santa Cruz"

Participating Artists

Steven Assael Warren Chang Sean Diediker   Harvey Dinnerstein   Jeffrey Hein   Max Ginsburg   David Kassan

David Linn Ben McPherson   Mario Robinson   Burton Silverman   Gary Ernest Smith   Trevor Southey   Justin Taylor

Dates and Places of exhibition

Bus Stop, 16" x 26" oil on linen canvas (2009)

These pictures are from my portrait workshop earlier this week at Wave Street Studios in historic Cannery Row in Monterey.  The facilities and atmosphere contributed to a wonderful experience.  The stage lighting was perfect in isolating the light upon our models and allowing almost individual lights for each participant.  Most of these pictures are from the 2nd day, where I completed a demonstration in oil of first time model John Millman.  My thanks to Victoria for arranging this workshop and Rhett for allowing us to use his fantastic facilities.


Front row: Aida, Warren, Erin, Colleen.   Middle row: Yolanda, Brittany, Nicole, Mary, Lucie, Karen, Joan.
Back row: John, Derek, Kevin

Photo courtesy Karen Garnett.	Photo courtesy Karen Garnett
The completed demonstration (approximately 3 or 4 hours)

That's me demonstrating with the funny white hat.

These photographs are from my landscape workshop this weekend.  On Saturday we painted at the Carmel Lagoon.  It started as a glorious morning of sunshine but by the afternoon the fog rolled in changing our light dramatically.  On our second day we painted at the Carmel Mission.  After two days of plein-air painting, I think we all were exhausted but it was a good feeling of exhaustion.  A feeling of a hard days work and braving the elements.

	Carmel Lagoon, 11" x 14" oil on panel Completed in plein air in 2 1/2 hrs.

At the Carmel Mission	10 minute demonstration.
Carmel Mission, 12" x 9" oil on panel

A slide presentation I gave at the Pacific Grove Art Center on January 11th can now be viewed on youtube.

Part 1: Interiors:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wCV0ExPPSAM
Part 2: Landscapes:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75y352mv6eU

Film makers Paul Boczkowski (Director) and Marie Wainscoat (Producer) have specialized in filming artists from the Monterey Area.  They have captured priceless footage of Monterey artists since 1993 starting with their documentary "Longtimers: Senior Artists of the Monterey Peninsula".

The film of my slide lecture will be aired in April on their local public television program "Life in the Arts".



UPDATE:

Slideshow Lecture Part 1 will air on AMP Comcast Cable Channel 24 on...

Friday, April 3rd at 8 PM (New episode)

Monday, April 6th at 4AM (repeat)

Wednesday, April 8th at 2PM (repeat)

Slideshow Lecture Part 2 will air on...

Friday, April 10th at 8 PM (New episode)

Monday, April 13th at 4 AM (repeat)

Wednesday, April 15th at 2 PM (repeat)

I made a limited run of 25 DVD's of this film.  It runs 55 minutes and includes footage from the lecture along with images of my best paintings and historical references.  If your interested in obtaining this higher quality copy of the slide lecture, please send a check for $15.00 (includes shipping) to: Warren Chang 824 Lottie Street Monterey, Ca 93940 SOLD OUT!

This class picture is from yesterday's 2-day portrait painting workshop at the Pacific Grove Art Center.  It was great being around "like minded" artists who are passionate about learning to paint. 


From left to right: Warren, Larry, Derek, Colleen, John (model), Julie, David, Suzanne, Donna

Testimonials:

"Your class has inspired me to work on my technique and you have given me a great foundation to start with." Derek

"Overall, I got a lot out of the workshop and I wanted to comment on a couple of things. First, I really liked the lecture the night before - it set up the things we would be emphasizing over the next two days.  In the workshop itself, the demos were very helpful. And I appreciated having such a small group.  I don't know whether you limited enrollment on purpose, but it was a good size - we could all hear your comments and you had time to work with each of us.  I would be interested in another workshop - thanks for keeping me on your email list."  Julie
"Warren. You have an an exceptional workshop.  Your presentation skills are excellent.  Your delivery is clear understandable with the perfect combination of demonstration and assistance.  You have the talent to encourage us at whatever level we have achieved or begun with.  I am interested in any workshops, lessons or model sharing you would have.  I can say with honesty I have learned more in my 4 days with you than I have in 30 years.  Thank you for sharing your talents magic."   Colleen

I've been teaching a landscape class in San Francisco and its been a challenge but a fun experience.  With the constantly changing light and unpredictable weather conditions, painting in plein-air is always a challenge.  Fortunately, the weather has been unusually mild in San Francisco and so the following painting was completed over two days with fairly consistent weather.  The light pattern was changing as it fell across the dome but in general not too difficult conditions.  Both days I painted in the afternoon from around 1:30pm to 4::30pm. 
Degas described painting in plein-air as the "tyranny of nature" and in some ways I can see what he means.  Its difficult trying to capture something in a more unique way than what we are all used to seeing.

Day Two: Palace of Fine Arts, 12" x 16" oil on linen panel "Not quite finished but I think I'll leave it this way."

The following painting was completed in teaching a figurative painting class at the Academy of Art in San Francisco.  It was completed in three sessions and I photographed the painting  at the end of each session to record the progress.  I feel it is important for the student to learn to paint from "life" and so I do not allow photographs taken of the model for them to work from later.  Norman Rockwell once said, "I don't suppose anyone will follow my advice, but it is better not to use photographs until you have proved your ability to get along whollly without them." and I agree.
Our model is well known Bay area model Otienno.  He brought in what I believe is a traditional African costume.  I asked him whether he would normally wear this and he emphatically replied that "He would never bring anything he does not wear normally."  Good enough for me.  I want the pose to be "real", a real person in contemporary life.

Day One: Graseille: Started with vine charcoal to place in the figure in the composition.  Really just a gesture that took a few minutes.  I then established a mid-tone color for the general local color of the skin tones and costume.  From this stage, drawing with the brush, I use primarily raw umber to draw the figure and tone the entire canvas to establish a darker canvas for this picture.

Day Two: This next stage resumed a week later, so the painting was completely dry allowing me to establish a darker deeper dark for the background.  The head and hands along with parts of the drapery are resolved more fully.  The folds continued to change every time our model resumed the pose which was a challenge but I mostly stuck with the original drawing from day one.

Day Three:  This is the completed painting after the third session.  We resumed the pose a week after Day two, so the painting was completely dry, allowing me to oil down the painting with linseed oil prior to resuming painting.  I was able to achieve an even darker and richer black for the background due to three layers of glazing.

Recently I wrote an article (actually written more than 4 years ago) published in International Artist Magazine discussing the advantages to utilizing photography in painting.  Although I put on a brave face, I must admit that there is some amount of guilt I feel about the use of photography.  Nothing feels so honest and pure as painting direct from nature.  So in this blog I wanted to show a recent step by step self portrait I completed from "life" using a mirror. 
In a way, this is revisiting a self portrait I completed (pictured left) from a mirror back in 2000, when I was 42 and living in Brooklyn, New York.  In this new self portrait as in the old, I set up one source of strong light sitting over my left shoulder and eliminating all other light sources.  I worked primarily at night to achieve this.  The 2000 version was completed in two 3 hour sittings while this newer 2008 version was completed over the course of a week.  Each stage below represents what was accomplished each evening.  I would photograph the results the following morning outside.  Its interesting for me to see the changes after almost nine years in myself.  Aside from my now grey hair, glasses and 10 plus pounds I'm pretty much the same.

Day 1: I started with vine charcoal to block in the basic placement of the figure and composition. Size of head, placement of hands were determined at this stage.  I spent around 5-10 minutes on this rough gestural stage.		Day 2: I then used a thin wash of flesh tone to establish a mid-tone for the face and arm before starting to draw with the paint using mostly raw umber.  At this stage I also added the artist's smock.  I felt the t-shirt alone was too bland and the smock added a bit of costume interest.
Day 3: I spent another couple of hours working out the drawing continuing to use raw umber.  The face in particular was reworked.  The maul stick was added at this stage.  I discovered myself holding it and decided it was an effective element.		Day 4: I started in earnest with the face and head as well as part of the background to relate to the head in terms of color, value and edge relationship.
Day 5: Completion of the upper background and t-shirt.		Step 6: Completion of book shelf, suggestion of books and artist's smock.
Day 7: This is the finished painting. It measures 29" x 19" and is on oil primed linen canvas.  Although in reality I am a rather neat painter, I decided to add the paint stains on the smock for effect.		"Self Portrait at 51 (2008)" Detail