An interview of Richard Chao（晁铁军）published in 26th《The Art of Watercolor》

(The original and compelet article)

1. Your paintings are filled with much warmth. The models show no arrogance or aggression. What is it that you look for in the expression of a new face?

This is really a difficult question as I don’t have a very clear criteria. I don’t care if they are good-looking or if there is bitterness in their expression. The only thing that brings my brush to paint their portraits is when I get this feeling of shock from seeing something in their expressions. It’s a feeling where I just get so excited and I can’t help but paint them.

My subjects are mainly the common people in life. However, each and every one of them is a combination of their own cultural backgrounds, religious beliefs and life experiences. They are from all walks of life, living at different corners of the world. In this sense, each of them is unique. What I looking for is the core of their uniqueness. That is, their hope, purity, devotion, happiness or hardship. I try to capture the feelings that affect me and share them in my paintings.

I spent part of my life in China where I accomplished my professional artistic learning as a student. I had visited many remote areas, such as Tibet, Inner Mongolia and Yunnan as well. The people there embrace their own cultures, beliefs and customs. I spent part of my life in Australia where I undertake major part of my artistic practice. Being a multicultural country, Australia gives me additional gateways to contact and connect with people from a variety of cultural backgrounds.

2. What role does light play in the atmosphere of a portrait?

Light, in portrait painting, is like a magician’s hand. Classical paintings featured a magnesium-light style, whilst impressionists studied and applied light in a newly discovered domain. I take all these as references in my realist paintings. 

Firstly, achieving an accurate presentation of the figure cannot be done without applying a certain light expression. For instance, in “In the Burning Sun”, very strong light shines on the straw hat and the t-shirt of the farmer, which fades his clothes, burns his neck and chest. The light is so strong that his brows are knitted and eyes are squinted, even though they hide in the shade of his shabby old hat. 

What’s more, light is very helpful to form the unique tones in a painting, in order to present the emotions of subjects. Even the slightest difference in tone will create a different atmosphere to present different feelings. In “Hair in the Air”, I applied warm colors to establish the tone, a grey-shade warm hue to display the scorching heat in inner Australia, where the indigenous people live generation after generation. 

Moreover, I also apply light in order to mould the body structure and depict a figure with more realness and convincing power.

That the heads in my portraits are normally much larger than life, combined with the existing realness presented by the application of light, cooperatively strengthen the visual impact on the audience.

3. You are proficient at painting people of all ages. Please describe for us the particularities of painting children, old people, etc…

Above all, differences exist in the techniques I apply. I was quite confident when I was still a university student in portraying the old people: their weathered faces, deep wrinkles furrowing their lower foreheads, clearly-structured skulls, etc., these were all opportunities to display an understanding of the human body. However, problems appeared when I came across children or young ladies in that my portraits always depicted people several years older than they really were. This was because I over-emphasised the smoothness of skin and the softness of facial bones. This problem is often seen among beginners.

Furthermore, in terms of material and technique, it is very important to properly apply such techniques as “wet on wet”, while applying “dry brush” and “multilayer” when dealing with senior subjects.

However, the most important thing that affects my painting of different subjects is the feeling of the subject. Before I physically start each painting, I spend quite some time to prepare myself emotionally by observing the subject matter. I “talk” with them, looking into their eyes, trying to understand and interpret what they try to say, and capture the moment that strikes me. This step is incredibly important in my portrait painting.

4. What are the most difficult aspects when painting a portrait? Which are the most important?

I started my professional training in Xi’an Academy of Fine Arts, and continued my master’s, following the same supervisor, majoring in oil painting. Years of strict training in realistic painting cultivated me in accuracy. The real difficulty lies in how to reveal the subject’s unique inner world, their emotions, their affections. So, reflecting their unique qualities is difficult.

The most important and difficult matter is to maintain the balance between the material features of watercolor and shaping the subject, without losing any of the first impressions captured from the subject. The other issue I would like to share is the way I apply colors. I prefer using colors in a reserved, delicate way rather than exaggerating them to be overly bright or fresh. I wish to portray my subjects carefully but powerful, incorporating precise color integration so that the randomness of watercolor becomes more controllable.

5. What attracts you to your subjects? In other words, how do you choose them?

When I choose my subjects, the first things I consider are their appearance and their story. Sometimes this search takes quite a long time. I grasp any chance to look for a subject, including looking at people in my day-to-day life. Steve, my subject in “The Beauty of Faith” is a pastor. I was impressed when I first saw him and became very interested when I heard his personal experiences. He wanted to change the world so he joined the police force. Then he realized that the real way to fix the world is to help people meet God. So he quit being a police officer and became a preacher so that he could tell people about Jesus. 

I have also done lots of travel in Australia, and China, to such places as Tibet, Inner Mongolia, etc. This is not only to take pictures and do plein-air but, more importantly, to experience life so as to understand my subjects’ customs, feelings and faiths.

1. In your portraits do you try to be as realist as possible? - not so much in terms of features, but rather from an ethnologist’s point of view: do you strive to be as exact as possible when painting everyday objects, fabric…

When I was in university, learning oil painting, I was interested in and learned different art genres such as Classicism, Nabis, Symbolism, etc. Transferring into a watercolorist, I painted my big-sized portraits with a realist method so that I can display the existence of different figures in this contemporary world. 

I believe that the realistic depiction of the subjects’ appearance is only the very basic criteria for a perfect artwork. What makes a portrait painting more masterful is what message the painting passes to the audience – how it touches their hearts and inspires them. In Australia, where multiculturalism abounds, I am attracted to the diversity of people’s appearances, cultural backgrounds, costumes, etc. More than that is also the common feelings, affections and shared understandings of the meaning of life hidden beneath the above-mentioned diversities. I want to delineate this diversity in my portrait paintings. 

(To compare, I would prefer to apply washing techniques and bright color in my plein-air practice to show the first hand expression. This is my way of practicing conceptualizing and abstraction of color.)

1. Do you think it is more important, rather than paint the model’s likeness, to paint the nature of its soul?

My belief is that an outstanding portrait should amaze you at first glance by the soul and inner world of the subject, making you forget all about such things as material, technique, genre and likeliness. An outstanding artwork is one that impacts you with the soul of the subject, which is moulded though the artist’s character-building.

I can never forget the breath-taking oppression I experienced at the moment when I walked out from the Van Gogh museum. That depression could haunt for days and weeks. This is the strength I am talking about, the one which comes directly from the artwork capturing the soul.

1. Do you start with preliminary sketches? Do you use photographs? Are there examples you could send us for the article?

Yes, regardless of whether the portrait is based on a sitter or a photo, I design and try out composition and tone. Either I do it on paper & pencil, or I do it using software to try out the composition, imaging the expected picture division and tone. 

“A Wrestler King’s Roaring after His Victory” experienced constant compositional adjustment, ending up with the most heart-touching element of the subject. Painting is, to me, just like a filter, which screens away the distracting factors, and keeps the essence of the figure. It is more than just a copy of a real life scene.

1. Can you give us some examples of colour mixes you use for skin.

The most advanced and the least controllable color is grey, especially when you apply them to deal with the skin in darkness or backlighting. The color of skin in the sunlight is very bright, which reflects vivid warm tones. However the color in the dark side is very difficult to determine. In addition, getting the proper color on the forehead, cheeks and chin is all very difficult. One example is “A Tibetan Girl”, where the majority of the girl’s face is in backlighting. When I dealt with it, I stuck to a principle, that is, when the bright side is illuminated by warm light, then the dark side will be dealt with using cold tones. That is why I used transparent ultramarine blue to glaze the dark side in order to present the air purity and air transparency of a plateau. “Hair in the Air” has a really unified basic tone, rather than highly contrasting colors. The skin color in this painting is mainly captured by using appropriate and delicate values.

1. What tool or instrument could you not do without?

What is rather special for me is the Chinese sable brush, which is commonly used in Chinese calligraphy and Chinese painting. Chinese sable brush is irreplaceable for me, as it has a strong capacity to lift water and it can achieve sharp brush stroke. This makes it my favorite tool.

1. What is the best piece of advice you ever received?

What I always keep in mind, which has influenced me ever since I began painting professionally, is the advice from my supervisor. It was what my supervisor Professor Aimin Liu told me, when I was studying university, to “accumulate richly and break forth vastly”. He further explained that I should thoroughly understand artistic traditions, and study the aesthetic principle meanwhile cultivating a sensitive aesthetic judgment as well, so that I could perfectly grasp the artist’s techniques. Only by doing so could I apply all this understanding, knowledge and technique flexibly. Edgar Degas’s pastel works look simple but perfect, which seems to have been finished easily and with little effort. However it is because he has a reservoir of related knowledge and techniques. In other words, one can create contemporary artwork in a perfect way only when he has acquired and mastered the aesthetic principles and conventions. 

1. What are you working on at the moment?

I just finished a serious watercolor floral. I was trying out different materials and familiarizing myself with floral painting. I will soon start a new series of portraits, and I will try out my new thinking in bigger-sized portraits. 

1. Do you have any upcoming events this winter (the magazine’s release date is early March 2017)?

It is actually Summer/Autumn time in Australia. I will schedule a solo exhibition in Sydney, Australia. What’s more, I plan to do some painting from life and some artistic collections.

1. And – finally – can you please send me your address so that we can mail you a copy of the magazine?

My address is: 9 Anglo Square, Carlton, NSW, 2218, Australia，

Technical Information request:

- Type/brand of paper used?

I normally use Arches cotton watercolor paper, 300g, bright white and natural white

- Type/brand of watercolours? Which colours make up your base palette? For any specific reasons (transparency/ high saturation/ granulation, etc? )

I usually use artist watercolors of the following brands：Schmincke、Daler Rowney、Winsor & Newton、M.Graham、Holbein and Art Sepctrum, but I use Schmincke、Daler Rowney、Winsor & Newton more often.

I am pretty willing to try new colors, the ones that I have never used before. I really like Cadmium series and Cobalt series and the colors with granulation. Concerning my base palette, my basic principle is that for each individual color, at least a warm shade and a cool shade must be chosen. For example, I will have both lemon yellow and cadmium yellow, or I will apply both orange and warm orange, or I will use both ultramarine blue and cerulean blue etc.. My favorite color is ultramarine blue, which is a must when I do skins. I may apply just a little bit of it. However, nothing could take replace it.

- Any odd techniques used?

Masking fluid is a very popular contemporary material. It is fairly difficult but very important to depict such bright thin lines in hair and beards in strong light when one does realist watercolor. With masking fluid, this problem is solved.