Zhaoming Wu: Sunlight

Zhaoming Wu is a consummate painter with the skill and bravura of the 19th and 20th century masters.

Educated in China, he immigrated to the United States where he paints and teaches at the Art Academy in San Francisco, training a new generation of painters in classical methods.

This painting is a study in painting the brilliance of sunlight falling through a window on a model posed indoors.

The amount of light that he is able to create on the canvas is astounding and it is a lesson not to be missed.

Working from photographs and images on his laptop computer, Wu is able to recreate a sense of mystery and dynamism that would seem impossible for some. His control of values and temperature are the secret to painting a light that seems to vibrate through the space on the canvas. Being able to watch a master of this caliber paint the subject from start to finish is worth the price of the video.

We spent a week with Wu in his studio in Oakland , CA , and filmed three programs with him. If you already have one of the first two releases, Solitude and/or Drawing the Portrait in Charcoal, you already know what a master he is in painting and drawing. This program will not disappoint you. If you have not acquired one of his videos, then you are missing out on one of today’s most important artists.

-Johnnie Liliedahl