Remember the time I said that Zuheros might invite me to a personal exhibition? I actually got the invitation after showing the half-finished Mañana de Las Luces, but El Castilla de Zuheros finished first.
El Castilla de Zuheros is a massive use of ink and pen. Such a style has been common in my level 4 and before. It is the most skilled technique for me to construct a huge amount of details. As you can be observed from the images, each brick was individually built. After fonding the light effect and shadow’s position, the work on structures would follow; then another adjust of contrast.
The rock beneath the castle cost me more time than the construction itself. The hope painting took me the entire month because I had a lousy estimation of how thin 0.15 would be. This misunderstanding greatly influenced the image, and another one finished in July. Positively, more space to construct details were provided. Negatively, it was indeed torture of mental health. It is really funny that I can love and hate art at the same time.
Another critical reason I would like to make this painting more close to hyper-realism is that Andalucían landscapes are a strange thing for both Chinese people and locals. For us, Chinese tourists tend to go to like capital cities but commonly ignore those regions, areas and towns that play important parts in the humane and historic area. For locals, I have noticed that a considerable people are complainting how boring is to living in the countryside. I would like to use my massive effort to show them how hard an ordinary Chinese work in order to see the view they bored of for himself. Being blind to things surrounds us is normal; so a foreigner’s view may open a brand-new perspective. Painting is a process of reproducing, before that the painter is required to observe and absorb all details. So realism could help these details to be demonstrated. If it is lucky enough, the villager may re-observe the site to compare for the difference from the painting.
The process.
The final outcome
Ce Chen's studio of art 