Peter Cheung – Friday Night Guest – March 28, 2025
(Submitted by Taline Kavoukian)
Peter Cheung began his love for art with Chinese watercolours in Hong Kong learning from a Chinese master. He moved to Canada in the 70’s and has dedicated himself to his art full-time since 2015. At this point he moved on to oil painting and has not looked back since. Peter says his inspirations for art are vast. He loves the Canadian outdoors, all things equestrian, animals and even indoor scenes like his living room! Peter seeks to convey movement, life force and energy in his paintings. A successful artwork is one that elicits an emotional response in the viewer. He has won numerous accolades for his work and is represented by a number of different art galleries.
Peter demonstrated his process of painting by walking us through his steps as he painted his own living room. He begins by setting up the horizon line to create perspective and uses line to find the big forms in his composition. He then blocks in values with local colour by laying in darkest darks (ivory black and burnt sienna) medium values (French ultramarine blue, cadmium red medium, yellow ochre) and light values (adding white) . Everything is very loose as he uses linseed oil and a soft sable brush from the start! Peter says that colour temperature is more important than colour especially at this stage of painting. Peter then continues to refine the painting, building up local colour, getting forms more accurately,
Peter had many valuable painting tips for us. He said that the atmosphere is full of gray colours; using gray adds to the realism of our work. He recommends covering the whole canvas in order to gauge values, colours, and transitions/relationships betwixt and between. Expressive brushstrokes to animate his work. His full palette consists of cad yellow deep, cad yellow light, yellow ochre, burnt Sienna, cad red medium, French ultramarine blue, ultramarine blue, phthalo blue, titanium white, and ivory white.
Peter suggests that “style” happens when an artist has gone through a thinking process that has led to that artist’s work. The artist should think about their intent in creating the artwork. This will be reflected in the character of the art! Thank you, Peter, for a wonderful evening!
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