Truth in Detail 47a study that he would use as a reference
for the actual painting. He then
sketched using a blue pencil so it would
make it easier to pick up mistakes when
he is painting, the entire composition
onto his 62-by-47-inch canvas. At that
point, he began painting his latest major
work, The White Buffalo War Shield.
A short time after he began the
painting, I was able to visit Z.S. at his
home studio in California. During my
visit, he explained the progress that had
been made on the painting, why he
added both a buffalo tail and a horse
tail to the warrior’s shield and he also
explained the subtle changes he made—
from the colored study to his canvas—
with colors, light and the repositioning
of the central figure’s face.
As was noted earlier, the title of this
major painting is The White Buffalo
War Shield. And the reason for that is
because the rarity of a white buffalo or
white bison caused it to be considered
sacred, spiritually significant and
possessing of supernatural powers by
many Native American tribes. In this
painting, Z.S. is depicting a group of
warriors taking part in a pre-battle
religious ceremony with a war shield
that is made from the hide of a “sacred”
white buffalo.
The warriors, in the scene, are
imploring the holy spirit to transfer
the supernatural powers of the dead
white buffalo to their war shield so
that its powers could be used to “fend
off” the arrows and the spears of the
fierce enemy whom they will soon be
encountering in battle.
Like many artists, Z.S. only works
on one painting at a time and as thedays and weeks passed, he continued to
update me—either by phone, by email
(with images) and because I live 3,000
miles away on the East Coast, by using
Facetime—so I could see how he was
progressing with the painting.
During this final phase of “fine
tuning” the painting, Z.S. continued
making minor changes to different
elements of the composition and he also
made subtle changes to the faces of the
figures in order to be certain that each
face accurately represented who the
individual is and what the individual’s
role is in the war shield ceremony. On
one of our last calls about the painting,
he took time to explain to me that, at
this stage, he was working to make sure
the entire composition of the ceremony
looked natural and real. At the same
time, he was very careful to point outCOLOR STUDY
Liang says, “After the drawing was done, I painted a 16-by-12-inch
color study. I tried to make the shield colors bright and vibrant as the
focus point.”
DRAWING TRANSFER
He says, “I projected my drawing on the 62-by-47-inch linen canvas
and traced by pencil. I used blue to draw the basic laid out. I like the
blue because it was different from the major tone so I can see it when
I was painting them.”