Painting on canvas is so yesterday. Artist Suzi Chua of Malaysia prefers a less obvious medium: rocks. She achieves sheer precision on the surfaces of stones — animal faces that look as if they might bite back, bread rolls that appear just-baked.
“One of the things I love about rock painting is that each rock is unique,” says Chua, who is so enthusiastic about sharing her techniques that she’s launching an e-book on her website that includes tutorials on how to paint rock rolls. “The rock that I hold in my hand is the only one like it in the universe.”
Chua learned to draw and paint as a child. She won art competitions in school, although you won’t find degrees or diplomas in the subject hanging on her walls. Until recently, she made pastel paintings, and only gave her masterpieces to friends and relatives. Then, her husband bought some stones for the garden. They were white and bland, and Chua simply couldn’t leave them as-is. She took out her brushes and acrylic paints, and before long the rocks resembled flowers, frogs, and snakes. Chua
now sells pet portraits, quite literally setting Fido in stone for as little as $25.
Her mouthwateringly convincing food paintings, including rock hot dogs (in the bun, with ketchup), give all the look of good grub with none of the calories. Her rolls, for example, bear an uncanny resemblance to the real thing. Chua turns simple stones into golden brown bread by layering earthy colors and dappling highlights in just the right spots.
She says the secret is to start with nice, rounded rocks that are uniformly gray, and to coat the entire surface in bright white. In the ensuing steps she’s sure to leave “cracks” exposed to mimic the slits atop fresh loaves. Some color here, a highlight there, and the rolls are ready without ever preheating the oven. Now if only someone can come up with paint that smells like fresh-baked bread.
—Megan Mansell Williams
>> Suzi Chua Stone Paintings: suzichua.com
Photograph by Suzi Chua
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