Chemical engineer Qian Jiqing uses his laboratory knowledge of paints and polymers to create landscapes on glass that capture foaming seas, crackling ice and spreading leaves, writes Zhang Qian.Scientists and artists might seem to be very different - with different tempera-ments and ways of looking at the world that may not intersect.But of course, it's not that simple as 68-year-old artist Qian Jiping knows. He's a polymer chemical engineer, a design professor and artist.Qian says the boundaries between scientific creativity and the arts can be blurred. In fact, he's using science to achieve very realistic, natural effects in water painting on glass and other transparent substances.His works have been widely shown, praised and collected overseas, however, purist critics of traditional Chinese painting are not impressed. Most painters know paper and canvas: Qian knows plastic film and glass. "When I first saw the incomparably vivid color on a glass painting in the late 1970s, I wanted to try it myself," says Qian who had experimented on transparent materials for years. Now he works on glass, as it's the accepted international artists' medium.Most of Qian's works are landscapes - flowing rivers, smooth lakes, steep mountains and floating clouds. He uses the classic composition of Chinese painting with much brighter hues. His paintings are vivid and realistic, like photographs, but much more imaginative. You can see the froth and foam in the waves - it's a chemical process. And rather than being created by brushes, according to Qian, his paintings take shape themselves, to some extent.He first paints on glass, then sets it aside for the paint to dry. During this period the paints may merge, swirl together, separate and form patterns. When the paint is dry, Qian takes a fresh look at what may be a different image - he adjusts a bit with fine brushes."I cannot 100 percent control what the pattern of liquid flowing on glass will be, but my science background enables me to control it better than other artists," he says.Qian studied polymer chemical engineering at Tsinghua University in Beijing in the 1960s, and immediately went into research. He has more than 50 patents to his name, including a kind of plastic that has many similarities to porous rice paper, a favorite traditional Chinese medium.Though quite successful in the laboratory, Qian has loved painting since he was a teenager.He devoted his spare time to experimenting with unique materials and processes to create and refine his art form - transparent material painting. This is where his pursuit of art and science coexist and complement each other.As an amateur artist, Qian closely studied both Chinese ink-wash painting and Western oil painting on his own. A major difference is in the lines, he says. In Chinese ink-wash painting, the painter first paints the outlines, then colors in, Qian says. In Western oil painting, however, colors are often painted directly onto the surface, without outlines."Lines in oil paintings are usually vague under close observation while those in wash paintings are precise but artificial," says Qian. "To make my pictures more true to life, I 'recreate' nature."For example, he painted a river thawing in early spring. How to depict the current with cracked ice? Qian follows nature and chemistry and lets the molecules work. He painted a white river on glass, let it "damp-dry" and then washed it with blue water.The white paint layer fractured naturally, flowing with the blue water and leaving behind an ice-crackled trail. "In nature, the common borders of different surfaces form lines. Fluids of different consistency will also form lines naturally when they meet," says Qian, "and this effect can only be perfectly achieved on smooth materials, not porous paper."Knowledge of chemistry and polymers materials lets Qian judge how quickly paint will dry in certain conditions, and which two or more paints will blend or "exclude" each other, forming distinct color areas.So far he has painted on more than 100 kinds of transparent polymers. Now he only uses glass.Qian changed careers in 1987, leaving the laboratory to become a professor at Shanghai Jiao Tong University, teaching a materials course in industrial design. After retirement in 2003, he became dean of the Jewel Design Department at Shanghai Xinqiao Institute. Qian encourages innovation and creation in his classes and helps his students achieve it.His work has won honors at numerous art exhibitions, notably the annual Pearl Tower Exhibition, a major event for artists in China. Some of his paintings are in the collection of Art-Impact Gallery in Chicago in the United States.But Qian still calls himself an "amateur" as his paintings have not received much critical notice at home. But his daughter, a professional artist in the US, has introduced his work there."I don't care that much. I paint as a hobby rather than to make a living," says Qian.