"Pumpkin with Mindfulness" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

I have spent a long time on this painting. I have entered a meditation stage. When I picked up a brush, I was aware of I have picked up a brush. When I needed to clean an area, I patiently used my tedious procedure of cleaning. When I wipe my brush on a paper towel, I paid attention to where on the towel I wiped, so the dirty paint on the towel formed a nice circular pattern. No rush, you have plenty of time. Be mindful when you do everything.

In a couple of hours, I will be on my way to my meditation retreat. Goodbye my friend. I won't talk to you for 10 days. Goodbye my art. I will understand you better, and love you more.

Workshops for the Future

Time goes by so fast. Now is close to the middle of the year. I have scheduled my workshops for the next year 2014, and placed a new workshop button on my blog. There is some difference of my 2014 workshop plan. For artists who lived close to Austin, or want to come to Austin. I will teach a 4-day workshop in Austin in January. There will be a workshop hosted at Bahamas. I am also working with an organizer in Spain to plan my first workshop in Europe. Lots of work, but very exciting.

Besides my 2014 workshops. I still have a few openings in my Sedona workshop on July 17 - 19, 2013. I hope more people can join me at this extraordinary beautiful place. Please contact Sedona Arts Center to sign up.

I am not so called "Master" artist, but I am an "improving" artist. In my teaching, I try to be very organized and provide you solid (no wishy washy) information. Since I learned my skills mainly from taking workshops, I understand my workshop students, and my experience is more relevant to yours.

Many of you know, I went to San Francisco last summer studied with a real master artist Zhaoming Wu. If you also want to learn from him, I have a good news for you. Zhaoming will teach a workshop at Whidbey Island, WA where I was not long ago. Contact WIFAS to sign up, or press the his workshop button on my blog.

"In a boat" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

Today, I want to share another part of my life with you. I have been sentenced to 10 days isolation. Starting from June 19 to June 20, I will be at a small town called Kaufman, TX. I have to hand in all my electronics include my phone and computer. Of course there is no Internet for me. Even worse, I will be not allowed to talk for these 10 days. There will be no dinner served for me during this time. Difficult work will start from 4:30 every morning. Painting? Just don't think about it.

Nobody has forced me to do it. The sentence was given by myself. What am I doing? Well, I am attending a 10-day Vipassana meditation course. Why am I doing this? Because I am crazy.

Vipassana is a Sanskrit word means "seeing things as they really are", In these 10 days, we will sit and observe our body/mind and see what is really going on, like a scientist observing the world objectively. We will also learn how to deal with ourselves, and how to live in the world. It is a highly spiritual art of living. However, I must say this spiritual practice is not religious, because there is no faith involved in it. When a scientist observing a star through a telescope, he/she sees it no matter what. So everybody can participate and learn.

"Two to One" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

Coming back to the basics, my daily painting looks more like the ones I did in the old days. I decided to pause my experiments and paint something I feel comfortable with. It is the time I need to digest what I have learned, and summarize the information collected in an organized way.

I want to tell a story I heard when I was in the elementary school. Once upon the time, there was a bear. He went to the corn field to get some corns (I don't know bears eat corns but let's assume they do). He removed one ear of corn and put it under his right armpit. Then he snatch the second one and put it under his left armpit. Well he didn't realized when he grasped the second corn, the first one had fell off  and dropped on the ground. He got third corn and put under his right arm, while the corn under his left arm had fell off. ..... In the same manner, he went through the whole row of corn field from one end to another, but he only got one ear of corn.

I have gone through part of my art journey kind of like the bear. I think it is a good idea to pause and review what I have learned. If the bear had stopped and went back. He would have got much more.

"An Apple A Day" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

"An apple a day keeps the doctor away" is a common sense. I will say "Painting an apple a day makes my art way". I think I am not alone enjoying painting apples. If I feel lost in my art journey, I always come back painting some apples. After I came back from Washington State. I have been busy doing some technical  work for my previous engineering company. I have to admit making living with art is a difficult way. I must be practical. My son is going to a boarding school in the fall. The cost of living is going up day by day. I will adapt as much as I can. Finally, I have resumed my technical in daytime and painting at night routine. Keep painting, apples will coming.

New Workshop Reminder

I am going to teach two workshops in Arizona in July. One of them will be in Scottsdale, a wonderful place for visual art. This one is unusual 4-days workshop, besides my idea and regular techniques of still life painting, I will share my more recent palette knife approaches in landscapes. This workshop will be held at Arizona Artists Guild. At this moment, we still have a few openings. If you are interested in attending this special workshop, please contact Li Mahalik to sign up.

After my Scottsdale workshop, I will go to Sedona. The workshop will be at Sedona Arts Center. It is such spectacular place to do art. I just love the beautiful red mountains there. We also have a few openings for this workshop. Please contact Qiang Huang's workshop at Sedona Arts Center if you are interested in taking this workshop.

"Demo at Whidbey Island 2" --- Sold

As usual, I did my second demo with some flowers. Now the workshop is over, but I hope you all practice what we have talked about. I am looking forward to seeing your progress if we have chances to meet again. I have returned to Austin safely. I have already started to miss the cool days on the island.

"Demo at Whidbey Island 1" --- Sold

This is the first demonstration painting I did at my Whidbey Island workshop. Thanks to the new artist friend from Oregon and Washington for attending. This is my first workshop in this part of the United States. With my demo paintings, I want to show both "variation", and "very Asian". And they pronounced almost the same any way.