“A Small Boat" --- Sold

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I feel I am a small boat, very happy in a small river. I thought I know quite a bit, until I reached the sea.

My art experiments expand. Painting the old streets for a while, I feel I want to get some fresh air. So here I am. Thanks to Dianne, one of the artists in my mentoring class, for telling me about the "Paint My Photo" website, where you can get reference photos to paint without worrying about the copy right issue. I want to thank the photographer for posting this photo for artist to use. I have not painted many boats before. So I feel inexperienced. But I like the color scheme. I have moved quite far from my usual low key still life paintings. I might have lost my identity or style. Should I concern about it? Who am I anyway?

"Wuzhen Street 3"

Now all my three "Wuzhen Street" paintings are done. This is the final look of the 3rd one. I like this one the best. I have gone through significant research and experiment in this painting project. I enjoyed this learning process.

Thank you again for all your support to my art. About the issue of how to market my serious paintings, I will let it go and not worry about it. I may send it to galleries, or sell them myself. My collector friends are more than welcome to contact me. If you are in Austin area, I can show my paintings to you. On my art journey, I will keep going and sharing.

"Wuzhen Street 3 (Day 3)"

My journey keeps on going. Thanks to all the artist friends for cheering me up after my yesterday's post. I really need it. The road is getting more treacherous. I often feel lost. So your help is right on time. I appreciate a lot.

I pull my 3rd Wuzhen painting out of the back burner. This image shows how much "damage" I did on it today. As matter of fact, nothing is whimsical or arbitrary here. I planned all the accidents. If you squint on the painting, you will see what I am trying to say. Due to my clumsiness, My statements are not clear, but I feel I am in the right direction.

As a daily painter for so many years. I have reached to a point that I need to do some serious thinking. I hope all the daily painters, especially the developed ones, should think as well. Should we just do small paintings, sell them online, and feel satisfied? Daily painting is a fantastic way for beginning artists to make his/her art activities more meaningful. However, what we should do next? I feel the risk of my recent activities. I am experimenting larger format work, exploring and practice a lot. It is be a long while before I can reach the next level. The market for what I am doing could be very slim, and I may not able to generate as many small paintings as I did before. Currently, I teach many workshops to make ends meet, so I take all opportunities I have to experiment and grow. This must the life supposed to be. I will "stay hungry, and stay foolish".

"Wuzhen Street 2"

This painting I consider it is done. I can not say I really like it, but I have put all effort into it. I don't mind showing my vulnerability to you. I must say I have learned more this time. Growing is more important than just getting a good painting.

I admire many people who have the courage to challenge themselves by taking difficult treks. Yesterday I watched a movie about a young man traveled to Lhasa, Tibet by bicycle. At the starting point, he gets applauds from others for his unusual decision and his courage. Gradually, he entered his journey, and faced all kinds of difficulties alone. It is his strong determination keeps him going.

As a late started amateur painter. I have decided to give this new career a try. I really appreciate many friends supporting me, and I am lucky and have progressed quite a bit. Now I feel I have entered more difficult period of development. My usual painting style has been out there for a while. Naturally, the exciting level is going down. Now, making my art grow is a rather challenging task. You will see more my not-very-developped paintings. My market will go down. Just like that lonely biker on the treacherous mountain road. His bike is no longer shining, his jacket is no longer clean, and his face is dirty and full of scars.  I am not sure where he gets his courage, and neither about mine. Only thing I know is keep going.

"Wuzhen Street 2 (Day 4)"

Last month, I started 3 cityscape paintings based on the photos I took in China. I finished one of them and learned a lot, and left the other two on the back burner. This a couple of days I worked on the 2nd painting. This is what I have got so far. I worked on the color harmony mainly. I found that purple grey and green grey can not co-exist on the same painting. If they do, one of the greys will look dirty. I apply this new "home made" principle to this painting. I feel it works pretty well.

"Blue Duet" --- Sold

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Back to Austin now. I did this painting with my Austin mentoring group. I feel my high key art is getting more stabilized. I started to understand why some of my old high key painting didn't work well. I have document my feeling into so called "principles" to guide my future practice and share them in my teachings. For instance: Cool colors work better with high key paintings, while warm colors work better with low key paintings. This kind of "home made principles" help me coming out the blind "just do it" or pure intuitive approaches to art. They also made it easier to share with other artists. To make a joke: In science, when someone made a significant discovery, people put his/her name with the discovered effect, such as Omh's Law and Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle. Why shouldn't I called my understanding the "Huang's principle". Ha Ha. I am just kidding. Art is different from Science. In science, people try not to "reinvent the wheel". However in art, every artist have to invent his/her wheel themselves.

Savannah

After the workshop, I went to Savannah, GA. I really like this old city. There are so many old houses. It is wonderful place for cityscape paintings. The movie "Forest Gump" was shot here. I really like that movie. "Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get". It is so true.

“Demo at St. Simons Island 3" --- Sold

Now the workshop at St. Simons is over. This is my 3rd demo on the last day. I felt a little more in control on my high key paintings. I minimized the value range. You can see I hardly have any very dark part on this painting. In this way,  color presentation captures more attention.

"Demo at St. Simons Island 2" --- Sold

I really like the silver thingy in my second demonstration. This demo is unusual. I didn't have any light objects. I didn't have much of high chroma colors either. The center of focus was developed by the texture of silver. The distribution of the colors is more from the reflections rather than using local colors. This may imply new directions. I felt excited.

"Demo at St. Simons Island 1" --- Sold

At St. Simons, I started my 3rd Island workshop of the year. I want to thank Mary Anderson for putting this wonderful workshop together, and thanks to all the artists for joining and painting with me. My first demo was with complete black background. That gave me great contrast to show the white vase. I enjoyed this composition. My still life starts to show more texture variations. I am happy about that.

"Demo at Jacksonville 2014_2" --- Sold

I have arrived at St. Simons Island, GA. Since my hotel room is not ready, I am sitting in a restaurant and have some time to kill. It is really quiet here. Beautiful golf course is right out of the window.

The painting for today is my second demo at Jacksonville. I like that blue thingy. The copper pipe adds on linear shapes making the geometric design of the painting rather interesting.

"Demo at Jacksonville 2014_1" ---Sold

I am on my teaching trip again. This time is Jacksonville, FL. I want to thank Eileen Corse for putting this workshop together. Thanks to all the artists coming from all over for attending my class. This is my first demo. I am sorry the quality of the photo is poor. I took it in a hurry. Today is actuarially the last day of the workshop. I am on my way to Georgia tomorrow.

"Wuzhen Street 1"

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Thanks to all the friends who gave me suggestion on my recent cityscape project. I worked more on the first painting, mainly on the figures, using more knifes, and putting color accent. I described a little more on the buildings. I think I have fulfilled my objective: to imply the details but not render them realistically. I have struggled and learned a lot.

Now, I consider this painting is done. It is a serious piece of artwork. However, I want to market it myself first. If you are interested to own this painting, please contact me, ask questions, request a high res image, discuss about framing and display issues. I will be more than happy to help you.

"Wuzhen Street 3 (Day 2)"

I worked on the 3rd painting today. Now all the three paintings are paused at this kind of intermedium stage. I need to do a lot of thinking at this moment. I am imagining myself as a chain smoker, sitting in front all these paintings, a cigarette after another cigarette, pondering what should be done next. I want to show "effects" not "details". In other words: details should be implied, not rendered. Should I stop now? but obviously this painting is not done. Any suggestions?

"Wuzhen Street 2 (Day 3)"

I have mentioned that I am doing 3 paintings together for my current project. I placed the first one on the back burner, which is my living room. I can see it often when I am not in my studio. The problems will pop up themselves if I display it in front of me long enough, the painting will nag me to fix its problems, then I will take action. Now I am working on the second painting. Its composition and color scheme is very similar to the first one. So painting the second one will help me to establish a systematic procedure to generate this kind of paintings (sounds pretty bad, doesn't it? It seems I am establishing a production line). If I say my first painting is R&D, my second painting is engineering. Please do not tell me that artists only used only the right brain. To be balanced is the key of doing anything well.