Morning at Ruffini Chapel

 

I did this painting as a commission piece for a collector. I have used two ref photos for this project. The first photo gave me the perspective, but it did not give me good light and value. The second photo has good color but with totally different perspective. I really like the colors of the pavement in front of the church. My recent color study helped me tremendously. 

Silver Prismatics

 

"Silver Prismatics", 11" x 14". After exploring the unknown art world for a while, I came back to my comfort zone. I am painting still life again. As an old dog, I have had a hard time to learn new tricks. Now I am at home, enjoying my own cup of tea, laying back in the homey coziness. We love the world, but we should love ourselves first.

"The Red Door" --- Sold

 

I have been slowing down and not posting paintings actively. Even the posted painting today was done about a month ago. The reason is simple: I have not painted for a while. The world is in chaos. I am having a hard time to concentrate myself to art. I try my best to calm my mind. I spend more time at my off the grid haven. There is no wifi and I force myself away from Youtube and other so called "information resources". If I don't know, I assume the world is still in peace. I know it is not true. I wish all the best to all of you. Please protect yourselves. It is cold there, we will hibernate and wait for the spring to come.

"Head Study 020919"

Today's head study is relatively more challenge, I can not play the light and shadow game on this one, and the perspective is not easy either.  I am happy that the model has strong features on her nose and mouth. I am rather weak in painting the nose and mouth area, I have got a chance today to practice. The entire process of today's painting was a struggle, but result was not too bad. Man! I wish I can do head studies everyday.

"Head Study 020819"

I have done a few "head studies" after I got back home. I did not show all of them. They are kind of boring, and full of problems. This is what I did today. It is relatively good. The nose has some minor issues, and I did not have time to do the ear. I will say I have reached the mediocre level of portrait painting. The face looks close to normal human being now. At this moment, I won't say there is much of art in my head studies, because I still concentrate only on how to copy the face accurately, I have not give much of thought about design and composition. I just try to avoid anatomic, proportional, and perspective mistakes. That is all.

"Head Study 011919"

Obviously, I did not do a good job on my yesterday's painting, but I went to Whole Food and found myself a bowl of Chicken Noodle soup. It was delicious. I went to live painting again this morning. It happen to be the same model. I did better I think.

"Head Study 011819"

Today, I have really experienced how a starving artist feels. Due to a bad toothache, I hardly ate anything for a few days. I felt very hungry today. I wanted to go today's noon to 3:00 live painting, but I better find a bowl of soup (that is only thing I can eat) before I start to paint. I left a little early and stopped by 3 places: a Burger King, a HEB (grocery store), and a Jersey Mike's Subs. Man! nobody offers a bowl of soup. I was starving and arrived at the painting place late. I did all right. The painting has some problems. I finished this painting with some warm water and a tablet of ibuprofen.

"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.

"Night"

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It is night. It is dark. but I still have the color, reflecting the light afar.

This painting emphasizes more on light effect, not much on brush work. I planned the light carefully, and made my value distribution consistent.

I will have 3-men show coming up. I have to work really hard and quick to generate enough paintings for the show. This painting will be one of them. This show is a new real challenge to me. With my crazy life, doing solo and group shows is almost impossible. However, I am willing to give it a try.

"Out of the Shadow"

I did this painting as a demo at the Wimberley Valley Art League, TX on Monday night. I was so excited seeing quite a few my old artist friends, and met many new friends as well. The composition of this one I used before, but not very often. The foreground darks enhance the light area behind it giving a sharp contrast. This helps the center of focus coming out more. It surely was a fun evening I had.

"Mexican Vase"

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I have spent last several days working on this gallery level painting. I really like this colorful vase and I have painted it many times. I think it is from Mexico. In two week, I will go there and give a workshop. Knowing almost nothing about this country, I am excited for this trip. I am pretty sure it will be fun to gain new experiences.

"On a Glossy Surface"

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Newton first law of motion says: Every body perseveres in its state of being at rest or of moving uniformly straight forward, except insofar as it is compelled to change its state by force impressed. For these two weeks. I have been in a slow motion mode and have not painted as frequent as I used to. According to this Newton guy, I have to apply a force to get my momentum back. Oh boy, that is not easy.
Well, Forgive my excuse in terms of classical physics. On this painting I am continuing working on reflections. This light effect has been trademarked by many landscape painters. I think it works well with still life as well. Don't you think so?

"Afternoon at the Mission"

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I spent last several days and did this gallery level painting. It feels so different doing landscapes than still lifes. It was fun. I thought I would take a break, but I just couldn't. I am so behind in satisfying my galleries requests. Oh, by this way I am going to show a painting at the OPA Western regional exhibition in September.

I am not going to paint tonight. I will watch the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics. I was told that there were painting related performance in it.

"Dance of Light"

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This painting took me four day. The past week, my time was fragmented for everything. In this painting, I was attracted by the light transmitted through the brown bottle and then casting on the vase. I don't know I depicted the effect or not. Working on a painting in multiple sessions is problematic to me. Colors (especially darks) dried between my painting sessions and showing inconsistency. Does anybody know how to fix this problem?

"Yellow Rose and Violin" --- Sold

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This gallery painting took me two days. Violin is a difficult to paint. It is delicately made and it keeps tell me: Keep your big wishy-washy brush away. It is really a balance issue to know how loose I can go, especially with the objects like a violin.

"Rose and Fruit"

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I painted this relatively large painting a couple of days ago and started to see that my small studies really helped me to improve my skills. I know the progressing process has no end, but I find the daily painting practice provides me a controlled way, such that my pursuing art becomes a systematic approach. It is getting more and more scientific.