"Peaches, Leaves" --- Sold

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I want to thank all the friends for providing information and tips for my marina assessment question. I will try again.
I am not quite sure what I am doing with my today’s painting. You know I have done a few leaf paintings not long ago. Obviously, I haven’t done enough. There are many issues, but I will keep trying. I will make it some day.

"Let's Drink"

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More high key paintings. Correct me if I am wrong: High key has more opportunities for color, while low key has more opportunities for value.

"Covering Up" --- Sold

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I resume my small painting again and continue working on leaves. I start to pay attention on stems too. The shape variation of the design makes the painting more dramatic. The leaves and stems provide opportunities to achieve this shape variation. I am on the right track, I think.

"Chapel Dulcinea" --- Sold

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When I was in Scottsdale, AZ, my friend Li and Mark told me that there is beautiful place in south Austin called Chapel Dulcinea. Coincidently, the local Plein Air Austin group had a paint out there this morning. I went out with them and did this small oil sketch. The weather was great. I had a wonderful time. I started to have some feelings about plein air painting now. My value range is improving. My colors are more under control. The paint quality has not reach to the level I like yet, but it is getting closer. In a nutshell, I feel good about this one.

"House in Austin 2"

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I took this morning off, from both my art and engineering. It was a perfect morning for plein air, beautiful weather and no wind. but …… I didn’t paint. having been working my two professions for a long while; I did feel a little tired mentally. Coming back from my workshop trip, I went immediately to my lab and had a long day with lasers and lenses yesterday. So I want to do something else today. About four months ago, we bought 2 acres in the Texas hill country. It is about 20 minutes drive from our home. So I went to this country land this morning. Chainsaw in my hand, I worked my butt off cutting down old cedar trees. You know I am not in good shape. Not for too long, I was exhausted physically. Panting and sweating, I crashed by a small creek. Hearing the water gurgling down. Men! I felt sooooo good. The simplest life is the best. To make myself not feel too guilty for not painting, I post this plein air I did about a week ago. I was so busy, and didn't get chance to show it earlier.

"Let Me In"

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After several plein air landscapes, I want to go back to still life. I also want to paint something I haven’t painted before. Kiwis are new to me. The translucent dark green is so enticing. I just love it.

"House in Austin 1" --- Sold

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It was cloudy Sunday afternoon. I did this plein air near the Lake Travis, close to a very affluent neighborhood. After painting several plein air paintings, I realize that my plein air is completely the opposite my still life. My still lifes are low-key, with very wide value range, with high chroma colors, and very bright light in the focal point. Well, my plein airs are high key, narrow value range, with subtle grays, and dark accent at the center of focus. I have tried using my still life approaches to do plein air, but they did not work well. I don’t understand why. It does not make sense.

"My Neighborhood" --- Sold

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To you plein air painters, where do you go to paint? Do you travel to exotic places and paint special historic sites with spectacular natural beauty? I do. I did this painting yesterday morning. I had about 2 hours daytime before I sent my car to have its brakes replaced; then I went to work. I traveled 50 yards from my house. All houses here will have special history in the future. The ordinary sidewalk made a spectacular turn. If you are checking my image from other countries, this is a quite exotic American neighborhood.

"New Sweden Church" --- Sold

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On Thursday morning, I joined the Plein Air Austin group and painted this beautiful church. It was so wonderful painting with PAA again. I was a member for many years, but have not been active for a long time. This paint out was arranged by my friend Robert. As a matter of fact, he scarifies quite a bid finding this location. Several years ago. Robert was bicycling near Manor, Texas. He had a bad fall on a country road and lost two of his front teeth. With a blood covered face, he stood up and found this beautiful place. "What a painting it is!" Robert thought. Now he is back and with many artists coming with him. I felt quite good about what I did. The greys work nicely. I appreciate so much that many friends sharing their grey recipes with me. I can't wait to try them all.

"JMK Log House" --- Sold

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I did this little plein air sketch this morning. This is an old log house located very close to where I live. Compared with my painting posted previously, I felt a little better. I am working on the foundation of my plein air paintings. For this one, I am paying attention on mixing greys. I was using ultramarine blue, cadmium orange, and Naples yellow to get the grey for the shadow of the house. If you have good ways of mixing greys, would you mind sharing them with me?

"Yellow Daisy" --- Sold

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My wife, Song, had some leftover yellow daisies sitting in the corner of our kitchen after her ikebana meeting. I put them on my still life stand and did this painting almost en plein air. I really had hard time when I started. The value range was very narrow, the purples and yellows are almost the same in value and temperature. It was so abstract at the beginning that I almost gave it up. I straggled through and kind of like how it turned out. I like to have the painting as abstract as possible but keep the accuracy so the painting still representational. I will be in Dallas, TX this weekend teaching my third workshop of the year. Keep checking and I will keep you posted.

"Orange Crystals" --- Sold

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Can you believe it? I didn't get a chance to touch my brushes for an entire week. Art can be killed just like that. I was so busy tweaking optics in my lab that I even have no time to check my emails during the day. If you are more lucky than I am, please help me to paint more. If you think you could wait till tomorrow to paint, please pick your brush today. We are obligated to make this world more beautiful. Finally on Sunday afternoon, I did this small painting. I am still in the mode of doing low key paintings. I was testing of using translucent light as my center of focus. I think it works well.

"Wild Lantern" --- Sold

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Song (my wife) and I had a picnic in a park on Saturday. We haven't done this for a long time. The vegetation in the park is so different from our last visit. One type caught my attention the most. It is a vine full of red and green puffy lanterns on it. They danced happily in the autumn wind. I don't know its name (maybe you can help me), but I brought some of them home and painted this one that night. I am so happy to be an artist. So much beauty around us eagerly want to be painted.

"Come and Join" --- Sold

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On most Sunday mornings, I teach drawing to a small group at my house. They are absolute beginners, but they have made tremendous progress. Now some members of this group will take my painting workshop at Austin this coming Weekend. Since they never painted before, they requested me to give a pre-workshop class. The paintings of this and the previous post are my demos to them. From my experience of teaching this group, I want encourage those who want to do art but consider themselves having no talent. Art can be learned. You can produce wonderful work if you are on the right track.

"LBJ Ranch" --- Sold

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I was so excited. I painted plein air with master artist Calvin Liang yesterday. Calvin is a wonderful landscape painter. After attending the reception of his show at the Greenhouse gallery in San Antonio, He is teaching a workshop at the Fredericksbury Artists School. Calvin and I have been friends for many years, but this was the first time we paint together. His way of using colors is incredibly dramatic. We talked about color during the paint-out. He turned on quite a few light bulbs in my head. Lit with Calvin's light, you will see me doing more landscapes later on.