"Red Hair"

Click Here for Purchasing Info

Painting figures is really my dream. When I started painting, I immediately went into figurative. Very soon I have realized how difficult it could be. So I took a detour and went into still life painting to strengthen my foundations. You have seen I only occasionally paint head studies and figure practices. So fast, more than a decade has passed. Now I come back to my try love.

"Pink Rose Study 02" --- Sold

Click Here for Purchase Info

Flower painting, I have done quite a bit, but I still see much more room for improvement. I'd like to paint from life as much as possible, but this one I did from a photo. When I in a studying mode, I tend to paint very slowly. The flower does not want to sit still. It grows right in front of me. Some time I paint so slowly that I feel I was chasing the growth of the flower.

I have started an new online activity: selling my art directly from my website. Please check my "Available Paintings" web page. I want to be the gallery owner of my own art. I appreciate all of you to support my new endeavor in this part of art business. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thanks.

"Spring at Dies Ranch"

Click Here to Bid

I did this plein air painting this morning. The spring in Texas is spectacular and the colors are so fresh. I enjoyed the perfect weather today. It is one the ideal days to paint outside.

The weather is wonderful, but the climate is so strange. The spring comes so early this year. The temperature has gone beyond 90 F this afternoon. We might have a super hot summer this year.

"Xidi Carved Window 1"

Click Here to Bid

I am continuing on the research of the monochromatic paintings. I started to consider to remove the transparent oxide red off my palette. This painting was done with burnt umber, white and a little black. It looks the experiment works. This way will save me significantly on the expenses on paints.

I have a major computer crash over the weekend. I have lost quite a bit of information. If you used to receive my daily painting emails, but found you did not receive this post and posts in the future, please let me know, I have to manually put you back. I am sorry for the inconvenience.

"French Legation Museum, Austin"

Click Here to Bid

This morning I joined a group of local artists, painted plein air at the French legation Museum at the downtown Austin. My color scheme for this painting is rather weird. I did not plan to do this but it turned out like this by itself. I don't quite like this color scheme. Can any psychologist explain what is going on?

"Keep Austin Weird" is the motto of this city. I must be possessed by a "weird" spirit this morning.

"Big Apple and Small Onion"

Click Here to Bid

I have been back to Austin for a few days now, and this is what I did today. Somehow every time I am back home, it is always difficult to start painting right away. So many other things because priorities, and painting have to give in. Several days passes quickly and my mind is blank at this moment, so I used this simple painting to warm up.

"Anderson Mill Water Wheel" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

I did this small plein air study a week ago. That day my wife Song went the Anderson Mill Garden Club for quilting. I went along but stayed outside and painted this one. The weather is so good in Austin this winter. I have been lucky and been able to paint so many plein air studies.

"Cypress Creek Park 5" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

I have been painting at the same place again and again. I don't know why I am doing this exactly. It maybe because I don't feel enough control on handling the colors for plein air painting.  I see too much, but my hand can only do a very small portion of it. I hope I will progress and get to a higher level by keep going to this location again. You will see more to come.

"Cypress Creek Park 4" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

Another plein air at the same park, but at a different location. The new limited palette works very well. The painting looks harmonious and colorful. I am happy to include pure (i.e. no man made structures) landscape painting into my portfolio.

"Cypress Creek Park 3" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

I went to the same place again, and did my third plein air. I feel I really need to do several paintings at the same location. I am a little more comfortable now.

"Chicago in the rain"

Click here to bid

This is another monochrome color study. My palette was the same I used yesterday. I used the ref photo I took in Chicago earlier of the year. I feel the color scheme is suitable to describe the rainy cityscape. With the monochrome approach, I eliminate the local colors. However, it still has color temperature variation. In this painting, black is my warm color and turquoise blue is my cool. With this mono approach I can effectively control muddy colors and keep the entire painting harmonized. I am considering of doing a few large paintings with this approach.

"A Lonely Rose"

Click Here to Bid

This is a small 6" x 6" painting I have not done for a long time. Even now I mainly doing large paintings, but it feels good doing small studies once a while.

Recently I put a video page on my website. My son Jonathan edited most of the them. He is pretty good about online stuff. I really appreciate he is helping me out. So please enjoy these videos as a snapshot of my art.

"Backyard Plein Air 1" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

You must have noticed that I have stopped painting small daily paintings for about a year by now. However, I want to restart again. This time I want to concentrate on plein air landscapes. I have not practiced enough on painting plein air. I always want to place regular shaped 3D objects, like a house, or other man made structures in my plein air. That is the reason I prefer cityscapes rather than pure landscapes. Well, this one is my exploration of trees and bushes.

"Shining in Warm and Cool 2"

Click Here to Bid

I did another two-light-source painting. How we light the still life setup is a very important part of the design. It has happened so many times in my workshops during still life setting up time, students only pay attention on how to group objects together, but completely ignore how the illumination should be. This painting and the previous one are typical examples showing how the light becomes the major player of a still life painting.

"Shining in Warm and Cool"

Click Here to Bid

Back to Austin for three days, my art keeps on going. I did this painting yesterday as a demo for my Austin mentoring group showing how I paint metal. There were two light sources: one warm source from a halogen spot light on the right, and natural light from the left. I think I did the light distribution "correctly" on the pewter pot, but I can't explain why I did the light on the bottle "incorrectly". I used so called "artistic license" for that.

"Gold Apple on Blue" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

I want to thank all the friends who commented my recent serious painting "Evening Tea". In that painting, I have pushed many envelops, but there are still many envelops I didn't push, or not push enough. One of them was color. Now I come back to the study of my high key color schemes. I mention to my students that high key is not my cup of tea. It is much easier for me to deal with value and do low key paintings. I have been aware of my weakness a long time ago, and have put a significant effort to understand color. My practice in high key is not very consistent, like a blind try to find my way. I hope my today's color scheme can touch you in a positive psychological way.

“Color of Light" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

Today is my Austin mentoring day again. I did this small one as the demo. I feel my sense of color is getting better, and more interested the colors on objects with no obvious local color. In other words, I am more interested in presenting the colors of lights. Similar to my demo last week. I have two light sources for this painting: a very strong artificial light producing very warm light, and a relative weak natural light giving me the cool. It is more dramatic of using colors to show white, and using darks to show light. Contradictory? but works.

"Warm light cool shadow" --- Sold

Click Here to Bid

Coming out of Kaufman TX in heavy rain, I came back to the real (or the unreal, both are correct) world. I had a wonderful time of this 10 days Vipassana meditation course. It is way beyond my ability to describe what I have experienced in this retreat. In a nutshell, I will say it is not a religious ritual, even it is not a way to relax. To be more exact, it is an expedition and sightseeing. Like climbing a mountain, we worked really hard, but the scenery on the way was spectacular. 10 days is way too short for this trek. What I have seen was just the tip of an iceberg.  I realized there is another dimension of human life, and we do have the ability to live happily, peacefully and harmoniously. I will go back to do it again in the future for sure. Vipassana means "seeing things as they really are". Nowadays it is no longer a foreign word, It is getting so popular, so many people practice it, and it brings so much positive energy to the mankind.

I was so amazed how successful the meditation center is operating. There is not a trace of commercialism. The center was run by all volunteers and provides free lodging and food for hundreds of participants. No donation will be accepted if you have not participated at least one 10 days course. Coming out with so tremendous benefit from the course, everyone are more than willingly to support the center either financially or provide services. Everything worked so efficiently and no waist. I feel it is almost the Utopia I have been looking for.

Now I have restarted my regular life. Today is for my Austin mentor class. I did this small painting as a demo.

“White in Color"

Click Here to Bid

Continuing my exploration, I did this one. It has very similar color scheme of my yesterday's painting, but I adjusted the value a little. I feel the most important part is that I pay attention of colors on edges. Very high chroma color can be used along the edges creating so much drama. I am so excited.

Well I must step on the breaks now.  I will teach two workshops in Texas starting tomorrow. I may apply my experimental results on my demos during these workshops. You will see.

"White in Dark"

Click Here to Bid

Having been back to Austin for a few day and swamped in all kind of chores. However, I did manage using my fragmented time to paint. On the foundation of high key painting I have established previously, I want to go further. For this project, I have absolutely no local color in the setup. I had a small white jar against the white background, and the jar is in shadow completely. All the colors are contributed by the light sources and environmental reflections. The goal of this painting is to show: 1. Using dark color to present light objects, and 2. Using intensive colors to present white objects. Is this called Impressionistic?