"Blue Bucket"

6" x 8", oil on canvas, framed, $300 + shipping
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Sorry I have not been active in painting lately. I have run into some personal trouble, and have to deal with it alone. My mood now will be reflected by the Imagine Dragons's song "Demons".

This is a beautiful painting. However, the beauty is hypocritical. Only the blue is the truth.

"Cypress Creek Park" --- Sold

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I went to plein air painting by myself yesterday. It is also my first non-demo painting. When I am not teaching, I shift into my research mode and try to improve myself. The research topic with this painting is trying to develop a workable limited palette for plein air painting. I used 5 colors to do this painting: cad yellow lemon, quinacridone rose, manganese blue, ultramarine blue, and white. I think the painting has proved that this palette works. I can get all most all the colors I need.

"Cedar Park Water Garden"

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Today I went with a group Austin artists to Cedar Park Water Garden. I did this plein air sketch. It was a overwhelmingly busy places, full of miniature ponds, fountains, flower pots, and other decorative stuff. I really don't know what to paint. So I found a shaded spot, observing the direction of the sun moves to estimate the light stability. Then I saw the scene. So if you feel hard to decide where and what to paint in a plein air situation, first make yourself comfortable. Secondly, you observe from your location.

Am I too abstract? If you feel I am going too far, please warn me.

"Xidi Doorway 2" --- Sold

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Following the momentum of my monochromatic practice, I did another doorway painting. The simplification of the color portion of the painting allows me to concentrate on the texture manipulation. Aesthetically, the monochromatic harmony and the roughness of the texture gives the artwork a sense of time transition, a feeling of old age. Beauty seems closely related to old and imperfectness. That is why we collect antiques, and visit old places. I don't know why, but this is my intuitive thinking. If you have a more philosophical explanation, please educate me. I am very curious about this topic.

"Xidi Doorway 1" --- Sold

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Due to the jet lag, I got up really early. I started painting this one at 5:00 AM. This is a good exercise of monochromatic painting. This approach is suitable of presenting old architectural structures. During our China painting trip, we spent quite a few days in an old village called Xidi. Most of the buildings there are more than two hundred years old. This place is the paradise for me. I have seen so many paintings I want to paint. I was so excited the first night I couldn't sleep. I am sure I will go back to this beautiful place and paint more plein air. Now I am painting from the photos I took. For this painting I used only three colors: black, white, and transparent oxide red. It is almost done completely with palette knifes.

"Lotus Garden at West Lake" --- Sold

I have come back to the States last night. When I was in China, the internet assessment was not great so I wasn't up to date what I was doing. But it was a superb trip. I did 8 paintings and took a ton of photos. After I process my photos I will share some of the high lights with you.

I did this painting as a plein air demo at Hangzhou by the Xi-hu (West lake). It was a beautiful garden. It was quiet place and the weather was ideal. As a matter of fact, it was my first time of painting lotus. It was a wonderful experience for me. Quite a few artists in our group painted along with me. They did wonderful job as well.

"Small Building at Mayfield Park" --- Sold

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This is another plein air painting I did at the Mayfield Park. I have no idea about the use of this building, but it has an interesting shape. It was a sunny day. I like the warm tone of the building against the trees in the back ground. The Texas summer is in a full swing. It was pretty hot even in shade.

"Arch Way of Mayfield Park" --- Sold

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I went to Plein Air painting today with our local PAA group. The location was the Mayfield Park. I was amazed by so much scenes we can paint. I may go there again to paint this days. I picked this ivy covered stone arch way. It is wonderful combination of man made structure and the nature. I have really enjoyed myself today.

"Beijing Hutong 2014 9"

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This is the last painting I did in Beijing, and it is another plein air one. A couple of days before I left Beijing, I went to plein air painting with a new friend: Kuang Han. Han (is his first name, the Chinese always put their last name first) is a very well known pencil drawing artist in Beijing. However, he may not be known enough in the Western world. I don't need to say too much about him, please check Kuang Han's Art, you will know.

I have been home for a few days now. Due to the jet-lag, I have not started any serious painting project. However, I have been thinking a lot on what I have been doing. It is getting clearer and clearer that my art career has entered a relatively quiet phase. It feels like a novice sailor coming out of the busy harbor now. In front of me is the vast ocean, endless and exciting, but some sort lonely. For a few years I have touch_based a few areas in art. I felt quite frequently that I am either just see "the tip of an iceberg" or  "open a can of worms". Now the icebergs are getting bigger, and the worms are crawling all over (Man! what a mental picture I am painting). Well, we have no choice. Let's keep going. Maybe slow, and  maybe disoriented, but keep going, since we are determined.

Beijing Hutong 2014 - 8 SOLD!

Yesterday, I went plein air painting with a group of local artist friends. I did this sketch as a demonstration. I have quite a few artist friends here in Beijing. Every time I come here. I like to get together with them. We went to this place called “the Orchard”. It is very beautiful. It was so enjoyable painting with old friends. For purchase information click here.

Beijing Hutong 2014 - 7 --- Sold

This painting took me several days. I really worked on the grey, making sure the temperature change and color harmony are as correct as possible. I was very careful to avoid any arbitrary colors on this painting. This is very analytical painting, rather tiresome. Painting grey but not dirty is so difficult. Fortunately, it is still doable. Click here for purchase information.

Beijing Hutong 2014 - 6 SOLD!

I feel good about this painting because it goes to a good direction. Too many artists, me included, if we see part of the painting having issues, we usually fix them by adding details. When the painting is getting more realistic, we think the painting has progressed. This approach works but it usually ends up to a tight painting, not that exciting and dramatic. I am glad this one did not go that way. I have large areas on the painting remaining abstract, especially the knife work on the lower right corner. For purchase information click here.

Beijing Hutong 2014 - 5 SOLD!

In the Hutongs, I saw so many clothes lines. They are the major color contributions on the top of the grey. I like this one. Under the yellow afternoon sun. I have the situation of warm light, cool shadow. I tried my best to mix clean grey colors. I feel the color scheme of this painting works OK. For purchase information click here.

Beijing Hutong 2014 - 3

Grey is the color of Beijing. This is great opportunity for me. Although I have already spent quite a bit of time working on my greys, I am still not able to handle it in a controlled manner. Well, I have no choice, but keep going and keep learning. Click here to purchase.

Beijing Hutong 2014 - 2

I did achieved color harmony on my previous painting. However, I did not feel very comfortable about the warm tone for the cityscape in China. Today I have tried used much cooler tone. I used very few colors for today’s painting: ultramarine blue, transparent oxide red, and white, plus a touch of pthalo blue and red for the color  accents. I like the cooler tone much better. Click here to purchase.

"Beijing Tao_Ran_Ting Park" --- Sold

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When we were in China last month, we spent the last 5 days in Beijing. We had one plein air painting day, and it happened to be a Chinese holiday (the Moon Cake Festival). Trying to avoid the big crowd, I picked a less well know park, the Tao_Ran_Ting park as our painting site. It turned out to be a great choice. We saw most of the local people, not too many tourists in the park. They were doing their morning exercises, ballroom dance, and music instrument and choir practice. It was slight raining in the morning. I found this twin-pavilion with a small lotus pond in the front. The scene is typical Chinese. So I use it to place the end of our wonderful China painting trip of 2013.

Li River --- Sold

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Continuing posting my plein air painting in China, this one I did at Yangshuo by the side of the Li River. Yangshuo is a small tourist town. It is very westernized, you see English signs all over. We took another ton of photos here. Be sure to check our photo website. It changes everyday.

I am on my way to the Washington DC area tomorrow. I will teach two workshops: one at Springfield VA, and one at Yardley, PA. There are still a couple of opening in my Yardley workshop, please sign up if you are interested in.

“Zhouzhuang Reflections" --- Sold

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I put my large painting projects on the back burner, now my today's post is another plein air in Zhouzhuang. This is the third one I did there. My second painting in the village didn't turn out well. On the second day we stayed, we started painting really early, around 6:30 AM. Our jet-lag was advantageous to us this time. It was still very hot and humid, 30 minutes later, we felt we need to take another shower. We picked a very popular sightseeing spot. Well, most beautiful place may not always suitable for painting (my excuse for not being able to paint well that day). In the middle of our painting process, a movie crew came suddenly. The place was packed right away. It was so crowded I couldn't see my scene. So I gave up right there. On the third day, we found a relatively quiet place. Only local villagers are around us, washing their cooking pot and mop in the same water. A group of old ladies was selling dry fish next to me. I felt very well this time, and this painting fell on my panel in a very short time.

"Zhouzhuang Afternoon" --- Sold

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You probably have been sick and tired of my sketches by now. It is time to show some paintings. This is my first plein air painting in China.

It was the third day after we arrived. Our group have just settled in a very elegant hotel in Zhouzhuang. This is a place you see very few foreign visitors. We were given a map of the village, but it is all in Chinese. I had to explain to all team members where we were, and where we would go. Even this high end hotel did not provide ice water. There was a refrigerator in each room, but its temperature had been set too high so the drinks inside were almost the room temperature. It was a hot and super humid afternoon. After taken my third shower of the day, I set up my Open Box M easel right outside of the hotel. It was considered as a demo, but I had no idea what I was doing. In my semi jet-lag sleep, I started to lay my darks. The perspectives were quite challenging (I thought I knew perspective inside out, WRONG!). There was a cat watching me at the beginning, then she got tired of my art and walked away. A street vendor was frying stinky tofu nearby. Perhaps, we were the only plein air painting group in the village (and it was very international). We had attracted quite an attention. Many local villagers and Chinese tourists took pictures of and with us, (as Mickey and Goofy in the Disney World). So we contributed quite a bit as a new attraction point to the Chinese touring industry. I got some comments on my painting. "You do houses all right, but you just don't know how to paint trees" said one of the tourists. Now the cat was back reminded me it should be the time to call it a day.  Many our team members painted as well, and they had done much better jobs than what I did.

"Pot and Pears" --- Sold

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This is the last painting I post before I get on my international flight for China. I did it with my Austin group. I kept the setup simple so the students can follow me easily.

Tomorrow I will step into something brand new. We have a wonderful group of 15 artists from the USA, Australia, and the Philippines. We will sketch, paint, and sightsee four places in China. During this trip, I will keep my blog and postcard going and share what I see and do. Please take a ride with me. The excitement will start soon.