"Rose Solo 2" --- Sold

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Painting flowers is very different from painting a vase or an apple. I can never use a portrait approach, but flowers do have their own anatomy. If you really understand this anatomy, painting flowers actually is easier than a vase or other more defined objects. Unfortunately, I am still working to achieve the understanding. So painting flowers is still hard for me.

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New Workshop Announcement

I will teach a 3-day workshop at Round Rock, TX this fall.
Time: October 31 - November 2
Location: Art Center of Williamson County 601 Great Oaks Blvd., Suite B-300, Round Rock, TX 78681
Please contact: Denise Larue Mahlke at dlaruem@yahoo.com for detailed information. Denise is a very successful artist and a great teacher. She was featured in the current issues of the American Artist and Southwest Art magazines.

"Morning Rose 2" --- Sold

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I hope these roses bring you some happiness today.

"Orange on Blue Cloth"

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I am behind my schedule again. I need to paint quite a few gallery paintings for several shows. For this painting, I am experimenting my new way of composing. Hope this effort can provide you a fresh look of my work.

"Ready for Work"

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It is good but not easy to do something new. Be honest with you, I have run out subjects I really want to paint. You know I like apples a lot, but I think I had painted too many of them. Last night, I was in my studio, looking at all my still life objects. None of them I really want to paint. This power drill was among the last things I wanted to look at. The reason I paint it was that I have never painted it before. But to my surprise, I kind of like it.

"Organic Onion" --- Sold

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Is it important that the onion has to be organic for a painting? I don't know. The real idea behind this painting is that I want to present two colors: green and purple. I may generate some disturbance here. Obviously, these are two very different colors. However, I consider these two have a similar color temperature. Generally speaking, it is hard to say which one is cooler or warmer. I have held this opinion for a long time, and I have openly spoken about this at my previous workshop. If you are a color theorist, I am very interested in your comment about this issue.

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New Workshop Announcement

I am planning to teach a 4-day workshop at Bastrop TX from September 12 to September 15. Martin House – Crafter’s Haven, will organize this workshop. It will be hosted in a beautiful old Victorian mansion, built in 1888. Please contact Theresa at theresanavan@aol.com for detailed information. Thanks.

"Facing the Sun" --- Sold

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I am back, finally. I tried to pick up my brush for a whole week, but I had no chance. Thank God today is the weekend. Now sunflowers are blooming, I see them every morning when I jog. The sunflower is strong. I am inspired by its vitality.

"Demo at Magnolia 2" --- Sold

This is another demo painting I did at my workshop last weekend. I have not started painting since the workshop. Recently, my load at my engineering job has increased. I have to admit that I have not been able to follow my daily painting discipline. In this fast pace and exceedingly complicated modern life, being able to paint is an extraordinary luxury. Please do not take it for granted, and treasure your painting time, my friends.

"Demo at Magnolia 1" --- Sold

Last Friday and Saturday, I went to Magnolia, TX and did my third workshop of the year. I want to express my sincere gratitude to Marty Hatcher for organizing this event at the beautiful ARLC. I really enjoyed meeting new friends and seeing old friends in these wonderful two days. The painting I posted today is one of the demos I did. It combines both my left and right hands strokes. I hope all the attendees of this workshop have learned one or two new things. I am going to go back to ARLC in July to give another workshop and looking forward to meet more new friends. If you are interested in attending my future workshops at ARLC, please contact Marty. We will update you new workshop plans soon.

Thanks very much to so many friends writing to me regarding my injured shoulder. It is getting a little better. The pain is less than before, and I started to stretch and hope it will be back to normal soon. In the mean time, I will keep practicing my left handed painting continuously.

"Vibrant" --- Sold

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After my previous post, I have received many emails and comments from you. I am really really touched when I read your messages. Many of you shared similar experiences, and providing helpful tips and information of remedies. Thank you all very very much. I have started stretching and other exercises. At this moment, the pain is still with me, but I feel it is much more bearable now.

Positively speaking, this painful experience did open up new avenues for art. I painted this painting 100% left-handed. I highly recommend that you give a try as well if you want to loose up. My clumsy left hand brought me some good surprises.

"Apples and Cherries"

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Now and then, we have to face some challenges. For about month, I had problems with my right shoulder. It gives me a lot of pain and gradually frozen up. So I have to practising painting with my left hand. This painting and the previous one contain many my left hand strokes. As matter of fact, It is not that hard to paint left handed if you have a loose style.

"Specular" --- Sold

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Metallic surfaces are intriguing to paint. They give design opportunities for gathering rich colors into a small area by means of reflections from the surroundings. I will explore more in this field.

"Dog Tag" --- Sold

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I wish we could spend more time on art.

"Treble and Bass"

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I often consider a painting is a piece of music in the spatial domain. The light and color at the foreground present a high pitch melody while the dark background provides a low pitch bass. Can you hear that?

"Apples in Study"

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It is rather interesting painting pen and pencils. I want them to be recognizable, and I also want to paint them loose. The composition of this one is very typical. I don't know why I keep coming back to this kind of arrangement. I hope you will not get bored with what I do now.

"Yellow Ribbon" --- Sold

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The sale of this painting will be donated to the China earthquake victims.

The yellow ribbon symbolizes the hope that more people may survive and come back from the disasters and the best wishes to their future.

"Beauty of Life" --- Sold

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The sale of this painting will be donated to the China Earthquake Victims. If you want to help please donate too.

Recently, I have almost no time to paint. I finally found some time and started to paint this one last night at 9:15 PM. I wish I can be less busy and have reasonable amount of time to enjoy this precious life, but ...

"Prayer Wheel" --- Sold

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I was glued to my computer checking horrible photos and video clips of the devastating earthquake in Si-Chuan, China. Thousands of People are suffering and dying at this very moment I am writing.

We have too many disasters lately. What is really going on? I don't have the answer. As a member of this big family we call the World, I will try my best to help. Let's help each other. Let's help the world.

"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.

"Yellow Daisy" --- Sold

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Auction starts at 7:00 PM PDT on 5/7/2008 .

In this painting, I used a very warm background. I did this deliberately to overcome my problem that I easily paint the painting too cool. I feel good about this one because I think I am on the right track. Don't you agree?

"Demo at Austin 2" --- Sold

This painting was my second demo on the workshop at Austin a week ago.

"Indian Blanket" --- Sold

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Indian blanket, what a name it is for this wild flower. It is beautiful and strong. It will sustain in any kind of harsh weather. We can learn a lot from it.

"Spring Colors"

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It is the most colorful season now. Flowers are blooming everywhere. So I must paint some of them. Please enjoy.

"Reflection" --- Sold

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I did this painting last year. I look at it yesterday, and I saw lots problems. So I got the same setup, and paint on the top of old painting. It looks much better now I think. If we keep practice, our art will improve day by day.

"Two Apples and Grapes" --- Sold

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This painting is a gallery piece. It is based on a composition I did before. I did this one before my workshop at Austin. By the way the workshop turned out successfully. Many thanks to Carl Canga for organizing and video taping, and Craig Newswanger for providing the studio space and high voltage lightning show. Later on I will have some new painting videos to show when it is ready. Especially I want thank all the artists who participated the workshop. I hope you have benefited from those two days hard work, and your art will shine and this world will be more beautiful because of your contribution.

"Demo at Austin 1" --- Sold

I am doing my workshop at Austin today and tomorrow. This is my demo piece I did today. We all had lots of fun, and the fun will continue tomorrow.

"Red Radish" --- Sold

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(Auction starts at 7:00 PM PDT on 4/24/08)

These radishes are from our back yard. I like the rosy color and the shapes of the leaves. Painting leaves is challenging to me, but it is fun.

My second workshop is coming up this weekend. This one will be in Austin, TX. I am looking forward to seeing old friends and meeting new friends.

"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.

"Orange Pot" --- Sold

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One of my favorite landscape artists is Calvin Liang. I really like his way of using color. This painting is my experiment of using Calvin's landscape color scheme into a still life painting. I hope this approach can work.

I recently placed a link of my workshop schedule on my blog. If you are interested in attending one, please click the small yellow thing on the upper right side of my blog page.