"Eeyore's Birthday"

It was a super beautiful day today.  I was in the mode of partying. Song and I went to Pease Part near the downtown Austin. Every year at this time, there is huge party held here celebrating the birthday of Eeyore, the  chronically depressed donkey in the story of "Winnie-the-Pooh". I don't know exactly the history of this event, but it surely is a lot of fun. People dress up whatever they want to, playing drums and dancing all day long. To me, this is a great photo opportunity. I can get references for my future paintings. This is one of the photos I took. Eeyore's Birthday party has a strong Bohemian and Hippie flavor. It is typical Austinish (is that a word?). With its motto "Keep Austin Weird", Austin is very avant garde place, very different from the rest of Texas. People are happy and friendly. I really enjoyed this wonderful day with the all beautiful colors flowing in front of me.

"Demo at home 2012 1"

A group of Song's friends came to my studio yesterday. I did this demo to them.

Recently, I really like the word "mode". This week happens to be my engineering consulting week. I went back to the company and worked on an project with a lot of heavy mathematics. It was a quite an effort to shift from my art mode to the scientific mode. But after I am in the mode, I gained momentum and progress. Nowadays I start to realize that I am in trouble, because I am in too many different modes: teaching mode, small painting mode, engineering mode, gallery show mode, tax preparation mode, Internet trouble shooting mode, Of course the most importantly, the family mode. I am not alone. I think everybody now have to be multitasking. The problem is that changing mode requires time and energy. If mode changing happens too often, the system will be paralyzed. The exhaustion will be maximized and the efficiency will go to zero. I can see it is happening to me. I am thinking about the way to solve the problem, but I don't have a good solution. I am hanging there, doing as much as I can.

"Ernest Watson Study 2"

I copied another Ernest Watson's drawing today. It is a good way to learn. I will keep doing this kind of exercise until I feel satisfied with my drawings. I think I have progressed a little since I did my previous drawing. I feel pretty excited doing this.

"Life is Simple"

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I can't believe I didn't paint any small painting for 24 days. If you follow me on this blog, you know what I have been up to. But I am so glad I am back. As a matter of fact, I am pretty burnt out now. "Life is simple" is the title I give to my painting today. It is also my dream. I wish there is a place where there is no such thing called "money". The financial world has been manipulated so much, you must have several Ph.D.s to understand what is going on. My brain is smaller than a shoe box, so I rather have it holding information about painting. Should I gamble my future on the Wall Street? ... Well I don't want to continue, because I know I will not be able to make sense after a few more sentences. On the other hand, I have realized how deep we are addictive to the "money" thingy. We have no way out. We are doomed. "Simple life" is still a dream, but I will keep dreaming.

"Ernest Watson Study 1"

Started with my tiny drawing yesterday, I have been possessed by my pencils. This one is a copy from the  book "The Art of Pencil Drawing" by Ernest W. Watson. I really like the way he illustrated the cityscapes. I am learning his value design, and the abstract patterns he used in rendering. In the near future I want to paint from photos, but I am not good to organize information from the photo. So learning by copying others work is an effective way for me.

"Raining Day"

Today I had a desire of doing a super large painting (30"x 40" in my mind), but I ended up doing a tiny pencil sketch. This one is on a piece of 3" x 3" post note. I want to use this kind of sketch to test my composition and value designs. I drew quite a bit before, but I have not done enough recently. So this one is a good starting point.

These several years, I feel I had made some progress in both my art and the business part of it. Although I have got many opportunities, my time in art has been decreasing to almost to the minimum. Many days I spend my entire time dealing with my business, but I still can only take care of part of the demand.  In order to keep my art going, I have locked up some of my time devoted to my study and painting. I do read all of your email messages with my deep appreciation, and I try to answer emails which related to my teaching and other commitments. Due to the limitation of my time and ability, I have to delay many of my email responses. If you are workshop organizers, collectors, galleries, and artists asking questions, please be patient with me and allowing several days to get my replies. If you feel you have waited too long, you may send me a reminder. I am not a good manager, but I am learning. I understood the risk I may lose business due to my slow response, but it is so obvious to me if I can not improve my art, my business will not last long.

"Old Days Enthusiasm"

Yesterday was an ideal day for me. I spent about 11 hours painting. I rarely have this kind of opportunities. This painting is quite a challenge to me. All the objects I have not painted before, and the forms demand high degree of accuracy and need to be perspectively correct. Oh boy! Painting apples and flowers are much easier. But I really enjoyed the process. I paint it significantly slower than my demos,  did a lot of cleaning, and used knifes for straight edges. I was very tired in the evening, but my day was well spent.

This painting brought my childhood memory back. I was really interested in making radios and electronics when I was in elementary school. from small crystal radio to shortwave, I spent almost all my spare time on all kind of electronics projects. Many times I saved my meal money to buy transistors and other parts. The soldering iron, the diode, and the variable capacitor in this painting are all very special to me.  I got that radio showing in this painting about two years ago from an antique shop in Duncan Oklahoma. It was a home made one. Its previous owner must have the same enthusiasm like I did.

I have a show coming up at the InSight Gallery. This painting will be a part of the show.

"Demo at Wenmohs Ranch 2012 2" --- Sold

The second demo I did at Wenmohs Ranch was a real enjoyment to me. It is the first time I painted Oleander and I immediately fell in love with it. I will say I like the leaves more than the flower. I like the long skinny shape of the leaf. It give a significant shape contrast to other round props, making the composition rich and dramatic.

My next workshop will be in two weeks from now. I hope I can use these two weeks time to study and  improve my art a little by creating some small paintings and gallery paintings. Although I teach a lot nowadays, but I really want to be a student and learn. I wish my learning curve would have been a little straighter, and my improvement would have been a little faster. But I don't have much control. I am moving forward patiently with baby steps.

"Demo at Wenmohs Ranch 2012 1" --- Sold

This a couple of days, I am at the beautiful Texas Hill Country teaching a workshop. I want to thank Dena Wenmohs for organizing this workshop. I am so happy to see so many friends coming back and taking my workshop again. I am so happy meeting many new artists friends. This is my first demo I did  yesterday. It was fun doing it.

"Demo at Putney 3" --- Sold

This is old painting I did last July in Putney Vermont. Master artist Richard Schmid set up a massive flower still life. He did a magnificent demo with it. I have learned a lot from him. I did a demo too. I documented this event in my blog last year, but didn't show the painting I did. So now you have it. The painting was wet so I didn't take it with me. About two weeks ago I revisited Putney, and this painting was sold on my Albany workshop.

I have shown you too many demo paintings lately since teaching workshops have been my major art activity this year. After I relocated my studio, it has not been fully functioning yet. I am working on it patiently. It is very slow, but at least, I am moving forward. Demos are challenging. I tend to be more conservative, repeating a lot, and time limited. But I present them in front of you, so you know I am still going.

"Demo in Albany 2012 3" --- Sold

When I was in Albany, I did an additional demo open to all artists and art lovers in the area. It was a big turn out. I hope everybody was there has enjoyed the show. I wasn't using the microphone effectively that night. Now I have aware of the issue, so it will be no issue in the future.

My comment on the movie "Hunger Games" has brought up an active discussion (please read more on the comments with my previous blog post). I wish I could have more time to talk more, but. In a nutshell: There are many things in this world are seriously wrong, and getting worse day by day. However, we should think what we can do and then DO it. As an artist, I will do my best to create good paintings and pass on what I know to other growing artists. I may not able to save our kids, save our world, but I will be positive and do my best.  The Titanic is going down, but the band is still playing.

Coming back to Austin, I have not got chance to paint yet, but I will be on the road again. I will teach a workshop at Wenmohs Ranch in the Texas Hill Country near Marble Falls starting this Friday. We might still have a couple of openings. If you are interested in joining us, please contact Dena Wenmohs.

"Demo at Albany 2012_2" --- Sold

This is my second demo at Albany. I had some difficulties to make the white rose make sense, but I like the colors I put on it.

Came back from New England. I wanted to take a break. It happened to be the Good Friday and Jonathan had no school. We decided to do something together with our family. We went to the movie theater and checked out the "Hunger Games". I heard it is very popular now and I was very curious about it. After about two hours of bumpy ride visually, the movie ended. Song and I uttered almost in unison: "That was a very BAD movie!" I regretted I have spent money and time watching children killing each other. Being squeezed among the crowd coming out (majority are teenagers), I felt sad. Do you call that "entertainment"? Do we still have any sense of morality? If we enjoy this movie, what is the difference between us and the bad guys who created and ran the "Hunger Games"? Watching the young bloods flowing in front me with the residual of excitement on their pretty faces. I was completely in a lost. It is not a generation gap. It is not a culture shock. I felt I have just landed in alien planet. I want to cry out: "Save our kids!!!"

"Demo in Albany 2012_1" --- Sold

Driving across the Green Mountain in light snow, I have arrived at Albany New York yesterday. Today is my first day of my workshop here. I want to thank Kristin and Dick Woodward for their warm hospitality. I want to thank Kristen and the Colonie Art League for organizing this workshop. I want thank all the artists for attending. This painting is my first demo at the workshop.

"Putney Roses"

Yesterday was the Putney painters' paint-out day. Quite a few of them showed up. I am honored to paint with them. I have spent a long time on this painting. I significantly slow down and tried to make all my brush works say something. I have struggled a little during the process, but result has turned out not bad. I may send it to one of the galleries representing me.

"Demo at Putney 2012_2" -- Traded

The second demo I did was a high key one. It gave me a lot of color opportunity. I kept the pewter kettle in the back in a very unfinished stage in contrast to the details on the cup and apple. If it works, doing less is more powerful than doing more.

Now the workshop is over. I hope everybody have enjoyed Putney, and the beautiful Vermont.

"Demo at Putney 2012-1" --- Sold

I am in Putney VT teaching a workshop. I want thank Penelope and John for their warm hospitality and wonderful job of hosting this workshop. I want thank all my artists friends for attending. I feel so great coming back to this legendary place to teach and to learn. This painting is my first demo.

"Lily in a Bowl of Gumbo" --- Sold

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I laughed when I read my own post I did two days ago. I was trying to say that I did a wash with “burnt umber and a lot of Gamsol” (a painting medium by Gamblin), but my computer is so smart and got its own mind. It changed “Gamsol” to “gambol” without letting me know. Did I paint with “a lot of gambol”?  Maybe I did. As matter of fact, it would be even better if the computer wrote “I did a wash with a lot of gumbo”. 

Well, my today’s painting really looks that “I did a wash with a lot of gumbo”. It was done last night after a whole day of doing more “important” things: preparing data for the tax return, booking travel for next workshop, getting toner for the printer, modify my workshop presentation, printing out hundreds of handouts to my students, packing all my stuff for my Vermont trip....  to name a few.  I was total exhausted in the evening, but I still decided to paint. Well,  the result was not what I expected, but I share it with you anyway. 

Now I am on the plane from Dallas to Hartford. So I have a little more time to write. If you see any errors in my writing, it must be my computer interfered, not because I don’t know English good. 

"Strawberry to Go" --- Sold

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This painting was my test of opacity over transparency. My background was a transparent wash with burnt umber and lot of gambol. I put it on with a piece of paper tower. I painted the Chinese food to go box majorly with a palette knife. I like the looseness of this one. I am still searching for my balance point between abstractness and realism. I think I am getting closer.

"Two Peppers" --- Sold

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With my recent small painting exercises, I have been trying to involve objects I have not painted or not often enough. I am taking baby steps so I will not get lost. Last one was green grapes, and this one peppers. Gradually I will cover all the objects I would like to paint. In general, I can paint anything I want. They are all shapes, values, and colors. However, if I don't do it, I would not know the characteristics of a specific object. In addition, I will learn pros and cons of using one type of objects for composition and designs in the future. For this painting, I didn't care too much about my artistic ideas (I used to do that a lot). I just want my brush work to show pepperiness. 

“Green Grapes" --- Sold

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Coming back to my small painting study, I recall I was working on the color of green. People who have taken my workshop know that I like to use Phthalo blue mixing with yellow to get greens. This method works well for dark greens, but not good for lighter greens. So I start to add viridian and cadmium green pale onto my palette. For this small study I used Phthalo green. It works much better than my previous method. I learned this from Colley Whisson last week. You may add a lot of white to Phthalo green to tint it to a very light green, but the intensity is still strong. You can shift the green with yellows and dull it with red. I really like this color. It has the potential of replacing Phthalo blue, viridian, and cadmium green pale on my palette. Due to my previous green problems, I didn't paint green grapes often. Now I am more confident.

"Study with Colley Whisson"

It has been almost a week I didn't post anything on my blog. I was busy helping Colley Whisson who was teaching a workshop here. The workshop went very successfully. Colley was a great instructor, very informative and organized. I will definitely apply some of his techniques into my own art. The painting I posted today was done on his workshop. I copied one of his paintings. My landscapes still needs a lot of work, but I am so fortunate that I have great opportunities of being close to the masters.

Now, I am sitting at my cube doing some technical work for my previous engineering company. My life is amazing, exciting, and busy. But my major concern is how to concentrate my limited time and effort to form a practical way that makes my art progress systematically.

"Head Study 031412"

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This is my first portrait painting this year. It is 9" x 12". I offer much lower starting price for it than my still life paintings, because I am still at the early stage of portrait painting.

Tomorrow, well known Australia artist Colley Whisson will teach a 3-day workshop here in Austin. As the workshop organizer, I will be busy assisting him. I am really looking forward to see his techniques.

By the way, I have announced a while ago that wonderful California artist Fongwei Liu will come to Austin to conduct a figurative workshop. I have got great responses on it. Fongwei is not only good at portrait and figurative works, he is also a wonderful plein air landscape painter. If you are interested in learning his plein air approaches, you have an opportunity. He will teach a plein air workshop in California. Please check Mammoth Lake Plein Air with Fongwei Liu for detailed information.

"Horse Stepping on a Swallow" --- Sold

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The bronze horse is a replica of the well known Han Dynasty statue "Horse stepping on a swallow". The original one was created about 2000 years ago. I had this horse for a long time, but I didn't painted until yesterday. Some of friends who commented on my paintings have suggested that I should paint more varieties of subjects. So I am gradually moving out of my comfort zone and adding objects like this horse on my paintings. I didn't spend much time on composition and designs for this one, but it was fun for sure to be different.

"Harmony Under Warm Light" --- Sold

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Painting this small painting, I was really paying attention to the color harmony. I was using a halogen light  for illumination, so the light was very warm. The background is a piece of white canvas, and the bottle is actually blue. To judge my color perception, I turned on my iPhone and placed a white screen on the display. I used this "iPhone white" as my standard, and placed it near my setup. I judged all colors I saw by referencing to this standard "white". In this way I see the background is so yellow, and the bottle is so green. If I didn't use this iPhone trick, my eyes would soon adapted the illumination and I would not have the color accuracy. You may want to try this too. Any electronic display with some sort of white screen will work.

"Greens in Purple" --- Sold

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I have restarted my small daily painting again. recalling what I did before my Melbourne workshop, I was working on high key colors. With this painting, I worked on the color of green. Due to my limited experience with green colors, I have found that it is very difficult to obtain good greens by mixing blue and yellow. To get high chroma greens, I have to put more green paints on my palette. On this painting, I have used viridian (Rembrandt), cadmium green pale (W&N), yellowish green (Van Gogh), and Shiva yellow citron (Richeson Oils), plus phthalo blue and yellows. I have more green pigment I will test. Eventually, I will put my green issues under control. BTW this painting is 6"x8". I haven't done this size paintings for a long time.

"Demo at Melbourne 2_2012"

This is the second demo I did at Melbourne. I got looser, maybe too loose.

Now I am back to Austin confronting new challenges. These a couple of days I have relocated my studio. It is still in my house but it is upstairs now. The advantage of the new place is that I got a true north window. The disadvantage is that this place does not have enough storage. I have stuff piled up all over. It will take a while to make the new place  functioning.

"Demo at Melbourne 1_2012" --- Sold

My 3-day workshop at Melbourne FL just completed today. I want to thank Carmen Beecher for organizing this one. I felt so wonderful coming back to this beautiful coastal city. I want to thank Mary and Joe Warnick for their warm hospitality. I want to thank all the artists attending. I was so great meeting you or seeing you again. This is my first demo painting.

"Green Red and Yellow" --- Sold

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I did this small painting last night. Right before I was on my way to the airport, I snapped a photo in a rush. This is another high key painting. I am really into color now. My sense of color needs a lot of improvement. Without knowing much, I used most obvious approaches. 

I am on my way to Melbourne FL, having a workshop to teach. Now I am on the plane typing this note on my phone. I will let you know how the workshop goes in my next post. 

BTW I will go to Putney VT at the end of the month. On March 31, the Putney painters will paint together. If  you are interested in join us, please contact Penelope Simpson for detailed information. I would love to meet or see you there. 

“City of Props"

Several days ago, I thought I should do a painting for this year's OPA show. I got on my calendar trying to make a plan, but to my surprise that I found out the dead line of submission had already passed. This is the first time I missed the  OPA show since I joined. This kind of things have happened more often lately. I felt like the rabbit in "Alice in the Wonderland", and being late for almost everything.

I have spent two days on this 12" x 16". In May, I will be part of a three-person show in a gallery. I must crank more gallery paintings between my workshop teaching trips. With this painting, I really practiced how and what to paint on the second day. Naturally, I will get tighter. So I deliberately controlled myself not going that way. I worked on the edges and the design of supporting items. The result is not bad.

When I was trying to concentrate on figuring out the colors and edges of the painting, I saw the white rabbit running in my mind, dragging a gold watch, crying "I am late, I am late, I am late late late ...".

"Bananas" --- Sold

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It is my first time painting a bunch of bananas. I don't know why I didn't paint bananas before. Perhaps I was shy away from the complicated shapes due to difficult perspectives. When I painted this one I was only observe the abstract shapes obtained from measurement. It was chaotic for a while, but it started to make sense after I got the value correct. From my recent small paintings, I try to paint something I have not painted before, or not often. I try to improve my skills to paint new objects.