"Demo at Jackson Hole 2015 2"

My workshop at Jackson has ended, and now I am vacationing in the Yellowstone National Park. Since no wifi and cell phone signal inside the park. I have been delaying my painting posting. Last night we stayed just outside of the park, so I got a few hours of online time.

It is the image of my second demo. It is grey, grey, and grey. This one was used to show basic painting process, so I didn't elaborate too much.

“Demo at Jackson Hole 2015 1" --- Sold

My workshop at Jackson Hole WY has started. I want to thank the Art Association of Jackson Hole for organizing this workshop at this super beautiful place. I want to thank Peggy and Gregg Prugh for their hospitality and kindness of providing lodging for me. Thanks to artists from all over for attending this workshop.

This is my first demo. Do you see the three value design in this painting? dark, light, and mid-tone.

"Demo at Durango 2015 3" --- Sold

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The 3rd demo at Durango was a plein air painting in a rose garden. I showed how I re-organized all the flowers so they could form a composition I wanted, and how important of going slow and not over working. I saw quite many good rose paintings from that day's exercise.

After my Durango I traveled quite a few places. I have visited the Mesa Verde National Park, Telluride, Glenwood Springs, and just arrived at Jackson Hole WY. I was stunned by all the breath taken beauty of all those places.

"Demo at Durango 2015 2" --- Sold

My Durango workshop is mainly a plein air one. We have spent three days outdoors. This is my second Demo. I painted this in one of downtown neighborhoods. It happened being of one of the busy  traffic area. Many local people were curious about what we were doing in the streets. Even the local Newspaper came and reported our class. Durango is a lovely town. I like the culture here. People here are so bohemian, healthy, sporty, down-to-earthy, new-agy. What a wonderful place to live.

"Demo at Durango 2015 1" --- Sold

Today is the third day of my workshop at Durango. I want to thank the Durango Art Center for organizing this workshop, thanks to Vicki and Will Coe for their hospitality and offering their lovely home for me to stay, and thanks to all artists for attending my class.

This is my first demo on the workshop. I just love the brass lantern. It is from France. I like its design a lot. The cherries are from one of the street. They add wonderful colors for this painting.

"Vicki's House"

I am in Durango Colorado now staying with my friends Vicki and Will. Yesterday afternoon, I did this plein air painting in front of their house. It is a lovely place. I want to thank Vicki and Will for their hospitality. They make my stay very comfortable.

"A Lonely Rose"

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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.

"Grapes and Roses" --- Sold

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Recently I have been testing of using painting panels from "SourceTek". I like the surface texture. It requires the artist to use more paint, but the resulted painting is much richer.

"Water Lily and Fountain"

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I did this plein air painting this morning. This is a test of using a limited palette: cadmium yellow lemon, alizarin, ultramarine blue, ivory black, and white. It was quite interesting. The limited palette really helped to obtain the color harmony, but it was too cool. I finally put some cadmium red light (the gold fish in the pond) to warm it up.

The painting is cool, and weather is cool as well. It was excellent day today. The temperature was 88 F with a cool breeze. I can't believe it happens in July at Austin, Texas.

"Tangerines, Onions, and Grapes"

Happy 4th of July to All of You,

After I came back from Indianapolis, I was obsessed of cleaning up my studio. As a matter of fact, I have relocated my studio and office. I thought it would take me only a few hours, but it ended up I have spent almost a week. I did not realize how much junk I have accumulated even I consider myself a mindful and organized person. This is a modern disease. I think most of us live in trash piles and do not sense that. We just manage a small area we can function within a massive amount of trash. In physics, this is called the second law of the thermodynamics.

Now my new studio and office are barely functioning. I know I must paint, before I turn into a professional janitor. This painting started in February, (I didn't realize time goes by so fast). I have painted more grapes yesterday.

“Demo at Indianapolis 2015 3"

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More roses, more color, and more abstract. Doing a floral as my third demo has become default now. This style is evolving. I feels the potential, and try my best to make it happen. This painting is still available. So I put it on Dailypaintworks.

I am back in Austin now. I have about  two weeks time home before my next workshop. More exploring and learning will happen to me.

"Demo at Indianapolis 2015 2 " --- Sold

This is the second demo - copper and flowers.

"Demo at Indianapolis 2015 1" --- Sold

I have arrived at Indianapolis three days ago. I co-juried the Hoosier Salon show with California artist Randy Sexton, and my workshop started this morning. I want to thank Hoosier Salon for this great opportunity of teaching at Indianapolis. Thanks to artists coming from over for taking my workshop. This is my first demo painting.

"Three White Roses" --- Sold

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Since my white rose is still fresh, I did another rose painting. This painting is a little larger, 12" x 12" For this painting, I have documented the whole painting process by taking a series of progressive photos. I plan to make this document available on my website in the near future, so everybody can access to it. I can use this method to show how I paint roses. I need to learn how to do it. If you have information on how to do online teaching, please help me out.

"White and Pink Roses" --- Sold

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I am in the mood of painting flowers. I did this rose painting with only one white rose. First I orientated it for the center of focus. Then I relocated it to the back and left side. I have learn the approach from Richard Schmid. It combines the bold abstract brush work and detailed realistic presentations. I really like this piece of visual music.

“Demo at Lake Zurich 2015 3" --- Sold

Painting flowers is my 3rd demo. Having doing this kind of floral painting for a while now, I have started to see the potential for this approach. I used to consider flower is a part of my still life, but more and more I have made my floral painting deviate from my usual way of still life painting. The style and approach are all different from what I have been doing. I will investigate more on my floral painting to bring it to a higher level.

“Demo at Lake Zurich 2015 2" --- Sold

This is the second demo I did at Lake Zurich workshop. You know the still life objects have their own personalities. In this setup, the bronze is showing the pride, and the brass is showing the support. I had fun painting them.

"Demo at Lake Zurich 2015 1" --- Sold

I have arrived at Chicago yesterday, and today is the first day of my workshop at Lake Zurich, IL. I want to thank Frankie Johnson for organizing this workshop and thanks to all workshop attending artists for coming and painting with me. My first demo involves all warm colors. Color harmony is so important. You don't need many colors to makes a painting colorful and exciting.

"Rose Garden in Mayfield Park" --- Sold

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I went to the Mayfield Park again and painted this plein air floral painting. Different from my usual still life paintings, the flowers are much fresher and different kinds, and the leaves are in much better shapes.

It looks my full month of painting and learning will pause for a while. I am traveling again tomorrow and will teach a couple of workshops in a row. I will show you my demo paintings again. I hope you will not get bored with them. Life goes on, and we must do our best to survive. I will keep on painting and hope I can progress everyday. It does not matter how small the progress is, if we keep on going, we will see the difference.

"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.

"Wuzhen Canal 3 (Day 3)"

This is another large painting (36" x 24") in progress. I like this composition. It has three layers: the far field, mid field, and the near field. I have given enough details on the boat, but I have not worked on the edges.

Currently, I have 6 large paintings going simultaneously. I work on one for a while then work on another one. Progress is rather slow, but I have a little everyday. Now I have felt that painting is a rather labor intense work. I wish I have more energy. It is very different from my old discipline of small daily paintings. I use to finish a painting in a couple of hours.

"Wuzhen Canal 1 (Day 5)

You might have remembered I posted the same painting on May 25. I thought I was very close to the finishing point at that time. However, I have spent 3 more days on it.  I have seen so much potential on this painting, and I might want to spend a few more days on it.

From my previous post on this painting to now. I have been working on the color and edges. I enhanced the warmth of the color in the light area so the painting gets much more colorful than before. Working on the edges was a tough task. I have already had a lots of details and the painting was very tight at the previous stage. I have to destroy unnecessary details to get loos. I like this painting today much more.

"Dragon's Eyeballs"

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This is a demo for my Tuesday morning mentoring class. Dragon's eyeball is a kind of tropic fruit. The eatable part is translucently white, and it has a dark colored core. It is very sweet.

"San Miguel Street (Color study)"

This is a 9" x 12" color study before I do a large painting. Havng done a few large paintings, I have learn that doing a small color study is very important. It helps me to determine the general color scheme, harmony, and a general design. I don't have the habit of doing color studies because I used to paint small. 9" x 12" had been considered as a large painting for me. Now I play different game now. When I did my large Austin painting, I really learn the hard way. I directly jumped into the large format. Oh boy! I have wasted so much time and paints just try to get the color scheme I wanted. Now I always do a small color study before I paint on a large canvas.

"Wuzhen Canal 2 (Day 2)"

This is my Second painting of my "Wuzhen Canal" series. It is a 24" x 24". I paid special attention to the color harmony. It is so sensitive when I paint Chinese landscapes, because the color of grey is so subtle. If I am not care enough it goes to mud so easily. At this moment the painting is still look mechanical. Additional information is needed on the edge treatment to make the painting more painterly and dramatic. Quite a few years ago, I did a small 6"x 6" with the small ref photo, but now the large version really much stronger impact.

“Head Study 052715"

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I did this head study last night. I felt happy about it. It is 4th head study of the year. The progress is noticeable. I paid attention to the solidity of the head. I can't wait to paint my next one next week.

This week,  I have been working in my garage since my studio is not large enough. I am working on 4 large painting simultaneously. I have the feeling that I am a real full time painter now. Of course, I have been working full time for my art about four years now, but I have not had this kind of concentration before. Somehow I feel this kind ideal working condition will end soon. I really treasure this luxury.

"Wuzhen Canal 1 (Day 2)"

This painting has been progress very fast. I have given almost all the details it needs. It may need more edge work and color accents, but I am close to the end of the painting. Compared with my downtown Austin painting (which takes me close to 20 days), It is amazing. I am going to start another large painting very soon.

I really enjoy my current mode of painting. Quiet and involved. Painting, and painting only.

"Wuzhen Canal 1 (Day 1)"

I have started a few large paintings simultaneously. This is one of them, size 22" x 28". It is based on a photo I took a few years ago at Wuzhen China. It is in a early color stage. It may take me a few more day to finish this painting.

I have noticed and not surprised that nowadays my online traffic to my blog has been significantly decreased. I have entered a relatively quieter time of my art career. My feeling is mixed. One side I feel I can relax a little because I don't need to reply as many emails as I did before. However, on the other side, I do felt a little lonely now. People have seen my art for so many years, their interest is no longer as high as before. It is a very understandable situation. I feel I am a lonely sailer, waving to all my friends at the port. Now the land is getting afar. I am by myself only surrounded by the vast ocean. The journey is long and unpredictable. It is beautiful and a little scary around me. What I need to do only is keeping on going, going, and going more.

"Head Study 052115"

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I am having a great time these a few days. You can see I am painting everything: plein air, still life, and portrait. I am investigating and learning like a sponge. This is the thing I really want to do. I don't care much about establish a name and making a lot of money. What I really care to do is painting itself. I want to paint well.

I went to portrait painting last night. Our model had a long day and felt very tired. She hardly could keep her eyes open. So I concentrated on her nose and mouth. I used only raw umber and white for this painting. I don't worry about color. To accurately present her facial features was my objective.