"My China trip starts"

I am leaving for China this afternoon. I will stay with my mother in Beijing for about 10 days. Then my China painting trip 2015 will start. I am looking forward to meeting my team and have a wonderful two weeks together, painting and sightseeing. Life is so dramatic.

I took this photo about two years ago with my 2013 team in Guilin. It seems like just yesterday. We had so much fun. I can' wait to see the beautiful places planned for this year. For all the friends who are following me on the Internet. I will keep you posted and share our trip with you.

"Demo at Huntsville 2015 2" --- Sold

The floral demo went well. I was happy that all workshop artists have benefited from those three days. Now the workshop is over, and I spent an additional day visit more of my old friends here. My art journey goes on. I hope I will like my students, practice and progress.

“Demo at Huntsville 2015 1" --- Sold

I am so happy coming back to Huntsville Alabama. I have spent 7 years here about 20 years ago. I left Huntsville as a rocket scientist. Now I am back as an artist. The city is the same and also changed greatly. I want to thank Huntsville Museum of Art for organizing this workshop, and thank all the artists coming from all over for painting with me. This is my first demonstration.

"Demo at Bolivar 2015 2" --- Sold

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My second demo at Bolivar was a plein air one. I used this painting to show how I manage the perspectives. The painting shows the quietness of a small town. However in real life, this intersection was quite busy. Big semi-trucks make wide turns right in front of my easel. They seem coming right at me. I really don't understand why these big monsters are called "semi".

BTW both of my demos at Bolivar are still available.

"Demo at Bolivar 2015 1" --- Sold

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I am now at a small town in Tennessee call Boliver. I want to thank Deborah Turner Brasfield for organizing my workshop  here, and thanks to artists from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Georgia for coming and painting with me. This workshop is a landscape one. I did this demo from a photo I took last year from Jeckyll Island, GA.

"Yellow Rose Study 081215" --- Sold

I did this rose study from life, but also referenced to one of the paintings that Richard Schmid did. The rose part is easy, but the whole abstract composition I am still having problems. Perhaps you have seen quite a few my rose paintings, do you feel that the compositions I used are rather similar and they are not rich enough? I admire Richard Schmid for many years, especially for his designs

I was asking my readers in my previous post. Do you prefer low key or high key paintings. By checking my Instagram, I got almost twice as many "likes" in comparison with my earlier low key painting. The result is obvious: Most people like high key. However, I am relatively weak in doing high key paintings. So more effort and time are needed.

“Movement of Colors"

This one is a pure high key painting. I have been working in this realm for a while now, but have not really get the effect I really crazy about. So I will keep trying. This one is just another experiment. I know I like my low key paintings because they show much more drama of light effect. However high key does not show the dramatic spot light effect as well as low key. So why bother going this way. If you are high key painter, would you let me know why you like doing high key? I really need more inspiration to keep going this way.

"An Alley"

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When you feel absolutely NOT motivated to paint, what do you do? After came back from the extremely beautiful Yellowstone National Park, I have spent two solid days on the phone trying to make an insurance company to pay my bill. I was amazed how the insurance industry expands your probability of running into a disaster from 0.001% (can be even less) directly into 100%. (I personally believe that being profitable by taking advantage of other people's misfortune is what we call "Evil").

With the above mindset, I painted the above painting. If you are not motivated to paint and you don't want the insurance company to ruin your career, you simply go to your easel, pick up a brush, and start to paint anything. You may throw away all you have learned: composition, value, all that crxp. You can see the painting I posted here is mainly about dumpster and trash cans.

"Demo at Jackson Hole 2015 4" --- Sold

This is my last demo on the workshop at Jackson. The purpose of this demo was showing how I approach to paint medal objects. My key of painting metal is trying to use as much as transparent pigments and reserve the opaque colors for the high light area only.

This painting was sold on the workshop. However, I do still have a demo painting still available, which is a rose painting I did plein air at Durango CO. If you are interested in that one, please click here to get information and purchase.

"Demo at Jackson Hole 2015 3" --- Sold

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I am back home now. Yellowstone was breathtakingly beautiful. I took tons of photos. I hope some day I may paint from all of those beautiful references.

This painting was done on the 3rd day of my Jackson Hole workshop. Because I didn't have wifi in side the National Parks, I had to delay the posting of it. This is one of best floral paintings I have ever done. Painting orange colored roses was my first time, but I immediately fall in love with it. I also like the leaves. I don't know the name of those leave, but their color and shape are much of fun for painting. The cool green color of the leaves enhances the flower significantly. I just love it. You can see I hardly painted any rose leaves. Those flowers were from a grocery store. The rose leaves are all folded badly. I can hardly use them for the painting.

You may have noticed that my composition for these kind of floral demo is lack of variation. They are pretty much the same. I am aware of that, but I have do one thing at a time. I am concentrated on dramatize the shapes and texture of the flowers and leaves now. The time will come and I will progress.

This painting is available for purchase.