“Cypress Creek Park 2" --- Sold

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I did the second plein air painting at the exactly same location. I wanted to practice with this new limited palette more. It was amazing of seeing so much colors at this location. I used to dislike pure landscapes. I used to think that I must put some manmade structures, like a small house, in the painting. Now I feel I start to see the beauty of pure natural landscapes. My skill is not mature yet, but at least I have seen something different than before.

“Guilin Color Study"

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This is a color study to explore the potential of monochromatic oil painting. I used a ref photo I took at Guilin three years ago. You have seen I tested monochrome scheme when I painted a few Xidi doorways. With that project I developed my warm palette. Now this one is my test of a cool palette. I used only three colors: black, white, and Prussian blue.

Monochrome is an abstract color scheme, because reality is always in color. However, monochrome images can have its own aesthetics. I think my today's palette will be suitable to water related landscapes.

"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.

"Lonely Onion" --- Sold

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It has been two days after I came back to Austin. I have sent out all the filter orders (Sorry for the delay). Last night I resume my daily study. Here you have it.

We were in a rush when we left home for California, and this onion was left on the kitchen counter. After we came back, I found it has sprouted beautifully. So I select it as my model for my first painting during this time period I stay home. I am continuing my high key study. As a warmup session, I didn't design seriously. I like the colors in the shadow and the texture of the leaves and the onion. The color scheme is ok.

"To My Valentine 2" --- Sold

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This is my second try of painting a red rose. I learned from my yesterday's painting that making the center of rose dark is not easy. My alizarin is too transparent. If I paint it directly on the a white surface, the value is not dark enough. If I mix with ultramarine blue, soon the color will look dirty. To solve this problem, today I tried the following: I painted the center of the rose with acrylic burnt umber first. After It dried (about 5 min), I painted alizarin on top. The umber makes it dark and the alizarin makes it red. Is this process called "glazing"?  I am not sure. I might have reinvented the wheel, but it worked. Why do I use burnt umber? Well, that was because I don't have other acrylic colors (except black) in my studio.

"To My Valentine 1" --- Sold

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I am so glad I come back to my daily practice. Now is the red rose season. So I would like to paint some. Red is a difficult color. It is rather hard to vary the value of red while keeping its high chroma. In general, I like to use alizarin for the dark, and cadmium red for the light.

I put this painting into a 5 days auction. So the buyer may receive it before the valentine's day.

"A Boat in Zhouzhuang" --- Sold

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I was planning to show more plein air paintings I did in China, but I decided today to take a detour. I want to update you what I am doing right now after I returned to the States. Based on tons of photos I took in China, I really want to do a few large paintings. Since I don't have enough skills of painting large landscapes. I want to plan my effort prudently. First of all, I want to put color-mixing aside. The major issue of painting large is the design of my brush works, such that I can maintain the energetic painterly effect as I have been showing on my small paintings. I don't want to deal with the color mixing simultaneously. This painting is my small study before I paint large version. Only black and white were used for it. Like in photography, Black & White approach does have its own charm. I feel I am going back history and arrived at the good old days.

"Special Recipe" --- Sold

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This is another large painting on a small painting surface. My experiments have gained more momentum. I have spent quite a few significant hours on it. It is a gallery level painting, but I want to see if I can market it myself. The price is different from the most of my daily studies, but I guarantee it has a high quality. The scene was from a photo I took in Kinston, NC. I was invited by a group of workshop artists for a dinner in a very good restaurant. The food was so delicious. Moreover, we sat by a window to the kitchen. I snapped many photos of the chefs working there.

In current representational art world, one of the master artists I really admire is Quang Ho. It happened several times in the past, some artists mistakenly thought I am Quang. I was flattered every time when this happened because I knew Quang and I are not in the same level. When I just joined OPA, Quang is already the judge of OPA National Shows. I really like Quang's painting of kitchen scenes. Before I paint this one, I looked and studied Quang's paintings. They helped me significantly.

“On a Hongkong Street" --- Sold

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This is a large painting, 30" x 40". I spent a week to do it.

No, I am just kidding. This one is only 5" x 7". I did this one to see if I can paint a super busy scene on a very small surface. The reference photo was shot in HongKong last December. It was very busy street, full of people, cars, and junks whoever knows. It challenges me to see if I can make a painting out of it. If you paint plein air, you must have been into similar situation. In front of your eyes, there is so much going on. You are wondering how is possible to make a painting out of this mess. My approach to simplify the scene is closing one eye and squint really really hard the other eye, then you get the basic light pattern. Use this basic pattern to generate your composition, and make sure the perspective is correct. After you get this, latter stages are much easier.

"Afternoon Light" --- Sold

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Now is my experiment time again. This is a small study I did from a photo I took in China. It is a small village called Tong-Li. Based on my previous research on grays, palette knife work, and investigation on Tibor Nagy's painting style, I am trying to figure out a procedure I can apply quickly on my plein air activities. This small painting hardly have any colors. It is predominately a value design. Landscape painting has much more freedom compared with still life paintings. There are so many abstract shapes in this painting. However, obtaining this freedom is not easy. I have spent two days on this 5" x 7".

"On the Red Carpet" --- Sold

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Yesterday, Song and I had a serious talk about my art. We sat in front my computer screen browsing through hundreds of my painting images. She told me she felt that my recent paintings are not as good as my older works, and some of her friends also felt the same way. Many of my recent works look unfinished and too abstract. I feel happy we had conversation like this, I agree with her and feel grateful that she kept my sanity checked. Painting really shows the artist's mental stage. We can't hide and disguise. I have to say my mind is not in a very stable and positive stage lately. Too many things happening. I have been traveling to too many places. I feel the stress and fatigue. I start to worry about future, and inevitably pay attention more on the commercial side of my art career. This is my third year of being a full time artist. Comparing with my previous engineering job, I do make less and work much more. I do not regret the decision I made in June 2011. I have been feeling happy being able to follow my heart and chase my dream. However, the real journey is rather difficult. The third year is really a test. I don't have the beginner's luck anymore. There will be more growing pain I need to endure, and more challenges need to be faced. I really want to thank Song and Jonathan for their love and support. They give me the courage to keep going.

I remember hearing a song. The lyric is like this:
"You do not know how to face it, but you have no way back.
You will stick to it until the last minute, for keeping the life going."

My today's painting is less experimental. Feels more like the good old days.

"Cathedral Rock" --- Sold

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I took many photos in Sedona AZ. It is a little funny I taught only still life painting at this super beautiful outdoor place. I wish I did plein air there. This is my first painting of the red rocks of Sedona from photo. Let me know you like it.

"Texas Yellow Rose"

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Came back from Sedona yesterday. I took today easy. I slept a lot and watched some TV. Song and Jonathan were very happy about our Arizona vocation. This rose painting I did it the night before I went to Phoenix, but didn't get a chance to take a photo. Now you have it. Please enjoy.

"When the life is young" --- Sold

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This is another rose from my father's garden. New life is coming out of the world everyday like this rose bud. I really like the phrase "coming out of". We did not "come into" the world (like an alien). As a matter of fact, we came out of it.

"Beyond the North Light" --- Sold

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For doing a still life painting, the natural north light is the best light source. When so many artists building their studios, having a north window is the fundamental requirement for the project. The understanding has been proved that it is true. I used it, and absolutely believed it -------- well, till yesterday.

This painting was done with a regular halogen light, but I filtered the light with 4 layers of my blue tinted filter (I call that my North Light Filter). Yes, I used 4 of them. In result my illumination on the setup is a way cooler than the natural north light, and painting felt almost as lit by the moon light. This exercise made me realized suddenly that illumination of the still life setup can be a part of the artistic design. Just like moving objects in the setup can ends up different composition, altering light is also can be involved into the artistic concept of your painting project. In order to create the effect you want, you have the freedom of use any kind of light. You may use the north light, but you also can use candle light, tungsten light, fluorescent light, LED light, Neon light, and even laser light. You may filter your light, focus your light, diffuse your light, and use multiple lights. In a nutshell, light source can be changed according to your design.

However, one thing you need to be careful. No matter what light you use to illuminate your still life setup, You MUST (yes, MUST) illuminate your palette and canvas with the natural north light or close to the natural north light. Otherwise you painting will change color when it is viewed under the natural light.

"Plein Air in the Morning" --- Sold

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I went out and painted with Plein Air Austin yesterday in the morning. The place was very beautiful. The meadow was full of wild flowers of different colors. Lots of trees. But I immediately realized I could not make a good painting out of this beautiful scene, because I could not identify any 3D forms. If there is no form, there is no painting. Period. So I painted the painters.

I don't know if you have noticed that there are two kinds of artists. The first kind artists paint only landscapes. They don't paint still life, figurative, and portraits. However, the second kind artists painting still life, and figure mainly, but they hardly paint any natural landscapes. Even they paint out doors, they prefer painting cityscapes, building and cars. I am belong to the second kind for sure. Of course, both kinds  can produce great artists, but I just don't know why. Very very few artists can do both landscape and figurative well. Richard Schmid is one of them.

"A Small House at Wuzhen" --- Sold

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My gray colors are getting cleaner now. I even understood more today. My rule of thumb presented last time applies only under the condition that the general tone of the painting is set in orange or yellow deep. That is the tone I usually use for my landscape paintings. You know you have the choice to setup whatever tones you like. If you like cooler tones like blue and purple, your feel of dirty or clean can change right away. In a nut shell. We need to be sensitive in setting up the general tone of the painting, than harmonize all the colors in the painting around the tonal color.

This painting is from a photo I took at Wuzhen. Our painting trip to China is forming well. It looks travel to China from US in September will get pretty good deal, which is much cheaper than my trip there last year. I am very happy another of my dream will come true. It is not late. I hope more people can join me. We will have a great time together.

"Cloudy Spring Day" --- Sold

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I went to plein air painting with a group of local artists this morning. It was heavily clouded at the verge  of drizzling. The scene I picked had absolutely nothing special. But I had a wonderful time. I was simply looking for a piece of gray color I wanted practice with. Here I had it.

I asked the question of how to paint gray colors last time. I really appreciate the feedbacks from many artists friends. A few artists got a little confused with my recent gray paintings. Well, my motivation was trying to figure out why some artists paint beautifully with muted subtle gray colors while others can only make a mess, showing ugly, dirty, and deadly results. This secret is well kept by quite a few "good" artists. I heard so many time in workshops or demos that the instructors say "I just painting intuitively" or "It just feels right". I have to say these kind of statements have absolutely NO information in them. Through many days of research on gray colors, I start to get a conclusion (works for me at least): Blue and purple make a gray (especially dark gray) look dirty. Green and yellow make a gray clean.

"Old Window" --- Sold

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This painting was based on a photo I shot at Wuzhen. The old houses had very delicately designed windows. With this painting, I was practicing on showing more interesting textures on a white wall and control the temperature of the gray in casting shadows. I have moved away from my comfort zone quite far now. So please help me to have my sanity checked. If you think I am going too far, or I am going the direction you don't want to see I go into, please let me know. Thanks.

“In an Organic Garden" --- Sold

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I went to plein air painting again today with Plein Air Austin. This is a good practice on how to paint a wooden structure. I used a brown transparent color (transparent oxide red + viridian) painted the small house first, then I swept on top some opaque colors following the orientation of the wood planks. Finally used knife to define the gaps between the planks. I think it has shown the wooden texture pretty well.