"Submerged in Color"

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Today I painted completely opposite of my usual style. I turned off my spot light and opened curtains of my studio. I removed my shadow box so I had no background drapery. I had this white sugar bowl and no other color object in my setup. I had extremely high key design. All my colors on the painting is in shadows, but not in lights. All my colors are in background, but not in the center of focus. I used many cool colors, but not hot cadmium orange and red. Wow!! I felt I have entered the anti-world. Just like in physics, we talk about matter and anti-matter. I realize such anti-world is also existed in my art. I have mentioned before I don't like high key as much as low key paintings. That was because I had not entered the "high key" world. I was outside. In my bones, I start to feel what artists felt when the Impressionism started. It is so great. At the mean time I must remind myself: it is nothing wrong by going modern, but I will never ever abandon the wonderful traditional art. Otherwise I would get lost so quickly and my art would turn to trash, and "modernism" or "contemporary" would turn to be dirty words.

“Happy Hour"

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I am gradually coming out of my gray study and start to pay attention to other colors. High key painting gives me more opportunities for color designing. Different from my usual approach, I didn't do value establishment at all, but jumped into color directly. Of course, I was aware of value when I painted colors. The painting is much more colorful than most of my low key paintings, but effect of light is relatively weaker. You will see I toggle between high and low keys.

“Fruit for Today"

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Transparent oxide yellow + ultramarine blue + white makes a good yellow gray, and I used it for my background today. With this painting, I practice chroma contrast. The yellow pear and the yellow background are similar in value, but the intensity of the yellows are quite different. This contrast in chroma can be used for the design.

"Silver and Gold"

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I think everybody has been staring at the stock market for several days. It feels that our dreams turn into nightmare just like that. I don't know much about investment, and for me it is always too late to do the right thing. It looks like something very bad is happening, but what can we do? I remember one of the Titanic movies. The ship was sinking, but the band was still playing. I can't do much. I just keep painting.

"Roses in a Hot Place" --- Sold

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I am so amazed that even at this extremely hot place and hot time the roses in my yard are still blooming. Song cut some this morning and set up a still life for me. These are different roses from the ones I painted before. They are fresh but already full of scars. Their young life is just starting but winkles have crawled up their tender faces. I feel melancholy when I painted them. They don't know what will happen to them tomorrow. Well, in this chaotic world, we don't know either to us. I just keep painting.

"My Secret" --- Sold

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I felt the gray I used yesterday is a little too cool. So today I tried a new combination: transparent oxide yellow + ultramarine blue. I like this one better. It made the background warmer. I really appreciate several friends sharing their gray recipe with me. I don't have any secret in painting. I have been growing right in front of you.

This is my 5th painting of the month. I have been a genuine "daily painter" for this week. I will try my best to make this momentum going.

"A Pair of Pears" --- Sold

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I used the same gray I used yesterday to experience this color more. After my post yesterday. I got a few comments and emails mentioning that ultramarine blue and burnt sienna to make a gray. I used to do this combination, but I have stopped using it. I feel it is too purple. If you add more blue, it will turn too blue very quickly. That is because those two colors are not complementary enough. The mixing of the two does not neutralize enough. I still use those two for warm darks, but use them much less to get gray now.

"Lime Water" --- Sold

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When I am asked what I like to drink in a restaurant, I usually say water with lemon or lime, and no ice. I heard a theory that drinking ice water makes people tend to eat more. So if you consider lose weight, maybe drink water without ice will help.

With my painting today, I was testing my grays again. I found recently I use less and less ultramarine blue. I used to use this color a lot. I found I have been using viridian more. I have learned it is hard to make a gray with ultramarine blue on my palette. But I like ultramarine blue. So I did a search today, I have found that "transparent brown oxide" (Winsor & Newton) and ultramarine blue makes a wonderful gray. I used this gray for the painting above.

“Discover the orange" --- Sold

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In my previous two painting emails, I mistakenly described my paintings as "Pencil drawings". I apologize for the mistake. I generate my painting email by cut and paste from my blog to a hand made html template. It is simple but not perfect.

You might have noticed, my recent paintings I smoothed out the background and kept the foreground more painterly. They are more like David Leffel's style. I like Richard Schmid's approach of using vignetted background with washes and dry brushes. I also like what David does to make the background smooth to increase the feeling of the depth. Can these two wonderful methods combined, I am not so sure.

"Oak Dynamics" --- Sold

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Last night I did more leaf study and did this one. I had some hard time painting those light color leaves on the wet dark background. I need some help on this matter. Does anybody know a very quick dry medium such that I can paint on top of it without picking up paint underneath in a short time (a couple of hours or even shorter)? Have you tried paint acrylic first and paint oil on top? Please let me know if you have some good tips. Thanks.

"Cherry Dance" --- Sold

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My gray study keeps going, just like my leaf study. For the background I used raw umber + white. I felt it is a little purplish. Then I used raw umber + viridian + white for the foreground. So it gave a little greenish. I had a lot of fun painting those cherries.

Besides painting, I would like to talk a little about email communication between you, my dear artist friends, and me. Because of my honestly sharing my art and life experiences on my blog, I have been receiving massive amount of emails everyday. My heart is really touched when I read your kind and supportive messages. Besides congratulation and appreciation letter, many friends want to work with me to create business opportunities, like gallery representations, and organizing workshops. Many friends ask for advices, critiques, and other questions. I do read all your messages. In the earlier days, I tried my best to replying all emails. However now, I have reached a point that it is impossible to do that for everybody. If I received the emails I consider I must reply, I "flag" them, think about them, and reply as quick as possible. Nowadays, Even my "flagged" emails have piled up. It looks that delaying responses are inevitable. I feel pretty bad about it. Managing the email communication has become a big issue now. What I plan to do is to categorize the messages and generate templates for the answers, and update FAQs on my website. If you have good suggestions, I really appreciate you let me know. I feel so grateful that most of my friends are so kind, very understanding and patient. I promise that I will try my best to reply as quick as I can. If you don't hear from my, please be patient. If there is timely matter, please remind me, I will try to expedite the process. For the very few people who are upset, I sincerely apologize. I am only human. What I can do is very limited, and I want to be fare to all my friends. In a nutshell, I want thank all of you again. I will figure out a way to be more efficient in communication when time goes by.

"Can We Play Together?" --- Sold

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I am keeping on reading your emails everyday. I really appreciate your support. I am so sorry I cannot reply individually. I know it is not polite to not to response, but I feel so inadequate. I have got more than one hundred emails and comments today. I don't know what to do. I want to let you know I am deeply touched. Thank you very very much. BTW, if you have a good way to manage email communication, please let me know. I really need that.

My today's painting is another gray study. You have seen a few of them lately. Gray is non-trivil matter. The color wheel I made several days ago really helped me. For this painting, I used predominately viridian + transparent oxide red + white.

To share some other news with you. On the recent 20th Oil Painters of America National Show, my painting "Memory of the Old Days" has got the Still Life Honorable Mention. This is the first time I got award on the OPA National. It gives me more confidence for my art endeavor.

"Rose Without Flower 2" --- Sold

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I have stepped on something really hard for me. I spent more than four hours on this 5"x7". To make it look like rose leaves, I went tighter deliberately. It is so difficult to paint darks on lighter background on a wet-on-wet basis. Nevertheless, I think I made some progress comparing to my previous painting. Don't you agree this leaves are more resemble the rose leaflets? I had real hard time painting the stems. I use cutting in the negative space, but the paintwork labored tremendously. Man! I am so tired. On this thorny journey, I have a long way to go. If you are a developed painter, please wake me up if you know I am on a road toward a dead end.

"Live Oak Live Apple" --- Sold

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Finally, I got the time and painted this small painting yesterday and posted it on eBay. Thank you so many friends giving me support after my previous post. I restarted my learning. I am continuing working on leaves. I will work on this topic for a while until I feel I obtain the effect I really want. I have some ideas about leaves, but not much. My investigation will go deeper. I decided to go high key this time. My colors will show better this way. I believe low key showing light, and high key showing color. Don't you agree?

"Red Rose Study 4" --- Sold

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This is another rose study I did recently. I have posted this painting as a "Challenge" on the Daily Paintworks website. You are welcome to take the challenge, paint a red rose, and submit the image of your painting to Daily Paintworks Challenge. I am looking forward to see your rose there. Happy painting and happy Valentines day.

"Red Rose Study 3" --- Sold

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This red rose was in my backyard. The shape of the flower was a little odd. I have tried pretty hard to make it look like a rose. The colors of this rose is very rich. I love the deep orange color from the translucent light.

"Red Rose Study 2" --- Sold

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This is the same rose I used for my previous painting. I did it in a different angle. I feel freer this time.

Today I want to say something about on-line marketing. I am honored to be one of the 12 artists belong to an on-line gallery called The "Daily Paintworks". Recently, DPW has upgraded the website. When you get a chance please check it out. Besides my art, you will find other wonderful artists in it. I am very happy to be part of the DPW.

"Red Rose Study 1" --- Sold

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Finally, I have a small painting to post. I did this 5x7 last night. The Valentine's Day is coming soon, so I decided to do several red rose paintings. This is the first one. I hope I will do better than before.

"Onion Study" --- Sold

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These several days, I enjoyed the true daily painting experience. I painted everyday and posted everyday. I wish I could keep my art practice like this, but my crazy life will start again after New Year. I don't think I can keep an controlled life pattern like this. I studied painting onion today emphasizing on the volume contrast. I want to generate the feeling of the mass of the onion body in contrast to the thin peels: heavy vs. light, regular shape vs. irregular shapes, Freshness vs. dryness, live vs. death. Wow!

"Cypress Creek Marina"

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I live near the beautiful Lake Travis at west of Austin. There are so many wonderful spots for painting. However, I have to say that I feel really frustrated here. There are so many marinas, but all of them are private. They are gated and require codes to get in. I have contacted their managements and asked if I can organize group paint-out or do plein air workshops there. I got the answer “no” all the time. I understand their concerns. This marina (Cypress Creek Marina) is only 5 min. drive from my house. It is an ideal place for painting plein air. I have a friend who has a boat docked there. So I got in once with him. Today I went there by myself. I parked my car outside the gate, and walked in from the side of the gate. I did this sketch. At mean time, I was pondering. How can I bring a workshop into this place? If you have a good suggestion, please help me out. Thanks.