"Three Stooges" --- Sold

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I started painting again, and this one was done last night. The three gizmo in the painting remind me "Three Stooges". I maybe too young and too foreign to know those fun jokes, but I learned about them about 15 years ago. That time I was working with two other engineers on a new machine which was designed poorly. We worked really hard, but couldn't get the job done. One said: "Oh! boy, we are working like three stooges". That was the first time I heard about those funny guys.

"Cast Drawing"

I have just completed my week long engineering project and come back to art. Since I have no painting to share today, I would like to show you something else. This is a pencil drawing, not by me though. Can you tell who did this. Right, some of you can figure it out. It was done by my dear wife, Song. She took a drawing class at the local Gemini School of Visual Art. Her teacher was a wonderful artist and a very good friend of mine. His name is Denny Grant. She spent about 24 hours in 6 sessions on this drawing. I was amazed by her value control and subtle details she depicted. Danny's class follows the traditional academic approach. I highly recommend that all painters should do at least one of this kind of drawing. It helps tremendously on your sensitivity of shapes and value.

"Veggie Stir Fry"

I did this 12"x16" last weekend. I was very happy for being invited as a guest artist to participate in the Putney Painter Exhibition at Legacy Gallery in Scottsdale, AZ in January 2012. This painting will be one of my entries. Richard Schmid will determine which one will be in the show. I put a lemon a tomato, a cherry and two radishes together. With some spice leaves, I think they will make a good Chop-suey. Well, I don't know if it taste good, but they look good on the painting.

"Two Engineers and an Artist" --- Sold

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After being full time in art for a month. I have been called back by my engineering company for an emergency. I will work here for a week. I may not paint much at this time. Sitting at my cube and turning on my old computer, I felt really odd. It seems I came back from the future by a time machine. For engineering, I entered this field so naively. I thought I could build a career here. I thought I would create something to make the world a better place. So I have invested so many years of my life getting educated to the highest level, and I have been a very good engineer. However after many years of hard work, I have learned. I feel disappointed about the corporation culture. I am wondering how many people in industries are really interested in making the world a better place. It is so ironic. Now I feel more that the world was used to be a better place. Looking at the people around me, busy and “working”. I better not disturb “the sound of silence”.

"Wheel of Dharma" --- Sold

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After I painted together with Richard Schmid, we had a long talk. He asked me why I paint apples and bottles. He wants me to think more how much of "me" I want to share through my art. Well, my today's painting does have that kind of info.

I have this Tibetan payer wheel for many years. To be honest with you, I don't understand much of the Tibetan Buddhism, but I am very curious about what have been taught in that mysterious place. On the prayer wheel, I see six Tibetan words. I googled them and know they are pronounced: "OM MA NI PAD ME HUM" It is a mantra, and it can not be translated literately. So I don't understand the mantra means. However, I like the "wheel" idea. It is turning, repeating. That is the characteristics of our world and our life. We see days and nights. We experience seasons. We know we live on a globe. With advanced technology, we learned the solar system. We learned the spinning galaxies. We know the vibrating atoms. We know colors of light have different frequencies. We know complicated organic systems are based on repetition of simpler chemical structures. Mathematically, we can model the world with something called the "Fourier Transform"...... We are on the "wheel". To be more accurate, we are part of the "wheel".

However nowadays, very few people have time to care if we are "turning" or not. Our mantra is: "Oh! MONEY buy me home".

"One and Many" --- Sold

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Strawberries are on sale in our local grocery. We got a whole bunch. I think I painted strawberries before, but I don't remember when. So I did a small one last night. I really enjoyed. I don't know why I haven't paint strawberries more often. I think I will in the future.

"Three Friends" --- Sold

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Creating darkest dark was what I was working on with this painting. To get the best result, I feel I need enough "tooth" on the painting surface. High absorptive surfaces work better. I was using Alizarin plus Phthalo Blue for the bottle at the back.

"Stand By" --- Sold

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After I came back from Vermont, I haven't got much chance to paint. I did this small painting this morning to warm up. I start to pay attention on the colors in shadows. This is another area I can improve.

"Demo together with Richard Schmid"

Richard did this one.

I did this one.

On the fourth day of the workshop, The master painter Richard Schmid came. We demoed together in front of quite a crowd. Richard brought many pots of lilies with vibrant yellow and oranges and made a very magnificent and elaborate floral still life setup. I have never painted in front of such complicated setup, but I had no way out. Richard is such a wonderful teacher. I have learned a lot. He made everybody laugh with jokes. He has asked me if I have any Chinese jokes to tell. I was so nervous to say anything. Any way I think I did OK. When we began the demo, Richard had challenged me on who could finish the painting faster. I won that competition easily. I did a much smaller painting.

"Demo at Putney 2" --- Sold

The second demo I did at Putney is here. There are many apple trees outside the studio. They were still small and green, but they were good to paint. So I got some leaves with small apples and set up my second demo. I also used lighter background to make this painting a high key one. Recently, I did more high key paintings like this one, but to be honest with you, I still like the low key painting better, because I can have the center of focus in light to create a glowing spot. However for a high key painting, the center of focus is usually has darker value than the background, so it will not as shining as its low key counterpart. However, the beauty of the high key painting is the color opportunities in shadows. I can see that I am not there yet, because I still use relatively dull colors in my casting shadows. Similarly in your painting practice, you should congratulate to yourself if you see problems in your painting, because you have caught the problem, it is no longer hiding, so you are half way to success already.

"Demo at Putney 1"

Now, I am showing you paintings I did on the Putney workshop. This is the demo I did at the day one. It is very typical setup of my still life composition. I like to discuss the ideas behind the painting at first day of my workshops. If you have taken my workshop before, this is your quiz: what have we talked at the first day? Can you see the designs we have talked about on this painting?

This painting didn't get sold. I took it home and showed to Song. She really likes it. So I decided to keep it for her.

"Captain's Roses" --- Sold

I am at the airport waiting for my flight going back to Austin. Recalling those days in Putney Vermont. Everything was so phenomenal. My today’s painting is another small one I did before my workshop started. Those roses were from Captain John’s garden. It is a different specie of rose I haven’t ever had before. I was stunned by its beauty. I used to get roses to paint from Walmart you know. Just like these roses, Vermont is very different from other part of the united states. When I was driving on Interstate 91, I did not see any advertising billboards. I heard there are no Walmart, Home Depot, and many other major chained stores in Vermont. In Putney, I saw bicycles you can get for a free ride and drop them at different locations after your trip. People go to those non-profit Co-ops to get their everyday stuff. Even they have their local currency. I saw beautiful farms and lovely gardens. People are so down to earth no matter they are rich or poor. I met a barefooted musician who plays beautiful jazz at the local farmers market. He used to be a medical doctor and now full time in music. I saw art all over the place. At the Putney community supper, I met people in this village given puppet shows and circus. With rustic red burns and old houses, Vermont is such a unique place.

"Orange in Vermont" --- Sold

Hello my friends. I have just finished my workshop at Putney Vermont yesterday. It was so wonderful. I want to thank The Art Village of Vermont, Penelope, and Captain John for organizing. I am so honored to be with the master painters Richard Schmid and Nancy Guzik. (I will report more on this event later). Thank you so much for all workshop artists coming from near and far. I hope those several days will be useful for you. I surely had a great time with all of you, and hope to see you again, either at workshops, shows, or other activities.

This small painting I did here before the workshop to test my setup and lighting. I felt very happy with this one. I like the translucent light in the shadow a lot.

With Penelope and Captain John

I am in Putney, VT staying with the beloved Penelope and Captain John. They are the wonderful organizers for my workshop here. If you study art of Richard Schmid through his DVDs, Captain John should be no stranger to you. Richard has introduced his approach of portrait painting through the demonstration of painting Captain John. Penelope and John are in charge of the Putney painter's group. When I met them last year, I had felt I have known them for a long time. I want thank their warm hospitality, and I feel very comfortable here.

Today is the first day of my workshop. The group of artists we are having fun together are coming from all over the world. Hawaii, Shanghai, Southern California, and North Carolina are just a few places they are from. I feel so grateful they are here with me. I will share paintings I did at the workshop soon with you.

I have reached my art Mecca

This plain looking barn is the place where the master painter Richard Schmid and his Putney painters group paint together. I am so fortunate coming here and giving my workshop. I want to thank the wonderful Penelope and Captain John for their hospitality. I will spend a very important week in this legendary place. I am very happy. I have reached my art Mecca.

"Tomatoes and a Dry Stem" --- Sold

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I have several tomato plants in the back yard, and they have given us many tomatoes. However, I have not taken care of them well. Now they have all dried up. This morning I cut a section of the dry stem for my setup. Like leaves, painting stems is my next practice I want to manage. I have spent quite a long time just on that piece of stem. There has been a lot of knife work and negative space cutting. It is not perfect, but it is a good start.

Many friends have given me tips on fast dry medium. Thank you so much. I will try your suggestions, and find the one most suitable to me. I will share with you when I decide.

Next week, I will go to Putney Vermont. This will be my first time work together with THE Master Painter Richard Schmid. We will do a painting demo together. Please check Richard Schmid's website and see the event in July. It a great honor for me, and I am very excited about this trip. I will be very nervous for sure, but I will try my best.

"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.

"Halogen Warmth"

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Over the weekend I did this gallery level painting. The setup is very similar to the demo I did recently at the Gemini art school, but I have spend a long time on this one. The setup was illuminated with a very warm halogen light. The gray I used was ultramarine blue + cadmium orange. I really want to show the light source color on the painting.

Since I have never attended any formal art school, my knowledge about art is like a fish net. it is full of holes. many common terms I am not familiar with. Now I got more time chatting with professional painters. I start to realize that so many things I do not know. For instance, I hear quite a few art teaches mention "modeling" the form. I do not know what exactly it means. After many time, I think I kind of figure it out. I think "modeling" means providing adequate amount of details so the painting shows consistent relationship of the planes to form a 3-D representation. I did more "modeling" for my today's painting to give a more realistic looking.

"Peach Season" --- Sold

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This painting combines my gray study, leaf study, and my general still life approach together. The repetitive presentation of the leaves and peaches creates rhythmic composition. I want to feel the beats of the visual music.

"Riding the Wave" --- Sold

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This painting is still a part of my gray study. I have used ultramarine violet + cadmium green light + white. The mixture is good for light gray, but it can not make dark gray. I also start to touch base of depict the folds of the drapery. I painted drape before, but I need more systematic understanding to gain control.

"Demo at Gemini"

I did a demo last night at the Gemini School of Visual Arts and Communication. This is a four year art academy in Cedar Park, TX providing professional training for commercial art in illustration, advertising, and game industry. Different from most of my demos and workshops, the audiences are predominately young students, male more than female. Also different from most the art departments in universities, Gemini teaches fundamental realism skills. it offers cast drawing, perspectives, and human anatomy. combining with computer graphics skills, the students here are capable to create spectacular concept arts. Most of the graduates are working for movie industry like Disney, and other video game industries. I am certain that the young artists coming out of this place will not be starving artists.

I only have about a hour to demo. This is what I got.

"Touching" --- Sold

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This is my third day being full-time in art. What a difference it makes!!! On Monday morning, I was even able to visit a friend of mine and had tea around 11:00 AM. I made lunch for Jonathan as well. But yesterday, I felt sick. I slept whole morning. I guess my long term cumulated fatigue starts to get me. I need psychologic adjustment for this new life for sure.

I did this painting yesterday afternoon. Gray study continues. The gray was ultramarine blue + raw umber. It worked pretty well.

"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.

"Place to Hide" --- Sold

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After I announced my career transition yesterday, I have experienced something I have never ever imagined before. I saw huge waves of congratulation messages coming from all directions. I was lifted up by all of you and submerged into the absolute happiness. My fairly new Mac Book Air computer has almost shattered into pieces due to too many words bombarding on its fragile LCD, and my Wi-Fi has turned red hot due to the too high current of bids coming in. I almost burst into tears, so touched beyond any expression. I have spent almost whole day yesterday and this morning reading your kind phases. I am deeply moved. I sorry, I feel so inadequate in expressing my feeling at this moment. I only can see: THANK YOU from the bottom of my heart. Your cheers has inspired me to start immediately. Your encouragement has empowered me to go forward. I want to shout: I LOVE YOU, MY ART FRIENDS!!!

The painting for today was done a couple of days ago. I am really humbled in front of you. I feel blushed and shy like the apple in it, always try to find a place to hide. It is very clear to me. I am still a beginner in the art world. On my long journey, I am so happy that you are with me always. Hugs.

Farewell, My Full Time Job

I have reached another important milestone for my short life in this small planet. Today is my last day as a full time engineer. I am so thrilled to start my full time artist career tomorrow. This photo is the first one you see me in a lab of a high tech company, and it maybe the last one.

As a matter of fact, we coming to this world is not for accomplishing anything, but rather to witness and experience what is happening around us. Thirteen years ago, I joined this startup company as the first employee, and worked here ever since. During these many years, I have experienced a lot. I have been excited, indulged, hallucinated, struggled, exhausted, achieved, confused, hoped, prayed, rewarded, stressed, and expected. I feel so grateful to this place. I love all the people here. They taught me so many things. The corporation is a grand stage. Performances have been going on and on. I have enjoyed so much colorful characters, dramatic scenes, dazzling costumes, symbolic makeups, and eloquent garboligocs (spelling?). I feel I am in a gigantic hologram. Every thing looks so real, but actually nothing has ever existed.

In this material oriented world, we chase wealth day and night. In business, we always say “Time is Money”. However soon or later, we all will realize in our bones that “Time is better than Money”. I will enjoy my time fully, and I hope you do too.

"Carnation and Rose Leaves" --- Sold

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I came back to do more leaves and felt I was still not there. I am still way off of the anatomy of the rose leaves. So I put a carnation there. But I promise, I will be there. It won't be tomorrow, or the day after. But eventually, I will be there.

"Gray Sophistication" --- Sold

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I remembered many years ago I was in China during the Culture Revolution. Everybody worn the Mao jacket. We didn't have much choice in color. Gray, green, and blue were the dominate colors. In that situation, we developed high sensitivities about subtle colors. I remembered there was a special type of green called the "national defence green". Only the PLA had the dye formula. You couldn't get the cloths or hats with that color on the market. Wearing national defence green is an indication you had a special privilege, because you can get something most people couldn't get. At the meantime, you might jeopardise your life, because you were the target of the gangs.

Now I try to gain back my sensitivity in subtle colors. This painting is very gray and very cool. It is the opposite of I used to do. I really enjoyed painting this. My recent color study has paid off significantly. The temperature consistency is very important. Otherwise the grays will turn into mud in no time.

"Quiet Bloom" --- Sold

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Continuing on color mixing I brought up yesterday, the key factor is the purity of the color. If we have very pure blue and very pure yellow, then we will get black. However, none of colors we have are very pure. All blues and yellows we get have green in it. When they are mixed together, the blue and yellow cancel out and green light gets reflected. So we see green. The term “purity” here is vague. To be more precise I should use “spectral bandwidth”. The nearer the bandwidth is, the purer the color is. In my optics lab, I have something called “interference filters”. The blue filter allows narrow band blue light goes through, and yellow one transmits narrow band yellow. When I stack a blue filter on top of a yellow filter, I see no light goes through, or I can say I see black.

I don’t want to be too left-brain-ish. Let’s talk about painting. The painting I post today emphasizes on the subtlety of the grays. I used to get my grays by testing randomly. After I did my color wheel study, I have gained more sensitivity on grays, and I can obtain my grays more systematically. I like David Leffel’s paintings. He is the expert of grays.

“Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green"

Recently, I read a book entitled "Blue and Yellow Don't Make Green" by Michael Wilcox. It is fascinating. I agree with the author. The logic is rather simple. We know a yellow pigment reflects yellow light only and absorbs light of all other colors, and a blue pigment reflects blue light and absorbs the rest. If we mix yellow and blue paints together, the yellow light reflected by the yellow pigments gets absorbed by the blue pigments and vice versa. In consequence, the mixture will reflect no light, and we should see black. With the same reasoning, we can conclude that red and blue don't make purple, yellow and red don't make orange. They all make black only. The whole concepts of primary and secondary colors have been thrown out of the window. Isn't that bizarre? But, you know what, he is right. I can demonstrate this effect in front of you if I see you.

However in our experiences, we all know that blue and yellow do make green. I will talk to you more next time. After reading that book, I spent some time with my own color structure. I made this color wheel last night. The colors was arranged carefully such that the complementaries really make grays. I want to make sure this wheel does provide practical guidance, but not just an illustration of theories.