Gate with Red Lanterns --- Sold

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 I have spent more than two days on this painting. It is a little larger, and I used regular oil colors. After several monochromatic paintings, I decided going back to color. Since the buildings in Beijing are dominated by grey color, I have to be careful about subtlety and try my best not produce mud. The light area is warm and the shadow area is cool. I still use palette knife a lot to create the texture.

In Beijing, I am going to give a 4-day painting workshop. It will be on the Thursday of 4 consecutive weeks starting this week. I didn't advertise this one since the workshop is already full before I know it. It will be a very international one. I will let you know how it goes.

On a Beijing Street 6 --- Sold

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I thought I was a still life painter, but some how I can't stop painting Beijing cityscapes. It must be my childhood memory keeps me going. When I paint these paintings, I feel I am still a little boy playing there. Hua: please post this one and create an auction page.

On a Beijing Street 5 --- Sold

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Now I resume painting in Beijing. This painting took two sessions: majorly brush work on the first one, and palette knife for the second. The perspective of this painting is rather interesting. A couple of days ago, I went on the street taking pictures. I saw one of courtyard very similar to the one in this painting. I went in and found out it was a hotel. The price per night was 1680 yuan (about $280).

Back to Beijing

After another 24 hours train ride (really enjoyed). I am back to Beijing again. Yesterday in the subfreezing temperature, I went to the old Beijing streets and taking picture for my future painting projects. Since most of old Beijing districts have been demolished and replaced by ugly high-rises, the few remain Hu-Tongs (narrow streets) have become tourist attractions. I snapped many shots, and I will paint them and share my approached with you. I came to Beijing about 20 days ago. I did 4 paintings, and all have been sold to America and Europe. Yesterday I sent one order out. It is rather challenge to take care of basic logistics here: such as finding packing boxes, printing packing slips, and finding reliable shipping services. All of these issues, we take for granted in America, but at here, I have to be very creative.

Life is very exciting when you travel to exotic places. Recall my 2012, I am very satisfied. My art brought me to all places. I met so many friends. I have survived and supported my lovely family with your generous support and my effort. I had several dreams came true, such as two intensive art study at AAU and extended stay with my parents in China. I am very blessed and grateful. Now the New Year starts, full of challenges and excitement. Let us be happy facing the future and experience the even better 2013.

At a Hong Kong Market

I went to Hong Kong a couple of days ago. Nowadays in China, I have experienced more capitalism than I was in the US. In almost all the conversations I had here, people talk about money, money, and money only. commercials are all over. All the peoples here have involved in this life long vicious competition of money making. If you can't win, you will fall into cracks. I feel so overwhelmed and tired. What about art? what about morality? Nobody cares. I feel this society is so off the balance. It is very scary. I have not given up yet. I am still looking for true friends who I can share art and something I consider more important than the all mighty money.

Da-Fen-Cun

You may not know what I mean if you see the title of my today's post, but you must has seen some very cheap original oil paintings selling in hotels, shopping malls, or even on the street. Have you wondered where all those paintings come from. Well, Here it is. Da-Fen-Cun is the place where the main business here is mass producing oil paintings. Many studios in Da-Fen-Cun hire young people with very low pay, and provide basic art training, then produce oil paintings as assembly line. I visited Da-Fen-Cun yesterday. Took a few photos and chatted with several artists. It is amazing how art is produced here.

Handmade RV

I was on my way to the railroad station, and I saw this special vehicle. I call it RV, but it is not relevant at all to what we call "recreation", because it does not amuse me at all, only sadness . This man modified a small junky pickup truck with whatever material he has. I saw a chimney on the upper rear. He must have a coal burning stove inside to keep him warm in this -15C winter night. The red banner on the side of the vehicle says: "My dear wife, where are you?". I don't know this guy is homeless or not, but he must have all he has on this RV and travel all over the country looking for his wife. Like all the people in this modern society, I was in a hurry all the time. I quickly snapped this photo and rush to catch my train. However this image just cannot be erased from my mind. I don't think this guy knows what the Christmas is, but I sincerely wish him merry and happy, and find his dear wife in the near future.

Snow Sweepers

Beijing is cold, very cold now (-15 C tonight). This photo was shot after the 2nd snow storm after I arrived here. I don't see any snowplows to clean the road and anyone use snow blowers. I saw quite a few snow sweepers cleaning the road with those giant brooms made of bamboo stems and leaves. This scene brought back some of my childhood memories. People swept the dirt road and snow with the big brooms like in this photo, leaving beautiful and calligraphic brush strokes on the ground. I was very impressed by their "art" work. It is highly possible I was influenced subconsciously by the giant broom marks, and now they are shown on my canvas. Tonight I will take a 24 hour train ride to Shenzhen and Hong Kong. I will keep you posted what is going on there.

"On a Beijing Street 4"

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I want to thank all friends sending me emails and comments concerning my father's sickness and difficult situation of my mother and me. Your message really warm our hearts. We are very touched, and happy to know so many people are care and supportive. My father's condition is stable, and our maid came back two days ago. She is very helpful, so I have more time to paint and doing other things.

I continue on my Beijing cityscape series. My today's painting is another Hutong scene. I really like using palette knife now. My texture variation is still very limited, but I became more comfortable and freer. The subtly and drama of the painting are improving.

"On a Beijing Street 3"

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I have been back to China for about a week. I did not go anywhere since my father needs attention all the time. We have a living-in maid to take care him and other chores, but she happen to be off for a while to take care of her own family issues. My father has lost the control of his body. He does everything in bed now. Being sick for a long time, he became very very skinny. I can see his skeleton very clearly. All I have learned from human anatomy study has demonstrated vividly right in front of me. Lying there with pain and all kinds of problems, my father now is the best teacher showing me about life. I feel sad, shocked, and frustrated. Human suffering is inevitable. No matter how rich and famous we are, we never can escape from aging, sickness, and death. The colorlessness of my recent paintings did show my current feeling. On the other hand, my father has also shown me that the time is very very short. I will just like my father or even worse in the future not long from now. I better not wast any minutes I have now. Our maid is coming back soon. I hope our life will get a little better then.

"On a Beijing Street 2"

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Continuing on my Beijing cityscape experiment. I used a lot of knife work on this one. I kind of like this water based oil colors. They are very different from acrylic colors. They dry very slow, and they have no oder at all.

"On a Beijing Street"

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I have established a small painting station in my bedroom. Because there is no ventilation and I can not open the window, I decided to use water mixable colors to minimize the oder. I didn't bring full palette of these kind of colors with me, so I decided to do a monochromatic one. Since I am here in this very old city, I want to try to paint some local landscapes. Houses in old Beijing has a very special courtyard design. They joined together forming many narrow allies (I mean narrow streets, but don't know how to spell). The gate of the courtyard has many different styles implying owner's social status. My painting for today shows one of them. Since color is not a issue here, I want to explore the texture presentation like the brick walls and tiled roofs. I used more knife work and thick paint. I hope soon I will have the freedom of this kind of painting style.

"Snowy Morning"

It has been snowing during the night. I saw this scene in the morning. Beijing is a very busy big city, even in this cold snowy day. Cars are all over. The traffic is always in jam. Like all the pedestrians, I waded through the semi thawing sludge, trying to keep my balance on the slippery and grey world.

First Image from Beijing

My previous blog post was misleading. I am so sorry. I am in China only temporarily. I did say "Goodbye America", but I didn't say "Farewell America". I have arrived at Beijing last night. I am here visiting my parents, and I will spend the holiday season with them. My father's Parkinson's disease has getting worse. He is completely bed-bound. So I want to spend a little longer time with him. I will be back to US in February 2013, then I have even more workshops booked for the coming year. I will see you again.

Just like my last trip in Beijing, I will keep you posted and let you know what I see, do, and think. I went out this morning. It is very cold here. The temperature is -3 degree Celsius (about 19 F). The dominant color here is grey, very grey. However I see an orange vender has placed a high chroma color on the grey background.

Goodbye America

This photo was taken at the beautiful Sedona. The last glimpse of the sun painted the majestic Cathedral rock with burning colors. I felt the temperature is dropping, and the night is approaching. I have to say good bye to this fantastic place. Although the day and night are alternating, the person comes and goes, the the beauty is everlasting.

Recall my journey of 2012, I feel satisfied. It has been a very busy year, and time goes by so fast. I can’t believe it has been one and a half years since I have left my full-time engineering job. I feel I am a little bird flying all over, bringing worms to Mom Bird and Baby Bird. Our small nest in Austin is still in good shape. Ray tracing my zigzag path across the United States this year, I have perched at Houston Texas, Scottsdale Arizona, Sacramento California, Melbourne Florida, Putney Vermont, Albany New York, Cypress Mill Texas, Atlanta Georgia, San Francisco California, Marshfield Massachusetts, Newport Rhode Island, Jacksonville Florida, Montgomery Alabama, New Braunfels Texas, Wethersfield Connecticut, Magnolia Texas, and Sedona Arizona. Oh boy, that is a lot of travel. I have some significant improvement in my art, especially the two months study at AAU. It opened up my vision, and I know I have more areas need to be improved. I have realized that my beginner’s luck has started to run out. Wether I can stay in the art field will be only determined by courage and tenacity. I have  been trying new things. Some of them may not always benefit me, but I have to do it to find out. Challenges are a part of life. It is so often we don’t know what to do. However, we have no way out, except keeping on going.

Now, I am sitting at San Francisco International Airport waiting for my long flight across the Pacific Ocean. I am on my way to Beijing China again. My art travel goes to a new phase. I will keep you posted from the exotic Orient. Goodbye America!

"Demo at Sedona 2012 2"

Now I have finished my very last workshop teaching of the year.  Under the crispy sun light, the red rock of Sedona reflects dazzling color impinging on art journey of 2012. I am on my way home.

This is my second demo. I am getting looser and thicker. I have a long way to go with my high key approaches. Can't wait to progress more.

“Demo at Sedona 2012 1"

I want to thank Sedona Arts Center for organizing my workshop at this super beautiful place. I want to thank artist friends from all over for attending. This is my first demo. It is always a challenge to figure out a setup and finish the demo within two hours. I really like the copper and lemon.

"Sedona Arizona"

It is too too too beautiful, Sedona AZ. I arrived last night. I have gone anywhere. This photo was taken from my hotel room.

"AAU Portrait Painting 3"

Another portrait study from my AAU time. This one is one of my favorites. Zhaoming mentioned in his class. Portrait painting is different from head studies. If you concentrate on how to get the anatomy, perspective, lighting, and modeling correct to make the face look human, you are only doing a head study. Painting a portrait has to go beyond the head study level, the artist should concentrate on the personality, mental and emotional characteristics. I feel this painting has started to show some portrait qualities. I am happy about that.

For a while, I have been working on improving my art, so I did not take care the business part of my art. I feel a little hungary now. Tomorrow I will go to Sedona AZ to teach a workshop. I am very excited about this one.

BTW, I made a mistake on my calendar button on my painting emails. Know I have fix the error. It should be working now.

"Awakening" (Partial)

Finally, I finished my long term painting "Awakening". Since the painting is semi-dry, I can't get a good photo. I got a ton of glares. Doing a large painting is so different from my small daily studies. I go a way deeper in designs and paint effects. My AAU study during the summer has really laid the foundation for doing large paintings. I like the light effects and light consistency of the painting. I really want to do more projects like this. It gives me more opportunities to deal with detail modeling and dramatization. I consider to submit this painting for the 2013 OPA show. I missed this year's show, so I want to be prepared a little earlier.

I have not done any small paintings for a while, but I hope I can pick it up soon. Life keeps on going. Problems are inevitable, but if we do not give up, we will be there eventually. So, I don't want to talk about my demons any more. I am awakening gradually.

"AAU Portrait Painting 6"

I am still working on my long term painting, so I show another portrait study I did at AAU in the summer time.  It used two light sources: one warm and one cool.

Recently I started a discussion about demons. So many friends sent me great comments. They helped me a lot and warmed my heart. Thank you so much. But what is the “demon” I mean specifically? As a matter of fact, it is the paraphrase I use to refer the problems I ran into during my personal development. They are not horned monsters that my son trying to kill in his video games, but it is true that they are the power from the dark side. They have many appearances. Today I just want to talk about one of them - my fear of unknowns. Since I left my engineering job. I have given up the security and stability. I know I have to face the anxiety of the unknown future. It force me work harder, and try to accomplish as much as possible. I tend to work too much. I have difficulty to relax. I try to take all the opportunities. However, that starts to take away all the fun and freedom, which are my original objective of departure from a meaningless job. How come I turn my dream into another job. This is all because I have this demon in me. It shows its ugly face and sharp fang, waving his bloody claws trying break me into pieces. However, it is too often, I forgot this demon was created by me. You know well that I want to be a good artist to share the world beauty with you. However, only I know I am an even better artist that I created the most fearful monsters to scare myself. Now I am learning to accept my demon, because it is me. I am learning to meditate with him. Learning to use the most powerful weapon to conquer everything.

“Awakening (Day 5)"

As I mentioned in my previous post, I have been working on a long term painting project. Instead of showing the final result only, I decided to share the process with you. The project is the continuation of my calligraphy/still_life painting I started a couple of months ago. The Chinese character in the image means "awakening". I combine the calligraphy with a scene of a Buddhist shrine, since the word "Buddha" happens to mean "the awakened one" in sanskrit. Awakened from what? That is a very interesting question, but you can think about when you have time.

This painting is relatively large: 18" x 24". I have spent five days on it already. I work only several hours each day on it, since I have so many other things on my plate. I have to spend long hours dealing with the demon in me as I talked about previously. Thanks to all of you who wrote me wonderful comments on my battle. We will talk more on that topic later. With this painting, I used a very different approach. I don't have a fixed setup. I design the light and value in mind first, then found representative objects to form the scene. I combined painting from life and using photos. I altered freely the sizes of objects according to my design. I used computer graphics to simulate the effect so I can visualize the result before I paint it. As a matter of fact, the image you see today is not a pure photo of my painting. The calligraphy is an overlay to show me the effect. With this approach I can set up the still life on canvas directly and gradually, instead of having a fixed setup in my shadow box. I did a way more thinking than push paint. With this approach I gained more freedom. I can vividly put on canvas objects which do not exist in the real world. Now this painting has began to show the effect I wanted. I am creating an illusion in front of you. However, my intention of this illusion is to help you, including myself, to be awakened from the delusion of the world, and see the true reality.

"AAU Portrait Painting 7"

I am currently working on a long term painting project. It will take me a week at least to finish. Since I don't have any new painting to show you, I will share some of my old work. This is one of the portraits I did at Academy of Art University (AAU) in San Francisco in July. I was there for two months in the summer. AAU was a significant eye opener for me. Since then, I have been very sure what to do to be an good artist. After I came back, I made a plan to pursue my study. However, I worked according my plan only for a short while. Then I quickly found out that I have to stop most of my rigorous approaches. I ran into so many difficulties, some of them are physical and Psychological. Now, I am still going, but much slower. I have seen significant fragmentation in my art development.

From this a couple of years of my art journey, I realize a philosophy. I don't know how true it is, but I want to share it with you. Here is what I found: When I started a new career, I also planted a evil seed in me. This seed will grow into a demon as my career grows. Most of the time this demon will over grow (especially, if the career is some sort of "business"). Soon after this demon is strong enough, it starts to destroy me. I have spend more and more time to fight my demon. Obviously, the growth of my career slows down. If I am not careful, the demon will easily destroy me. It has happened to so many people in history. Have you seen the life of many so called "celebrities"? I surely hope I will not become another victim. So having the awareness of this demon exist in me is the first step. Secondly, I need to have infinite patience (Yes, INFINITE), and fighting (no, living with) my demon is a absolute skill we all need to have. As a matter of fact, to be a good artist is not my final goal; to be a mature human being is.

"Demo at Magnolia 2012 3" --- Sold

I did an additional demo on the last day of the workshop at Magnolia. It was a very enjoyable experience of doing this one.

I have almost finished my workshop teaching for 2012. I have one more to go and I am very excited about this one. My final workshop will be held at Sedona, AZ, a beautiful beautiful place. The date will be on Dec. 4 - 6. We still have a couple of openings. I know most people are busy preparing for Christmas, but just in case if you have sometime, please join me at this spectacular place. If you are interested in attending this workshop, please contact: Sedona Arts Center.

“Demo at Magnolia 2012 2" --- Sold

This is the second demo I did in Magnolia. I hope you like it. I am back to Austin now. Life goes on.

"My 2013 Desk Calendar"

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Time goes so fast. Now the holiday season is just around corner. I have used 13 of my painting images and made a desk calendar for the coming New Year of 2013. Please click here to see the images in the calendar. I also placed a calendar widget on my blog. Please check it out.  I can't believe that the major part of 2012 has passed. This year is very important to me. It is the first year for me as a full time artist. I have experienced a lot, learned a lot. I feel very grateful to all of you who are supporting me. I am very happy I have made it so far.  Thank you so much.

"Demo at Magnolia 2012 1" --- Sold

I paused my color study and put on my teacher hat again. After about 3 hours drive, I have arrived Magnolia TX, and started another workshop. I want to thank Marty Hatcher for putting this workshop together, and Thank all artist friends for attending. In this workshop, 50% students have taken my workshop before. Some of them have taken 3 times. I feel so grateful that so many friends are supporting me. That gives me more confidence to keep going, even my art learning path is not as smooth as I wish. Thank you all for taking care of me.

This is the first demo I did. It is low key and has a lot of light.

"Demo to My Tuesday Class"

This is a demo painting I did to my Tuesday mentoring class. I am sorry I feel a little low today. After I came back from New England, I thought I could continue on my color study. However, I have encountered so many side tracks, and I can't concentrate on anything. I understood more now that if you want to be an artist, you must hold on  to your dreams. Even you hold on to it, there is always more than enough barriers and challenges trying to break you down. You fall so often, you feel exhausted always. So many have given it up already. Only the one can get there who keeps on going no matter what. So "Stay Foolish" is the key. I cultivate my land, but do not anticipate the harvest.

"Purple Sugar Bowl"

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After a long pause, I resume painting in my studio. If you read my blog posts, you know I was studying the color of purple. So I am continuing from where I stopped. I got this beautiful purple sugar bowl from Keene, NH after I visited Vermont. The green bottle was given to me by one of the Putney painters. I spent quite a long time on this painting, but I felt happy about how it turned out. Finally I am able to use purple as the color for the center of focus. I feel more comfortable with this kind of high key approach now.

Another thing I want to mention today is I found a new tool to hold my canvas or panel. It is called the canvas & panel gripper designed and made by an artists friend Connie Nobbe and her husband Jeff. I have used many kind of easels. The mechanism of holding canvas always block small parts of painting area. I have to move my canvas over to cover those dead spots. However the new canvas gripper do not have this problem. If you are interested in this new tool, please click the link above. I also have an ad on my blog.

"Can Color Temperature be Quantified"

It is beautiful today in Austin: sunny and 86 F. After several workshop teaching in a row, I came back to my color research I left weeks ago. After reading my notes, my attention has been brought into the issue of "color temperature". We talk and think about color temperature all the time. For instance, painting shadow warmer when we have cool light. However, the color temperature in art seems so relative and confusing, especially when we deal with greys. To my limited knowledge, I have not seen anyone assign a number to a specific color. But I think number is important. Can you imagine the meteorologist in TV only tells you that tomorrow will be cooler than today, but no specifics? I think that the number "86 F" does give us more information, doesn't it?

Since I don't have a quantified system for color temperature, I have to invent the wheel myself. I wrote myself a tech note as the following. (If the terms are too techie to you, please ignore them at this moment, I will share them again with more understandable words in the future after I get all bugs removed).

I want to establish an absolute color temperature scale. Every color should be specified by a value T for its temperature. The range of T is from 0 (the coolest) to 100 (the warmest). In the HSV color system, I assume the value (i.e. grey scale) change does not affect the color temperature. I also assume the color of Red-Orange (30, 100) is the warmest, and its complementary Blue-Cyan (210, 100) is the coolest. The the temperature T of any color (H, S) can be calculated by the following formula:

T = 50 + (S/2) cos (H - Hh), where Hh = 30 is the hue value of the warmest color.

The image above is an example of the calculated temperature of 12 selected colors. I hope they make sense.