"Smoke House"

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I didn't have to teach last Sunday, so I went out did this plein air painting. Since I painted with Calvin Liang, my attitude toward landscape has changed quite a bit. I know what I am looking for. Well, however, when I actually doing it, I find I get confused again. I know I have to do more until I have some sort of control.

"Wild Lantern" --- Sold

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Song (my wife) and I had a picnic in a park on Saturday. We haven't done this for a long time. The vegetation in the park is so different from our last visit. One type caught my attention the most. It is a vine full of red and green puffy lanterns on it. They danced happily in the autumn wind. I don't know its name (maybe you can help me), but I brought some of them home and painted this one that night. I am so happy to be an artist. So much beauty around us eagerly want to be painted.

"Color Behind Light" --- Sold

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Now I am at the time between workshops, so I am continuing my color study. Similar to the swan painting, I really pay attention to the colors in the shadow. There are so many opportunities there. This painting deviated quite far from my "typical" ones. The view angle, composition, illumination, and color are all different. But I will keep my sanity checked. If you think I am going too far, please raise the flag for me.

Since my last post, I received many comments and emails showing me tips of controlling spams on blog and emails. I really really appreciate it. Now I have changed the settings for the comments. Thank you so much for the help. Isn't the Internet wonderful? I am so grateful that I am in this great artists' community.

"Demo at Austin 4" --- Sold

My today's post is the second demo I did at the Austin workshop. I have not painted many white roses. So it was a challenge of painting it in front of public. But it turned out all right.

Another topic

Recently, I have noticed someone sending spam as comments to my blog. I want to stop these guys of doing it, but I don't know how to ban the inappropriate comments on the blog. If you know how to do it, I appreciate greatly if you can show me how. Thanks.

"Demo at Austin 3" --- Sold

I had another wonderful workshop over the weekend. I want express my sincere thanks to Karen Wilkerson for organizing my workshop the second time in Austin. I met many new friends and happy to see several old friends again. This painting is my first demo at the workshop (the third one in Austin this year). My color sensitivity has been increasing. I am so excited that I am able to put more exciting colors fit into my painting. I want to thank all workshop attendees. I hope those three days have positive influence to your art.

"Come and Join" --- Sold

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On most Sunday mornings, I teach drawing to a small group at my house. They are absolute beginners, but they have made tremendous progress. Now some members of this group will take my painting workshop at Austin this coming Weekend. Since they never painted before, they requested me to give a pre-workshop class. The paintings of this and the previous post are my demos to them. From my experience of teaching this group, I want encourage those who want to do art but consider themselves having no talent. Art can be learned. You can produce wonderful work if you are on the right track.

"Apple Demo" --- Sold

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In my previous post, I borrowed the term "chromodynamics" from quantum physics to identify the color theory I would like to practically use and share with everybody in my teaching. It will take a while for me to organize all my logic, but in a nutshell, what I tried to say is "the way color moves". These a couple of days I received many comments and emails asking what I really learned from Calvin Liang. I remember he told me: "I really like to paint the scene that more than 60% of it is in shadow". This statement zapped me. I suddenly realized that 90% of my paintings were the opposite. I like the scene that more than 60% of it in light, and put most of the colors in lighted area as well. Calvin directed me to a new way of think. I interpreted his saying meant: "Why don't you put most of the good colors in shadow and see what happens?" This suggestion opened tremendous amount of opportunities for me to be creative. Instead of having one piece of vibrant color doing a solo, I can have many grays and subtle colors to perform a whole symphony together. You know I was not too fond of high key paintings. Now I changed my mind. Well, my today's painting is still belong to my old category, I will talk more about it next time.

"Graceful Color" --- Sold

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Yes, I made it!!! I have been in a bottleneck stage for a long time. I considered myself a value painter, not a color painter. You may not agree with me because you see many my paintings with vibrant red and oranges. However, my main trick was using the contrast of color vs. non-color. My good color stays in the light area leaving the shadow subdued. This approach worked, but I want progress more. I tried paint white objects several time, but the progress was not significant. After painted with Calvin Liang last Monday. I can't sleep for several nights, and keep thinking about my understanding of color. This time my left brain function dominant. I found that color for art could be theorized much more systematically than the current nebulous and chaotic color models and schemes. What should I call my color study? Hmmm...... How does "Chromodynamics" sound? Scientists use this term describing a study in the subatomic physics. Why can artists use it too? I think my today's painting is quite Chromodynamic. The object doesn't have much of a color, but I arranged the environment with good colors to make the reflection very colorful. I think I started to understand some of the Impressionistic approaches now. How do you like my chromodynamic painting so far?

New Workshops Announcement

I have just updated my website and put my 2010 workshop schedule on it. If you are interested in knowing my approaches in painting, please contact my workshop organizers and sign up. If you are interested in having me teach at your location, please shoot me an email. I still have a few openings on my calendar. I have two more painting workshops in 2009, but they are all full. However, if you want to know how I manage my art business, I do have a half day workshop about that. It will be held in Austin, TX on October 3, 2009. Please contact Tess Walls at: tess.walls@sbcglobal.net for details.

"LBJ Ranch" --- Sold

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I was so excited. I painted plein air with master artist Calvin Liang yesterday. Calvin is a wonderful landscape painter. After attending the reception of his show at the Greenhouse gallery in San Antonio, He is teaching a workshop at the Fredericksbury Artists School. Calvin and I have been friends for many years, but this was the first time we paint together. His way of using colors is incredibly dramatic. We talked about color during the paint-out. He turned on quite a few light bulbs in my head. Lit with Calvin's light, you will see me doing more landscapes later on.

"Purple Eggs" --- Sold

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Now, it is eggplant season I heard. The other day my wife got these cute baby eggplants. I enjoyed so much painting them. The bluish shine on dark purple is so delicious and the ending (what do you call that?) forms such nice irregular shapes making wonderful contrast with the regular round body of the plant. Life should like an egg plant: simple, beautiful, and down to earth.

"Frontyard Beauty" --- Sold

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I am lucky and didn't go to work this morning. So I decided to do a plein air painting in my front yard. This little flower is one of bush blossoms right in front of my house. Different from my still life approach, I didn't have the controlled lighting and the freedom of arranging my objects. That is difficult part of plein air painting, but it really was fine doing it. Texas finally gets a little cooler now. You will see more of my plein air pieces in the near future.

"Sherrie's Roses"

Sherrie McGraw is one of masters I admire the most. Her paintings keep me inspired all the time. I also believe that one of best ways to learn is by copying master's work. So my today's painting is my "conterfeit" one of Sherri's paintings. I hope she does not mind I am doing so. In scientific world, we believe that if you want excel in your field, you should stand on the shoulder of giants. Without Isaac Newton, and James Maxwell, Albert Einstein would not be possible. However in art world, Many people doing the opposite. "It has been done before" implies we don't need to do it any more. Copy master's work doesn't mean to do an identical print. It is a great research and practice on what was going on in the master's mind. By the way it is also a wonderful alternative of collecting masterpieces.

"Grape Tango" --- Sold

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This is another color scheme works every time. Green and purple go together beautifully. I didn’t use much of saturated colors in this painting, but it makes me excited.

"Pretty and Tall" --- Sold

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I changed my background color today. Generally speaking, I prefer dark background so I can have my center of focus have a light show. But I had too many of that. So I sometime do dark center on a lighter background. I have not got a kick of this approach. I feel the painting looks more conventional this way. What do you think? Please talk me into it or out of it. We will see who wins.

"Stop Rolling" --- Sold

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I got this cute little vase the other day. The piece of blue color in the design gives great color contrast to the lemon. You can see that I am still testing color schemes for the center of focus. For yellows I have not get the effects I really want. I will keep trying.

"Copper and Jade"

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Since I am in the mood of painting jade, I did this gallery painting yesterday. I got a nice looking copper thingy recently. It is so great to place these two objects together to show the texture difference. Oil painting has this incredible potential that you can represent tremendous amount of subtlety. I love it more and more.

"Jade Cup" --- Sold

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I got this jade cup when I was in Beijing. The cool translucent color of this gem made me so excited to paint it. Many people like my paintings with the vibrant red color. I do too. But I also keep searching and experimenting with other colors to provide other kinds of visual enjoyment. Painting this cup is definitely from this constant motivation. The green colors for the Jade is mixed from phthalo blue into various kinds of yellows. I hope you can visually touch this cub and enjoy its smoothness and translucency.

"Demo at Granbury 2" --- Sold

This is my second demo at Granbury. Sorry about the blurry on the photo. I didn’t get to use a tripod for this long exposure shot. However, you got the idea. With this demo, I got everybody excited for doing roses. It was very hard at the beginning, but if you don’t give up and keep practicing. It will get easier and easier.

Demo at Granbury 1 - "Orange and Lemons" --- Sold

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This is my first demo painting at my Granbury workshop. I’d like to thank my new and old artists friends coming from all over to attend this workshop. Especially I would like to thank Theresa, the owner of the Iron Horse Inn, for organizing this event. After my previous post, she commented on my blog and retold the story about the house in the following I would like share with you:

“Briefly, this is a historic home and the original family had 8 children. The youngest was Josephine Cogdell who was quite a wild young lady - she ran away from home with a traveling salesman in 1913 when she was just 16 years old! After a few years living in California as a dancer, writer and artist, she moved to New York where she met and married an important writer and publisher of the day - George Schuyler. Sadly the family cut Josephine out of their lives after this marriage as this was a 1920's Texas family and George Schuyler was black. Despite a deputation of her older sisters to persuade her to come home, Josephine lived the rest of her life in Harlem with George where they had a daughter Phillipa who turned out to be a musical genius. She started composing at aged 5 and played Carnegie hall at age 13. She had a renowned career as a concert pianist, composer and writer, but sadly died in a helicopter crash on assignment in Vietnam in 1967. The film rights for her biography have been purchased by Hallie Berry and Alicia Keys has a contract to play Phillipa in the movie.”
Isn’t that fascinating? Please check Theresa’s site to see what is going on now at house:http://www.theironhorseinn.com/retreat.htm

Granbury

I came to Granbury TX, a beautiful small town 25 miles west of Ft. Worth. I am giving a painting workshop at the legendary Iron Horse Inn. This great house was built in 1905. The owner of the house Theresa has told us dramatic stories about this house. If you want to know what happened here, please check: http://www.theironhorseinn.com/retreat.htm and contact Theresa.

"Complementary" --- Sold

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This painting is very similar to the one of my last post, but I went back to canvas again. I don't mean to confuse you. I really like the Masonite board better, but I have a pile of canvases not being used. So you will still see I paint on canvas a lot in the future. My general attitude toward painting materials is that: "Do not let the material issues restricting your art". I am constantly being asked what kinds or brands paint, brushes, media, and canvases I use. I provide answers according to what I use at that moment, but I may change at the next moment. There is no double that the property of paint and brushes play a very important part in a painting process. However, the artist him/herself is the one who determines if a painting works or not.

"Flowing Colors" --- Sold

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I think I am back to my regular painting mode again, and I also started to explore new methods. I did this painting on a gessoed Masonite board. The reason I shifted away from canvas is that I realized that I can create more painterly effects with less paint. When I am not sure about a mix of color, I test it by mixing a small quantity with my brush, I found using Masonite is relatively easier to get an effect. But on a canvas, I need much more paint. That could be the reason that I have hardly seen that David Leffel using canvases.

"Beer and Friends"

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My workshop at Granbury TX is coming up this week. I want to make sure I still can demo in front my students. This 9" x 12" has my usual style. During the setup phase I really got excited by the orange light transmitted through my only bottle of Miller Lite. It took me about two hours to figure out this setup. It turned out better than I expected. Now I am more confident and ready to teach again.

My Uncle's Painting

Today, I want to share with you a painting that is not done by me. It was done by my uncle more than Thirty years ago. My uncle – Hongen Huang was a high school art teacher. Thirty some years ago when I was in middle school, I lived with my grandma in Beijing, China. My uncle lived in another city very far away. Every summer, uncle Hongen visited us, and he painted en plein air landscapes everywhere he went. Since he was not local, I volunteer to be his tour guide. We went to many wonderful places. He painted and I watched. It was very enjoyable watching uncle Hongen painting. Many brush strokes I use today actually belong to him. Uncle Hongen is the artist influencing me more than any artists did. This time I went back to Beijing and brought this painting with me to America.

I have not painted these several days. My jet lag turns me into vegetable in the hours I used to paint. I still wake up in the middle of the night for quite a long time. Consider I have to go to work during my daytime hours; I don’t want to get too excited during the night. I have to wait patiently for my painting chances to come.

"On the Spot" --- Sold

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Painting light is my main motivation when I approach to a still life painting. This one is a good example. Vast amount of darkness enhances a small area of light. Subtle value change in shadow gives more dynamic range to the light. I didn’t use much of vibrant colors for this one, but I really enjoy the dances performed by the values.

During my China trip and the week after I came back. I have received massive amount of emails. I am really touched by all your warm words. I wish I could reply to each of you, but unfortunately I am not able to do that any more. I want you to know that I deeply appreciate your support and hope you to understand my lack of resources to manage all emails at one-to-one basis. I think the best way to feed back to you is to constantly improve my art and bring you some happiness visually. Thank you very very much.

"Refreshing" --- Sold

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It has been the longest break time to me for being not painting since I started as a so-called “daily painter”. It has been dangerously long that makes me wondering if I still know how to paint. I have to challenge this negative momentum, and now I am back. I am still in the warm up stage, but I am back. Still with my jet lag, I did this painting from 1:00 to 4:00 AM this morning. This one is from a photo I took in Beijing. Lotus flower symbolizes effort out of a difficult situation relentlessly to achieve perfection. It sounds like a daily painter’s spirit.

Shanghai Cheng Huang Miao

Shanghai was the last stop of my China trip. Time goes fast and now it is time to say “Zai-Jian” (goodbye). It is difficult to summarize my impression about China in a few words, but I should say sharp contrast is my general feeling. On one side, Life is not conditioned well and you find many inconvenience. For instance, there are hardly any bathrooms have toilets and toilet paper. On the other hand, there are astonishingly beautiful places, incredibly delicious food, wonderful history and culture, and great potential and dynamics. Maybe covered with dust however, you will find dazzling treasure underneath. Guaranteed.

I am back to Austin now. New challenges and opportunities are in front of me. I need to take care some logistic issues and put my life under control. I hope I will go back to painting soon.

The Bird Nest

Came out of the mountain, we flew back to Beijing. Dinner after dinner, we were so busy in social gatherings and reunions. Some friends I haven’t seen for more than 30 years. Time has been materialized on our faces. We reviewed many old stories with laughter and tears. The old memories were felt so real, but the reality in front me seems like mirage.

The Gate of Heaven

I was at the Zhang-Jia-Jie Airport. The mountain behind me is called “Tian-Men-Shan” means the Gate of Heaven. You may see easily there is a cross right under the opening. I am very sure it is not a man-made structure. I am in awl with the beauty presented right in front of me. I am even more stroked by the meaning behind this holy demonstration. If you have the Faith, may God bless you and strengthen your belief. If you are searching for the Truth, may this demonstration bring you to a higher level of enlightenment.