"Head Study 053012"

I did this head study last night with the Bee Cave Painters in south Austin. The organizer of this group is Eric Rhoads. Eric is well known in the fine art world. He is the owner of the Plein Air Magazine and Fine Art Connoisseur. A group of artists have been going to Eric's house located at Bee Cave, Texas on Wednesday nights. We paint portraits. Most of my head studies have been done there. Last night was the last gathering for this spring, then we have a summer break. We had wine and snacks, a lot of fun.

"A Lonely Drummer" --- Sold

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Now I feel more comfortable with my accuracy of capturing the figure. So today I worked more on modeling. I am relatively tight today to give the painting a more classic look. I am experiencing the subtlety of modeling the figure. This part is not very hard, but it is really time consuming. I feel I have gained more control on figure painting now. It is really a good day for me.

I did this painting from a photo I took at the Eeyore's Birthday party I mentioned earlier. There were many people play drums. I will paint more of them.

"Raining in a Small Town" --- Sold

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This is my second small figurative painting. I am still working on the fundamental work, which is the accuracy of the human form and the proportion. The artistic aspects of the painting are quite secondary. I would like to work on the improvement  of my human form rendering for a while until I feel satisfied with my accuracy. I am not there yet, so I want to do more this kind of exercises.

"Spinning" --- Sold

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I am entering a new genre: narrative figurative. It is much harder than still life paintings. To paint human form accurately is not easy. I have spent almost entire day today to paint this 6" x 8". I hope the quality of my figurative paintings can go beyond my still lives.

"Head Study 052312" --- Sold

After seeing Fongwei off, I started my technical consulting week. My mode has been shifted to mathematics, but I still try my best to find time to paint. I did this head study on wednesday night. I deliberately make the painting a little tighter, and spent a large amount of time modeling the details. I have really enjoyed the paintings I did recently, and start to see progresses. I don't know how long I can last doing head and figure studies. This kind of work is not as marketable as still life paintings. However, I understand what I am doing is very important if I want to develop my art to a higher level.

"Head Study 052012"

After all artists started painting on the third day of Fongwei's workshop, I set up my easel at a spot nobody chosen. It was a very challenge one. I have not done any head study from this angle before. I don't see much face features and I have no idea how to paint hair. After quite a struggle, I got this one. It is not too bad I think. I kind of like the hair I did.

"Jonathan"

On the second day of Fongwei's workshop, one of the models didn't show up. So my son Jonathan came and modeled for the class. I did this quick sketch. I have painted him from photo before, but this one is my first one painted from live. I feel grateful for the workshop, because I don't think my teenage boy will sit for me alone. He did great. I can imagine how difficult for a hyperactive 15 year old to sit still.

"Head Study 051812"

My friend Fongwei Liu came from California. He is teaching a figure workshop here in Austin. Song and I are busy assisting him taking care of the logistics. I had some time in the afternoon. so I did this head study. I was quite far from the model, so I couldn't get into the details. I wish I have the ability to provide more information from my brain to make the painting more complete, but I can only paint what I see. Fongwei is a great artist and a wonderful teacher. The workshop is going very well.

"Onions and Jar"

I did this 9" x 12" today. I am still in middle of a big effort of organizing my life. So my painting is in a not very consistent stage. Please be patient with me. I think this is part of life. We all run into issues. Let me have some time, and I will progress.

"Figure Study 051112"

Figure painting is my final goal in my relatively new art career. As a matter of fact, I started painting about 15 years ago, my genre was portrait and figure. I realized very quickly the figure is the most difficult thing to paint. I don't have much time, so I move to still life. I think I did the right thing, because I get to artistic part of painting very quickly instead of struggling with anatomy and perspectives. Many years have passed, and now it is time to confronting figure painting again. In order to progress in a more controlled way, I thought about technology again. This figure study I did was not from a model neither from a photo.  It was painted from a 3D computer model. I downloaded a 3D human model software from www.cloudstarts.com. The model is not perfect, but it is good enough. I got the proportion and perspective rather accurately with a lot of measurement. But I feel the form is very hard because I have not done enough and I don't know anatomy much. It is first time I painted collar bones in detail. I was really tired after about 4 hours. I know the shoulder still needs a lot of work, and so do arms, hands, legs and feet. Well, I will reserve them for my future projects.

"Out of the Holodeck"

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Feels good doing small paintings again. This one is my warm up. I hope to keep the momentum (or mode) going for a while so I can improve. Coming back from Atlanta. I did not resume painting right away, but instead I was working on my "life management". When I was a full time engineer, I didn't have much life. (To be more accurate, my life was sold to someone else). I did what I had been told. Everyday is pretty much the same routine. Since I left the company (out of the Holodeck), I am on my own. I need to make many decisions, paint, teach, and run my business. I have been doing all these work based on purely my intuition. My brain is the main memory and reminder of all my activities. Very soon, I have realized I am not a good manager. I can organize relatively small projects, such as how to conduct my workshops, but not big ones and too many. This is a big problem. If I keep going, my poor management could ruin my life, which I just got back. I mentioned earlier that I was learning GTD and using iCal trying put my life together again. But I wasn't serious enough and too busy, My system never worked. The thing is getting worse day by day. I missed my OPA and OPS shows this year, and constantly chasing last minute tasks. Doing small daily paintings regularly? Forget it! You have seen all of these things happened right in front of you.

Now I am getting really serious. I spent two entire days read through the whole GTD book, and search on the Web for practical ideas. I found a new Application called "Evernote", and spent another couple of days learning how to use it with GTD. Now I have got a sort of "system" on my Mac and start to use it. Men! "Business management" is a cult. it occupies you completely. (If you are perfectionist, you will suffer more.) I was like a zombie for these few days. Now I have new management system on my computer. Does it work? we will see.

"Demo at Atlanta 2012 2" --- Sold

For the second Demo as usual, I painted roses.  Rose is very hard to paint if you think you are painting roses. However, if you think you are only paint forms, shapes and edges, it is will be much easier. Squint as much as you can and observe where the dark is and where the light is. Place your stroke with confidence, and then leave them alone. Very soon your rose will smile to you.

"Demo at Atlanta 2012 1" --- Sold

Greeting from Atlanta, GA. I am teaching a workshop here. I want to thank Donna Thomas for organizing this wonderful workshop, and all the artists coming from all over to see me. This is the demo painting I did yesterday. The orange with a yellow ribbon around it is organic, and the other one is not. Well,  they aren't much different to me. For my painting, they are all light manipulators, I don't even care if they are oranges or not.

"Head Study 050212"

I did this head study last night. The model was a very beautiful high school junior. I had some hard time to get the shape of her face right, and I need more work on the nose and mouth. I took this photo with my iPhone, it is not back except a little blurry. In any event, it was a fun evening. I surely enjoyed portrait painting. I can't wait to do more.

"Three Egges"

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"Eeyore's Birthday"

It was a super beautiful day today.  I was in the mode of partying. Song and I went to Pease Part near the downtown Austin. Every year at this time, there is huge party held here celebrating the birthday of Eeyore, the  chronically depressed donkey in the story of "Winnie-the-Pooh". I don't know exactly the history of this event, but it surely is a lot of fun. People dress up whatever they want to, playing drums and dancing all day long. To me, this is a great photo opportunity. I can get references for my future paintings. This is one of the photos I took. Eeyore's Birthday party has a strong Bohemian and Hippie flavor. It is typical Austinish (is that a word?). With its motto "Keep Austin Weird", Austin is very avant garde place, very different from the rest of Texas. People are happy and friendly. I really enjoyed this wonderful day with the all beautiful colors flowing in front of me.

"Demo at home 2012 1"

A group of Song's friends came to my studio yesterday. I did this demo to them.

Recently, I really like the word "mode". This week happens to be my engineering consulting week. I went back to the company and worked on an project with a lot of heavy mathematics. It was a quite an effort to shift from my art mode to the scientific mode. But after I am in the mode, I gained momentum and progress. Nowadays I start to realize that I am in trouble, because I am in too many different modes: teaching mode, small painting mode, engineering mode, gallery show mode, tax preparation mode, Internet trouble shooting mode, Of course the most importantly, the family mode. I am not alone. I think everybody now have to be multitasking. The problem is that changing mode requires time and energy. If mode changing happens too often, the system will be paralyzed. The exhaustion will be maximized and the efficiency will go to zero. I can see it is happening to me. I am thinking about the way to solve the problem, but I don't have a good solution. I am hanging there, doing as much as I can.

"Ernest Watson Study 2"

I copied another Ernest Watson's drawing today. It is a good way to learn. I will keep doing this kind of exercise until I feel satisfied with my drawings. I think I have progressed a little since I did my previous drawing. I feel pretty excited doing this.

"Life is Simple"

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I can't believe I didn't paint any small painting for 24 days. If you follow me on this blog, you know what I have been up to. But I am so glad I am back. As a matter of fact, I am pretty burnt out now. "Life is simple" is the title I give to my painting today. It is also my dream. I wish there is a place where there is no such thing called "money". The financial world has been manipulated so much, you must have several Ph.D.s to understand what is going on. My brain is smaller than a shoe box, so I rather have it holding information about painting. Should I gamble my future on the Wall Street? ... Well I don't want to continue, because I know I will not be able to make sense after a few more sentences. On the other hand, I have realized how deep we are addictive to the "money" thingy. We have no way out. We are doomed. "Simple life" is still a dream, but I will keep dreaming.

"Ernest Watson Study 1"

Started with my tiny drawing yesterday, I have been possessed by my pencils. This one is a copy from the  book "The Art of Pencil Drawing" by Ernest W. Watson. I really like the way he illustrated the cityscapes. I am learning his value design, and the abstract patterns he used in rendering. In the near future I want to paint from photos, but I am not good to organize information from the photo. So learning by copying others work is an effective way for me.

"Raining Day"

Today I had a desire of doing a super large painting (30"x 40" in my mind), but I ended up doing a tiny pencil sketch. This one is on a piece of 3" x 3" post note. I want to use this kind of sketch to test my composition and value designs. I drew quite a bit before, but I have not done enough recently. So this one is a good starting point.

These several years, I feel I had made some progress in both my art and the business part of it. Although I have got many opportunities, my time in art has been decreasing to almost to the minimum. Many days I spend my entire time dealing with my business, but I still can only take care of part of the demand.  In order to keep my art going, I have locked up some of my time devoted to my study and painting. I do read all of your email messages with my deep appreciation, and I try to answer emails which related to my teaching and other commitments. Due to the limitation of my time and ability, I have to delay many of my email responses. If you are workshop organizers, collectors, galleries, and artists asking questions, please be patient with me and allowing several days to get my replies. If you feel you have waited too long, you may send me a reminder. I am not a good manager, but I am learning. I understood the risk I may lose business due to my slow response, but it is so obvious to me if I can not improve my art, my business will not last long.

"Old Days Enthusiasm"

Yesterday was an ideal day for me. I spent about 11 hours painting. I rarely have this kind of opportunities. This painting is quite a challenge to me. All the objects I have not painted before, and the forms demand high degree of accuracy and need to be perspectively correct. Oh boy! Painting apples and flowers are much easier. But I really enjoyed the process. I paint it significantly slower than my demos,  did a lot of cleaning, and used knifes for straight edges. I was very tired in the evening, but my day was well spent.

This painting brought my childhood memory back. I was really interested in making radios and electronics when I was in elementary school. from small crystal radio to shortwave, I spent almost all my spare time on all kind of electronics projects. Many times I saved my meal money to buy transistors and other parts. The soldering iron, the diode, and the variable capacitor in this painting are all very special to me.  I got that radio showing in this painting about two years ago from an antique shop in Duncan Oklahoma. It was a home made one. Its previous owner must have the same enthusiasm like I did.

I have a show coming up at the InSight Gallery. This painting will be a part of the show.

"Demo at Wenmohs Ranch 2012 2" --- Sold

The second demo I did at Wenmohs Ranch was a real enjoyment to me. It is the first time I painted Oleander and I immediately fell in love with it. I will say I like the leaves more than the flower. I like the long skinny shape of the leaf. It give a significant shape contrast to other round props, making the composition rich and dramatic.

My next workshop will be in two weeks from now. I hope I can use these two weeks time to study and  improve my art a little by creating some small paintings and gallery paintings. Although I teach a lot nowadays, but I really want to be a student and learn. I wish my learning curve would have been a little straighter, and my improvement would have been a little faster. But I don't have much control. I am moving forward patiently with baby steps.

"Demo at Wenmohs Ranch 2012 1" --- Sold

This a couple of days, I am at the beautiful Texas Hill Country teaching a workshop. I want to thank Dena Wenmohs for organizing this workshop. I am so happy to see so many friends coming back and taking my workshop again. I am so happy meeting many new artists friends. This is my first demo I did  yesterday. It was fun doing it.

"Demo at Putney 3" --- Sold

This is old painting I did last July in Putney Vermont. Master artist Richard Schmid set up a massive flower still life. He did a magnificent demo with it. I have learned a lot from him. I did a demo too. I documented this event in my blog last year, but didn't show the painting I did. So now you have it. The painting was wet so I didn't take it with me. About two weeks ago I revisited Putney, and this painting was sold on my Albany workshop.

I have shown you too many demo paintings lately since teaching workshops have been my major art activity this year. After I relocated my studio, it has not been fully functioning yet. I am working on it patiently. It is very slow, but at least, I am moving forward. Demos are challenging. I tend to be more conservative, repeating a lot, and time limited. But I present them in front of you, so you know I am still going.

"Demo in Albany 2012 3" --- Sold

When I was in Albany, I did an additional demo open to all artists and art lovers in the area. It was a big turn out. I hope everybody was there has enjoyed the show. I wasn't using the microphone effectively that night. Now I have aware of the issue, so it will be no issue in the future.

My comment on the movie "Hunger Games" has brought up an active discussion (please read more on the comments with my previous blog post). I wish I could have more time to talk more, but. In a nutshell: There are many things in this world are seriously wrong, and getting worse day by day. However, we should think what we can do and then DO it. As an artist, I will do my best to create good paintings and pass on what I know to other growing artists. I may not able to save our kids, save our world, but I will be positive and do my best.  The Titanic is going down, but the band is still playing.

Coming back to Austin, I have not got chance to paint yet, but I will be on the road again. I will teach a workshop at Wenmohs Ranch in the Texas Hill Country near Marble Falls starting this Friday. We might still have a couple of openings. If you are interested in joining us, please contact Dena Wenmohs.

"Demo at Albany 2012_2" --- Sold

This is my second demo at Albany. I had some difficulties to make the white rose make sense, but I like the colors I put on it.

Came back from New England. I wanted to take a break. It happened to be the Good Friday and Jonathan had no school. We decided to do something together with our family. We went to the movie theater and checked out the "Hunger Games". I heard it is very popular now and I was very curious about it. After about two hours of bumpy ride visually, the movie ended. Song and I uttered almost in unison: "That was a very BAD movie!" I regretted I have spent money and time watching children killing each other. Being squeezed among the crowd coming out (majority are teenagers), I felt sad. Do you call that "entertainment"? Do we still have any sense of morality? If we enjoy this movie, what is the difference between us and the bad guys who created and ran the "Hunger Games"? Watching the young bloods flowing in front me with the residual of excitement on their pretty faces. I was completely in a lost. It is not a generation gap. It is not a culture shock. I felt I have just landed in alien planet. I want to cry out: "Save our kids!!!"

"Demo in Albany 2012_1" --- Sold

Driving across the Green Mountain in light snow, I have arrived at Albany New York yesterday. Today is my first day of my workshop here. I want to thank Kristin and Dick Woodward for their warm hospitality. I want to thank Kristen and the Colonie Art League for organizing this workshop. I want thank all the artists for attending. This painting is my first demo at the workshop.

"Putney Roses"

Yesterday was the Putney painters' paint-out day. Quite a few of them showed up. I am honored to paint with them. I have spent a long time on this painting. I significantly slow down and tried to make all my brush works say something. I have struggled a little during the process, but result has turned out not bad. I may send it to one of the galleries representing me.

"Demo at Putney 2012_2" -- Traded

The second demo I did was a high key one. It gave me a lot of color opportunity. I kept the pewter kettle in the back in a very unfinished stage in contrast to the details on the cup and apple. If it works, doing less is more powerful than doing more.

Now the workshop is over. I hope everybody have enjoyed Putney, and the beautiful Vermont.