"Demo at Jacksonville 1" --- Sold

I have just completed my three-day workshop at Jacksonville, FL. I really appreciate Eileen Corse for putting this workshop together. The workshop was held at the fabulous Corse gallery. I was so excited to meet many new artist friends and delighted to see some of my old friends too. This is my first demo painting. I had so much fun doing it.

"Quiet Moment" --- Sold

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I am not creative today. This one is my typical composition. In my life, having time and energy to paint is really a luxury. Recently, I felt more and more forces trying to push me away from my art. I paint much less now, and the progress is not in sync with my expectation. I am not in crisis, but I have reached a low point in this relatively new career of mine. I remind myself: Just do it and never give up.

"Green Energy" --- Sold

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These several days I didn’t paint. I was carried away doing a DIY green energy project. Like most people, I am really for going green, but I have not taken any real action. I still turn on my AC to beat the hot Texas summer, and water my lawn with a sprinkler system. But one incident has forced me to go green.

You probably know I have a small property in the Texas hill country (I posted a painting of a propane tank this spring). I bought it early this year, but I hardly go there. I did have the electricity and water turned on, but I have not used any. I thought it should not cost me much, however, I was deadly wrong. Besides more than $100 turning-on fee, the fee for just keeping the power and water available was $78 per month. After throwing money away for five months, I finally picked up the phone calling the water company to stop the “service”. The lady on the other end nicely talked to me: If I stopped the water now, I couldn’t turn it on again within six months, otherwise I will be charged availability fees for all the months in between…. OK. THANKS. After being mad for a short while, I determined: I WILL DO IT MYSELF. So I started my green energy projects.

My first project was a solar power system. I went on eBay bought 36 solar cells ($60) and made my first solar panel. I bought two golf cart batteries at Costco. I got the charge controller and power inverter on-line. After two weeks fun work, I got the system working yesterday. Last night we had a party. Under the solar powered lights, I played a CD of Beethoven with a solar powered boom box. It was so great.
Sorry about the sidetracking from art, but it was really fun. Next I will do rain water harvesting, and a solar water heater.

"Peaches, Leaves" --- Sold

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I want to thank all the friends for providing information and tips for my marina assessment question. I will try again.
I am not quite sure what I am doing with my today’s painting. You know I have done a few leaf paintings not long ago. Obviously, I haven’t done enough. There are many issues, but I will keep trying. I will make it some day.

"Cypress Creek Marina"

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

"Let's Drink"

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More high key paintings. Correct me if I am wrong: High key has more opportunities for color, while low key has more opportunities for value.

"Glass and Apple" --- Sold

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Most of my paintings are low key, because I believe that dark background can effectively enhance the lights on the focal point. Having done the same thing so many times, I want eagerly to see some changes. High key paintings I don’t do quite often, but I want to explore the potential. My today’s painting is relatively high key. I may do several more like this, and let you what I have learned.

"Waiting" --- Sold

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Every time when I take an out of town trip, I always end up quite a few days I can’t paint. My work piles up in my office and lab. I need to catch up to be in sync with what is going on in the company. I have to work more hours to balance out my off days for my trip. When I finally come back to my studio. My mind is in the stage of a complete blank. If there would be no commitment of daily painting, I would have quitted painting a long time ago. I have to force myself to pick up a brush. Just paint something as a warm-up. I always say that you must have an idea before you paint. Well, it is not always true. I am waiting for my art sense to kick in.

"Toronto Canada"

I am on my way home from my Toronto trip, and currently I am at the Charlotte Airport waiting for my flight back to Austin. Since I have to wait here for 4 hours, why don’t I get on-line and talk to you? I found a cozy spot at the Starbucks, and turned on my laptop. Canada is a beautiful country. The weather was so great these a couple of days. I felt the coolness of early autumn. Two days ago we went a water amusement park. My brother took Jonathan and Ray (J’s cousin) to go on the rides. I am too chicken to join them. However, my camera was busy and captured quite a few nice shots. I am so interested in children’s expressions. I want to share this one with you.

"Niagara Falls Canadian Side"

Hello from Canada. I am in Toronto visiting my brother. On the way from Buffalo to Toronto, we stopped by Niagara Falls. What a spectacular art the Mother Nature can do! I am humbled and speechless in front this great masterpiece.
I am sorry I can’t ship the paintings and filters at this moment. I will send them right away after I return.

"Beau's Guest House"

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I live in west Austin near a beautiful lake called Lake Travis. On the side of Lake Travis, there is a beautiful place called the Oasis. The Oasis currently is only a restaurant, but it expanding tremendously. There will be a hotel, a gallery, and more stores added in soon. I went there did this plein air last week. The house in the painting belongs to the owner of the Oasis: Beau Theriot. After painting I ran into Beau. He is very nice guy and I will go there and paint again.

"Double Red" --- Sold

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Recently, I did quite a few experiments: leaves, figurative, and plein air. Well my today’s painting is coming back for my typical still life daily painting. It is like cooking. After tried several new recipes, I’d like to take easy, and come back to my old flavor.

"Barr Mansion" --- Sold

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It was so great doing plein air again. I went to paint with PAA yesterday at east Austin.
There is a Victorian house called the Barr Mansion. It was a very hot day. I set up my easel under a big pecan tree and did this sketch. There was a big tree branch behind me. I felt it should not cause any problems. But I was wrong. During one and a half hours I painted there, the branch moved. It gradually approached me. At first its leaves touched my head, and not too long, the leaves started to sweep my canvas. I have to stop. I stood there admire how this tree could grow so significantly fast within a couple of hours.

"Injured Beauty" --- Sold

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I had a couple of sick days earlier this week. This painting was done at that time. I did not deliberately want to show my discomfort, but my painting was so honest showing my mood. I am all right now. Having enough sleep is the key. I didn’t paint for several days and slept a lot. So please take care yourself.

2011 Workshop Announcement

Click here to see my 2011 workshop schedule

You may have noticed that I have updated my 2011 workshop schedule. At this moment, I have 10 workshops scheduled for 2011. I will teach in California, Florida, New Mexico, Oklahoma, Vermont, and Texas. If you are interested in my painting approaches, please contact my workshop organizers for information and signing up. I am looking forward to meeting you or seeing you again in the near future.

"Old Knowledge" --- Sold

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I really appreciate that so many friends letting me know that the object I painted previously was an old coalscuttle. I am learning everyday, Man! Thank you. My today’s painting is kind of related to learning. With the development of technology, books may soon become archaic too. I can’t imagine someday in the future that an artist paints (or creates an image with other means) a book and asks what kind of gismo he/she has just portrayed. I will be eager to tell that object is called a book, with which we used to store and pass on information in the good old days.

"Brass Object" --- Sold

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Figurative is temptating, but I will save it for my future days. Now I am back to still life. I love shining stuff. High lights, reflections, and dramatic color changes make the specular objects so amazing to paint. I had this gismo for a long time. I got it from a thrift store. I have painted it a couple of times. But I don’t know what it is, and what it is for. Could someone tell me?

"Wow! Cool!" --- Sold

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I felt whimsical. Somehow I want to paint figurative today. As a matter of fact, figurative painting and portraits are my true love in art. However to be successful, they take much longer time. To my crazy life style, figurative is not very practical. Still life is for sure a shortcut. I can put aside issues like anatomy, perspective, proportion, and logistics like hiring models. I would be able to very quickly reach to the artistic part of painting: like value, color, edges and composition. Anyway, I came out of my systematic life today. I did this painting from a photo I took a while ago in a camping trip. This little boy was about two years old. He was so cute. He was so curious about a digital camera. Maybe he will be another engineer… Well, I think it would be better he will be a photographer.

"Gold and Silver"

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I did another large painting over the weekend. The composition is different from I used to do. It has shown more depth and gives more airy effect. The brushwork varies quite a bit from detail descriptions to loose suggestions. The background is highly abstract and vignette. The Richard Schmid influence is very obvious here. It is so interesting to see how the style changes. When we study from someone, our work will show the similarity. I will let the time to determine my style formation. This time I did use retouch varnish when I started the second day. I was really careful to protect the area that was still wet. I think it worked.

"A Red Cup" --- Sold

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After I visited Richard Schmid a month ago. I had been thinking about his approaches a lot. I like the way he uses the transparent wish that gives the painting a spontaneous look. The balance between unfinished seeing-throughs and layered detail depiction, and the contrast of sharp/soft edges really makes his style outstanding. I want to learn this approach and convert it into part of mine. My today’s painting is Schmidish I think. How do you like it? I don’t have much of leaves in the design. I start to working on the white drape. You will see more my drapery studies in the coming days.

"Intimate Time" --- Sold

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I got more information about using medium and finishing a painting in many days. Thank you so much. I will run some test and figure out which one will be suitable to my case.

I did a small painting yesterday. These peaches are from my backyard. They are really good looking, but do not taste good. So they are perfect still life objects. I continue my leave painting experiments. It gives me more and more interesting compositions.

"Behind the Branches" --- Sold

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Thank you. So many friends have shared their tips of the second day painting. Most people use retouch varnish and Liquin. I was hesitant of doing so because my lighter paints were still pretty wet (like in the peaches area). Once, I had sprayed retouch varnish on wet paint, and it dissolved the paint. If you have a painting partially wet and partially dry, what do you do? Ah-ha! I think I know: you paint with quick dry paints the first day, and paint with slow dry paints the second day. Am I right? Another question: If you spray retouch varnish, the painting surface gets sticky. Do you paint on sticky surface?

I painted a small painting last night. I was really working on those branches. To get the texture correctly, it surely took me some time.

"Backyard Harvest"

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Having been painting small daily paintings for a while. Now it is time to do some serious large pieces. I did this 18” x 24” over the weekend. You know I have been concentrating on painting leaves. This one starts to show a real progress. Painting large feels so different from painting small ones, especially the second day. I paint without using any medium. I have started to see issues with this approach. On the second day, my dark colors have dried quite a bit. They looked mat and lose the dark value. The paint surface is so sticky and difficult to get the effect I wanted. If you have experiences of finishing a painting in multiple days, I appreciate if you can share some of your tips.

"Demo at Wilmington 2" --- Sold

This is my second demo at my Wilmington workshop. I am sorry the photo is a little blurred. My study of leaves starts to pay off. This one did show more mystery and drama.

After several days at the North Carolina beach, I am back to my lab this morning working as an engineer again. You know what, toggling between art and science feels like traveling on a Time Machine. I belong to two completely different worlds, in which people are expecting utterly different things from me...... Oh. I’d better to do my photonic measurement now. My boss will call me for the result very soon. He did not know I have snuck out for a while and taught a workshop. If you know him, please keep the secret, will you?

"Demo at Wilmington 1" --- Sold

I am at the Wilmington airport waiting my flight back to Austin. The workshop was very successful. I want to thank Sandy and Denise for organizing this workshop. Thank you all my new artist friends for attending. This is my first demo, very typical representation of my still life painting. I really enjoyed Wilmington, beautiful beaches, Good weather, quiet and cozy. The airport is small and convenient. I have no problem in travel and parking. People are very nice and friendly. The only issue is that I am always in a rush. I wish I had more time to relax on the beach.

Wilmington, NC

I am in Wilmington, NC now teaching a workshop. The beach is so beautiful here. This is one of my snap shots. I have paintings showing in a local gallery called Fountainside Gallery. They have quite nice art works here.

I will be back to Austin on Monday. All sold paintings will be sent to you after I return.

"Nameless Greens"

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My obsession on painting leaves continues. I hope you have not got bored because I have been painting one subject matter over and over again. It is crucially important for me to obtain the skill of the leaf painting. Generally speaking, all subjects can be considered abstractly as shapes, value, color, edges, and brushworks. I have been painting and teaching these artistic concepts for a while now. However after having managed the basic foundation of painting, I want to achieve a deeper structural and anatomical understanding of the subjects. It will determine if my art will go to next level. In my today’s painting, I tried to create a textural expression of leaves. I am not there yet, but I am trying.

"Sweet Touch" --- Sold

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Happy Fourth of July! We had several friends coming over in the afternoon. We made dumplings and then watched the firework together.

Talking about friends, I want to talk about “Facebook” a little. I got many emails requesting to be my friends. Here I want to share a story with you.

One day, when I was traveling in New England, I was in a hotel and wanted to check my Facebook. Somehow I could not get my laptop connected to the Internet, but my IPad was able to pickup the WiFi signal (I think Apple is doing much better than PC nowadays). I knew my ID and password of my Facebook account; however, it was my first time using my IPad to login. Facebook didn’t recognize my IPad and wanted me to answer 10 security questions. The questions were quite interesting. I was giving 10 pictures that my “Facebook friends” posted on my wall: birthday parties, family reunions, and other social gatherings. I was supposed to identify who they were in those pictures with multiple choices answers. I had to get 8 correct answers to get in. Facebook assumes I should recognize who they are because they are my “friends”. Well I couldn’t do it because I accepted quite a few people as my “friends” upon their requests. They want to see my paintings, but I don’t know them in person. I failed the security test miserably. I was locked out from my Facebook account even I knew the password.

I still don’t know “Facebook” enough to use it effectively. I think my blog is best way to watch my art. So please follow my blog or sign up my mailing list. I am always your friend no matter you are in my Facebook or not.

"Brass Cradle" --- Sold

This is my demo painting at the InSight Gallery last night. About two weeks ago, I got this lovely brass pot at Keene, New Hampshire from an Antique shop, and this is my first time painting it. Because I am doing this painting in front of public, I was a little concerned before I started. I didn’t know how it would turn out. Well, I was relaxed when I saw the result. I guess, I will paint this darned thing more in the future.

"Moon with Clouds" --- Sold

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Continuing on with my leaf series, I found so many opportunities I haven’t taken before. I am going to explore them one by one to enrich my collection of various light effects showing on canvas. I really worked on edges on this one and used overlapping to create interesting shapes.

I will give a painting demo at the InSight Gallery in Fredericksburg, TX tomorrow starting at 6:00 PM. It is a free event. If you are in the area, you are more than welcome to stop by. I will share my painting approach with you.