Saturday, September 27, 2014

Morning Light II -- Continue with the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge...


Morning Light IIWatercolor on Ampersand Aquabord, 6"h x 6"w, 2014 #18

Bid in My DPW Auction ( Starting Bid $75)

Another of my early entries for Leslie Saeta's "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Challenge for this September... I named it "Morning Light II" since I have finished "Morning Light I" a bit earlier -- the first one of my 6" x 6" rose series on Ampersand Aquabord, but haven't got a chance to share it here with you guys yet... (Promise I will do so in the next few days -- I am gradually catching up with my long-lagged-behind blog posts! But since I haven't posted the entire summer, there is so much catching up to do... :-P)

I have really struggled through this one to get the soft transitions in the background where colors are rich, saturated or dark - which according to my opinion is the hardest thing to do on Aquabord. I think it may still benefit from a few changes here and there to model the volume and turn of each petal, but for now I am stopping, as I have worked on it for two days continuously, and losing insight on the subtleties. The great thing about this challenge -- putting a time limit on each project and force me to work more directly, boldly and fearlessly -- also makes it hard for me to do the last 10% of work that I consider makes the difference between a good piece and a mediocre one -- there is no chance to put a piece away and come back to it with a fresh eye with such a tight time frame for completion... Nevertheless, I think I may come back to this one in a few days to do some fine tweaking... :-)

Despite of all its difficulties, I still think my adventures into Ampersand Aquabord is well worth its while, because it is something "new" and "foreign" to me. Personally, I believe that it is very hard for someone who has painted for a while to avoid getting into an "inertia" of painting simply be deliberately trying to change his or her technique, and one surefire way to push yourself out of such painting rut is to try a new subject, or try a new surface. Different painting surfaces have different absorbency for water, different drying time and subtle variation in the same stage of the drying cycle, different surface texture, different resistance to paint application (which determines how easily the same stroke will spread or different surfaces with approximately the same wetness). Hence, painting on an unfamiliar surface would force you to open your eyes, and really observe the behavior the paint you put down on paper again, instead of just blindly going from one painting stage to the next. All of these afore-mentioned characteristics also determines the different visual effect one is able to achieve on various painting surfaces -- on a smooth, non-absorbent surface like hot-press paper or Aquabord, one can utilize the drying edge of a stroke that is laid down and different "water-mark"s to suggest shapes (wet-on-dry); on a very absorbent surface, it is hard (and often not necessary) to maintain the edge of one individual brush-stroke, yet one can rely on the movement of color laid-down across a large area of wet or moist paper to achieve interesting edge effects and soft shapes (wet-in-wet). The final visual effect is often drastically different, creating different signature styles. 

Of course, it is not impossible to use one technique to imitate the other by softening edges with clear water, or wet small areas when painting wet-in-wet to simulate brush strokes, and create similar looks on different painting surfaces using very different techniques -- which is another great exercise. It has taught me that no matter what road is taken, a painting is ultimately judged not first by the techniques used, but by the final visual effects one is able to achieve. A good painting is first and foremost about "what" is being painted, then by "how" it's painted. Technique is an important means to the end, but for me not by itself an end. The image in one's vision and how it is translated onto the painted surface is the uttermost important thing. 

Enough rambling for now! I should really get back to my watercolor table... In the mean time, if you have an image of a beautiful landscape, or a flower you like, or anything you might want to see painted, please email them to me at arena.shawn@gmail.com. I will paint them and post them here. From every 10 paintings I make from them, there would be a random drawing, and the lucky winner get to take a original back home for free! Interested? Then send me your photo!

You can now buy high quality Giclee prints of many of my sold paintings, both on paper and canvas, as well as some note cards with my paintings here:

Thursday, September 25, 2014

Green Bells of Ireland -- Continue with the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge...


Green Bells of Ireland
Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, 2014 #17

Sold!

With my third butterfly painting for Leslie Saeta's "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Challenge for this September still in the works, I thought I'd share with you one of my previous paintings that I have completed for this challenge. I did it while still in China, therefore haven't got a chance to share it here with you yet, although I have uploaded the image onto my Daily Paintworks Gallery Page. I have started this painting actually in 2012, and at that time my main goal is to explore different variation of greens -- mixed from yellow, blue and brown, or modified from different tube greens. I was a little intimidated by this color, as it is not easy to make it look natural with readily-available tube colors, yet it is so essential to flower (and all nature-related) paintings. I have worked on it on and off many times, and certainly have learned a great deal while working on it! The most interesting fact I have discovered is that you can add a lot of different hue -- blues, yellows, and even reds and brows -- to your painting in different locations at small portions and still have the entire image read as "green", as long as the colors adjacent to green on the color wheel dominate the pictorial space, and colors complimentary to green only occupy small areas -- and these sparsely placed jewels actually decrease the monotony of the whole painting, really making the color "sing".

Paintings in an almost-monochromatic scheme like this one is not easy, as it is relatively hard to place emphasis on the center of interest item without the help of a hint of the complimentary color of the large color field it is placed in. I have to rely on mostly cautiously placed details as well as the contrast of soft and hard edges to reach my goal, and direct the viewers' eyes toward the flower bells in the foreground. I have exaggerated the softness of the background from the reference photo to make the center flowers stand out, and add more atmosphere and movement to the entire image.

In the mean time, if you have an image of a beautiful landscape, or a flower you like, or anything you might want to see painted, please email them to me at arena.shawn@gmail.com. I will paint them and post them here. From every 10 paintings I make from them, there would be a random drawing, and the lucky winner get to take a original back home for free! Interested? Then send me your photo!

You can now buy high quality Giclee prints of many of my sold paintings, both on paper and canvas, as well as some note cards with my paintings here:

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Sugar Swirl -- Continue with the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge...


Sugar SwirlWatercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 8"h x 8"w, 2014 #16

Bid in My DPW Auction ( Starting Bid $85)

My second butterfly painting for Leslie Saeta's "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Challenge for this September. I have painted this butterfly on Ampersand Aquabord and uploaded the image onto my Daily Paintworks Gallery Page, but haven't shared it with you here yet (which I plan to do in the next few days, after the challenge is over). The two surface behaves very different -- Arches are great for wet-in-wet application and colors do not lift from it all that easily, but one has to account for the fact that bright hues dull down quite a bit on this absorbent surface, and compensate for that when laying down colors with stronger intensity when painting; on the other hand, bright colors stay as brilliant as the moment it's laid down on Aquabord, as this surface is not absorbent at all, hence all colors stay on its clay-coated surface and do not sink in. However, this makes glazing a color-covered area extra hard, and its fast-drying surface makes doing thick, juicy wet-in-wet application very difficult. I had fun switching back and forth between the two surfaces, playing with their different properties, which is a great exercise to avoid falling into the crutch of always painting with the same procedure and method... :-)

As I was painting the background greens, I realized that I do have some favorite mixtures that I often go to without thinking, and Hooker's Green + French Ultramarine Blue is just one of them. You can add Quinacridone Gold, Quinacridone Burnt Orange and Undersea Green to vary the hue a little bit and add more warmth or depth, but starting with Hooker's Green + French Ultramarine Blue almost guarantees that you will get that deep, shadowy green you get when looking at dense foliage that is not in direct sunlight. I learned this combination when I just started painting watercolor, and it has been helpful to me ever since. Of course, this does not mean one should reach out for the same color mixture without actually looking at nature -- it's just a starting point, a jump board for you to use and land onto your own color mixture for every possible variation of the rainbow.

In the mean time, if you have an image of a beautiful landscape, or a flower you like, or anything you might want to see painted, please email them to me at arena.shawn@gmail.com. I will paint them and post them here. From every 10 paintings I make from them, there would be a random drawing, and the lucky winner get to take a original back home for free! Interested? Then send me your photo!

You can now buy high quality Giclee prints of many of my sold paintings, both on paper and canvas, as well as some note cards with my paintings here:

Monday, September 22, 2014

Spring Feast -- Continue with the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge...


Spring FeastWatercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 8"h x 8"w, 2014 #15

Sold!

Continue with Leslie Saeta's "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Challenge for this September! I am posting the new paintings I am finishing this week and will catch up with the ones I finished earlier in October -- forgive me if it is a little confusing! (The challenge has started when I was still in China, where I have no access to blogger or facebook due to government restrictions on internet there, so I have a few of those piled up, uploaded onto my Daily Paintworks Gallery Page but not here.) 

I am doing a few butterfly paintings this week, among other things. This is the first one I finished. I tried something new in the background -- glazing wet-on-dry but still try to maintain the boundaries of different color-shapes soft and diffused. I found that I can control the shapes and values of each shape better, but multiple glazes do dull the color a bit if I am not super careful. I had some fun with the butterfly, letting the lightest background washes seep into the light shapes of its wings to add a hint of color, thus subtly show the translucency of the wings in sunlight. For its furry body I used very small brush and scumbled with think paint to get the texture of tiny hair, and contrasted that with the smooth, shiny underbelly of the insect. I am quite happy with how it's turned out. Now off to the next one! (Hardly any time to breathe with this challenge! How are you doing my friends?... :-)

In the mean time, if you have an image of a beautiful landscape, or a flower you like, or anything you might want to see painted, please email them to me at arena.shawn@gmail.com. I will paint them and post them here. From every 10 paintings I make from them, there would be a random drawing, and the lucky winner get to take a original back home for free! Interested? Then send me your photo!

You can now buy high quality Giclee prints of many of my sold paintings, both on paper and canvas, as well as some note cards with my paintings here:

Friday, September 19, 2014

My Big Pink Rose Painting -- and the 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge


Beauty Queen IIWatercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 19"h x 14"w, 2014 #14

Bid in My DPW Auction ( Starting Bid $550)

I have been absent again from this blog for three months! I cannot believe it... It seems like everytime I say in my blogpost that I will post more often, something just happens to make it difficult to keep that promise... I am back now, from a difficult trip back China, my home country, for the funeral of a dear elder family member. Times like this make me think about my own mortality, and I am having some concerns regarding my own health following a recent body checkup, but most important of all, it makes me rethink what I want to do with everyday of my life.

I've always been slightly intimidated by the thought of painting larger, and thought "I could do it when I have more time" or "I could do it after I gain a little more experience with watercolor". But I realized this is not going to happen as long as I keep on putting it off -- so after careful consideration, I've set the goal for myself to paint at least one painting larger than quarter sheet per month in the next 12 month, and try to do at least three paintings larger than half sheet among those. I'll revisit this goal in a year, and see how I have stood up to this self-challenge.

So this is my first attempt -- a rose the size of almost a half-sheet. I have done it in a smaller scale - 7"h x 5"w, a size that I am much more comfortable with. I felt less intimidated by this subject since I've already worked out some of the problems in composition and execution in the small painting, but as I was proceeding with the larger version, I started to appreciate it unique challenges coming with the scale. For starters I found my arms don't stretch to the far side of the painting when I sit, and I often have to paint the top side upside down to solve this problem... And it is not even really large for those of you (you know who I am talking about! ;-) that routinely work on full-size and above sheets of paper... (What do you guys do when you work on a larger size? Please share your tips with me!)

So this is my humble beginning of yet another chapter of my watercolor journey -- it's been almost three years since I started sharing it with you, my friends, and I've loved every minute of it. Flipping back to the first few entries of this blog, I can see how far I have come and I know it is impossible with the encouragement from all of you. Thank you, my friends, at down times it is your kind, gentle nudge that has kept me going on this winding road.

Oh! I almost forgot to mention that I have again signed up for Leslie Saeta's "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Challenge for this September! The challenge has started when I was still in China, where I have no access to blogger or facebook due to government restrictions on internet there, so I have a few of those piled up, uploaded onto my Daily Paintworks Gallery Page but not here. I will gradually share them here with you in the next few days. It's unlikely I am going to make the 30 paintings quota this time due to my travels, but I will paint everyday nonetheless. Happy painting my friends!

In the mean time, if you have an image of a beautiful landscape, or a flower you like, or anything you might want to see painted, please email them to me at arena.shawn@gmail.com. I will paint them and post them here. From every 10 paintings I make from them, there would be a random drawing, and the lucky winner get to take a original back home for free! Interested? Then send me your photo!

You can now buy high quality Giclee prints of many of my sold paintings, both on paper and canvas, as well as some note cards with my paintings here:

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