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

Beauty Queen II, Watercolor 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: