Moonrise, Eucalyptus Grove - 30/30 Challenge 2016

Moonrise, Eucaplyptus Grove,

 Oil Monochromatic Wash on Claessen #13 Douple Oil Primed Linen Canvas, 6"h x 8"w, 2016 #15

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This is a little monochromatic oil wash painting I have done in Kevin Courter's nocturnal painting workshop. the dark passages are completely transparent (no white used), and value variations are done through thick and thin of paintings. I worked a lot to try to create interesting edges and overall shape of the eucalyptus trees, and varying the colors subtly by using a bit more red or green in creating the dark color mixture used here. Trying to convey a quiet, subtle mood and had a lot of fun doing this... 

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Sunkissed - 30/30 Challenge 2016

Sunkissed,

 Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico #140 Cold Press Paper, 8"h x 8"w, 2016 #12

Bid in My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $95)

Red - 30/30 Challenge 2016 (Finally, an OIL Painting from Me...)

Red, Oil Painting on Centurion Acrylic Primed Linen, 8"h x 6"w, 2016 #3

Bid in My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $85)

Something very different today... This is the first oil painting I've ever listed for sale. I have been studying classical drawing and painting methods in the Golden Gate Atelier for a little more than four years at this point, and have done quite a few projects (both drawing and oil paintings) from life at the atelier. In the past month I decided to test the waters to see if I could work outside school on my own on small projects: still life from life, plein air landscapes, portrait and figures from reference photos, even some animal paintings... In OIL. This is my first attempt. It is a very scary experience for me to try this still unfamiliar medium and let the whole world see my attempts. But it has to start somewhere.

When selecting the reference material to paint a portrait on my own I find myself often drawn toward mystical expressions and strong personality, something that makes it a little uneasy for me to stare for a long time, instead of just sweet beauty. This woman's face, it's slight distant, restrained expression contrast so well with the fiery color of her red hair, I just have to paint it. So here it is, my first oil painting for sale -- more to come!

Zen... Imprinted -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 25 (Something A Little Different...)

Zen Imprinted I, 

Hand-Carved Stamp with Ink on Nujabi Handmade Watercolor Paper, 6"h x 8"w, 2013 #75

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $20) 

Today I had a really great night with some etsy friends -- I carved my first set of stamps and got a little crazy with line and shapes. It was so much fun -- the printed image almost never come out exactly as the drawn design on the stamp, but the unpredictability makes the process just all the more intriguing. I have some handmade Japanese paper and I think I will give those a try next time... For now, I think these little cropped designs would look great in a double mat, as they are really decorative! :-)

Zen Imprinted II, 

Hand-Carved Stamp with Ink on Nujabi Handmade Watercolor Paper, 6"h x 8"w, 2013 #76

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $20) 

Today I also received very good advice from my artist Friend Kim Stenberg and decide to do this -- 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:

Beachcombers -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 17

Beachcombers at Linda Mar, Pacifica, 

Watercolor on Arches #140 Rough Paper , 6"h x 8"w, 2013 #68

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $35) 

I had a fabulous day enjoying the brilliant summer light, cool ocean air and roaring breaking surf at Linda Mar beach of Pacifica -- I went out painting plein air again!!! (I cannot believe that I don't do this often enough, as it was such a great experience every time I do it. Maybe I should just set a schedule for myself, like "go out and paint plein air every Friday morning at 6:30", so that I can stick to it, like I have stuck to this challenge..."

There isn't any shade on Linda Mar beach and it is difficult to do wet in wet under direct sun, so I used a very wet squirrel quill brush and lots of water to dilute the paint, and did most of the painting wet-on-dry. I also chose a rough surface for the paper so that I can do dry-brush more easily, which is something that is not hard to do outdoors -- the underlying wash almost dries instantaneously, so you can put the dry-brushed details on top of it immediately. ;-) Again, not many people on the beach on a weekday (this is the time that I thank the universe for letting me be an artist so that I can get out on such a beautiful day and enjoy the outdoors, instead of being confined in a cubical; but then, the cubical comes with a more steady paycheck which I do miss! :-P), but a handful of sandpipers are combing the wet sand for their afternoon snack -- just the center of interest I need for this little study. I happily added these lovely little creatures, and watched them busy poking and digging around where the wave just left, immersing myself in their world for a precious moment. I am a grateful women, when I know I am at peace with what's around me.

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:

Hidden Path (30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 5)

Hidden Path, Watercolor on Arches140# Rough Paper, 6"h x 8"w, 2013 #6

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This is the painting that gave me much problems a couple of days before, and caused the frantic wipe-outs in the end. I tackled it again today after some hesitation, deciding that if it fails again, I will leave it alone and start again some days later, instead of trying to wipe it off and repaint to save the paper -- after all, it is just a piece of paper! (That said, the Mr. Clean magic eraser sponge really works wonders, and all of you watercolor painters who wants to repaint a failed passage on a overall good picture should definitely try it!) Well, maybe it is the relaxed attitude, maybe it is the failed practice runs a couple of days ago, maybe it is the fact that I've accumulated quite some mileages on my brush in the past few days, it went smoother than before. Maybe I am still not totally satisfied with the results, but I liked it enough to put it here to share with you, my friends...

When I first finished this painting, it looked like this:

However, it somehow just did not look right to me. I could not tell why so I put it aside and went out to my gallery for the hanging of our upcoming show, "New Year, New Work". And when I came back to look at it with a fresh eye, I immediately realized -- the little sapling in the foreground was way too dark and therefore did not read to be at a distance from the viewer comparing to the fence posts on the right. I took a soft squirrel hair brush and gently wet the sapling, waited a couple of seconds, then dabbed it with a facial tissue -- just enough color came off and it instantaneously read as "receding". Nothing speaks of spacial relationship more than value changes -- strong value contrasts tend to advance while diminished value contrasts speaks of atmospheric perspective and distance. I did a bit of subtle cosmetic work like this in the fence posts to lighten them respectively and the image now reads much better as a misty, snowy winter day... What do you think?

... Well, I just could not help doing this -- redo this painting another time. I eliminated the wires on the fence to create a more time-worn feeling, which I think suits the overall mood better. I am also happier with the wet-in-wet shapes of the trees better this time -- but that's just more of a happy accident than any skill improvement I guess... :-P

Hidden Path (Version 2), Watercolor on Arches 140# Rough Paper, 5"h x 7"w, 2013 #7

You can purchase my 2013 wall and desk calendars here:

Winter Solstice (30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge: Day 3)

Winter Solstice,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Rough Paper, 5"h x 7"w, 2013 #3

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You know it is not your day when you wipe out the third painting in a roll from your paper/canvas -- and today just seems to be one of these days. I started out trying out complete some landscape paintings I've started last year, but end up trashing them by fiddling too much. Frustrated, I took a "Mr. Clean" eraser sponge and wiped everything down to a ghost image on white paper, and started over. Buy the time I did my third wipes the touch Arches paper is showing signs of fatigue -- and I know it is a good time to stop: when your Arches paper is tired of your abusive sponge, it is a sign that the day is really not going right for you as a painter.

So, after some chores (depositing painting to a gallery, taking my car to a tire repair show to take out that old nail that has caused leaking for the past three months, and filling out application form for a new round of art fairs -- i.e. delaying starting a new as much as I can), I finally sat down and decide to face my daemon. I took a small piece of paper and did this simple snowy scene just to practice all the basics of painting wet into wet -- surface moisture level on the paper, pigment density in the brush, timing. As simple as the image may look as a finished painting, I was reminded yet again how unpredictable a wet-in-wet process can be, and how watercolor can have a mind of its own. It took me two practice runs and a wipe-out (again) to finally land on one that does not look overly fuzzy or fiddled to death, and a better three hours have passed before I realized.

(Just for fun -- here's one of the trial versions that hasn't gone quite right...)

Winter Solstice (Version 2), 
Watercolor on Arches 140# Rough Paper, 6"h x 8"w, 2013 #4

I was truly humbled by the experience and any notion that I have acquired some sort of control over this medium has by now totally gone -- and I was reminded that how quickly skills acquired previously through intense practice can go rusty if I do not practice them diligently. And surely enough, in my recent rendering of flowers I have start to get a bit too obsessed with getting the results look exactly like I have envisioned them to be, and not doing as many wet-into-wet sessions as I used to. So here I am, almost back to square one, learning everything again -- I guess that is exactly the point of these daily exercises: to force you to look into the things you have neglected and skills that you have once owned then lost, and pick them up by practicing them daily.

You can purchase my 2013 wall and desk calendars here:

Work in Progress: New Plein Air Pieces

Lately I've been pondering the question why I have not painted more landscape paintings -- I really love landscapes and they've been my initial motivation to become a painter, but I have only occasionally dabbled on some small landscapes here and there. Why? After much reflection I've concluded that landscape for me are much less literal, and more poetic; a whole lot has to go into the initial preparation stage -- dissecting the reference image (or the sweeping vista in front of me), deciding the mood I want to convey and the color scheme that can evoke such mood the best, doing small value sketches to choose which elements in the reference materials to include, and which ones to exclude. Also, a good landscape painting requires much more abstraction, utilizing simplified shapes to suggest objects, and pay a lot of attention to the actual mark-making process so that each individual mark on paper creates the illusion that it's representing something in the actual landscape. A good landscape is seldom a truthful copy of the reference material or the real vista in front of the artist's eye, but a rearranged, abstracted combination of value and color shapes that comes from within the artist's mind, guided by a good sense of design. It is in my mind one of the hardest genres of representational art and actually the closest to abstract works. I've been, subconsciously, quite intimidated by the process.

Since the best way to overcome fear is practice, I decide to work on landscape painting everyday from this point on -- this does not mean I will be able to finish a piece a day, and I can imagine there will be many throw-aways. But I will keep at it until I feel more comfortable for the entire process. I will probably do some studies of master artists' works, some plein-air exercises, and some practice projects from good how-to books, as well as work on some larger pieces from my own reference materials. Some days I may only be able to complete a few sketches or composition studies, other days I may be able to finish a couple of small works -- but I will share my successes and failures here, as well as what I have learned from them.

So here they are -- the first exercises, both started en plein air but would get finished in the studio. The first one is a river estuary view along Carmel Beach, where I am exploring the possibility of not painting any actual "objects", but just utilizing mark making to hint the undergrowth, river and sand beach. The focus is creating interesting color-variations and surface textures using various brush-marks. I did this one in a workshop with the wonderful artist Dale Laitinen, who is a master of abstracting shapes and create surface interest using brush-marks. I decided to study his work closely to add a weapon or two into my arsenal...

Carmel River Estuary,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Rough Paper , 7"h x 10"w, WIP 1

The second one is a near dusk view of headlands and rocky shorelines near Drake's Beach, in Point Reyes National Seashore. My focus is to use cool, low-key colors to hint the chilly, foggy atmosphere in the evening, and practice wet-in-wet in different stages. Again, I try to use brush-marks to hint the texture on the headland and rocks, as well as the undergrowth on the beach, instead of delineating everything I see while standing there. I did not get to finish it before dark, so the rest of the image will come from my imagination in the studio. Let's see how it goes! I will update tomorrow...

Dusk at Drake's Beach, Point Reyes,

  Watercolor on Arches 140# Rough Paper , 6"h x 8"w, WIP 1