Purple Dream - 30/30 Challenge 2016

Purple Dream, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 8"h x 8"w, 2016 #2

Bid in My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $85)

In the neighborhood I live in there are many lovely old Victorian homes with wisteria leaning onto their front gates, and during the walk one morning I spotted this beautiful butterfly spanning its wings in the morning fog on one of the large flower clusters. The temperature was low in the moist morning air of San Francisco, and large droplets of water were dripping from the wisteria leaves, so I wondered whether the wings of this butterfly was wet and it could not take off. When I sneak closer I realized it was... mating, with its lover hiding in the shadow of the leaflets underneath the first butterfly. I snapped a photo and decide to capture this rare moment with my paintbrush... And every time I look at the painting, I can almost smell the clear, cold, moist air of that morning, and the slight aroma of wisteria... 

Gossiping Ladies - 30/30 Challenge 2016

Gossiping Ladies, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 9"w, 2016 #1

Bid in My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $95)

I can hardly believe that I have not posted on the blog since the last 30/30 challenge! I have actually been painting (mostly in oil) and having some exciting news to share, including getting included in the Splash and Stroke of Genius books of North Light Publishing, and winning the budding artist category in the Art Muse Contest, as well as being selected as judge's pick this month on Daily Paintworks! I am super excited about every one of these opportunities...

I have plans to paint more smaller oil paintings outside the atelier this year as practice, and try more diverse subjects as well as painting some larger compositions in my watercolor paintings. So for this September's challenge I would try to just do that. Here's the first piece -- an animal subject I have tried to tackle for a while but always felt inadequate at the moment. But the longer I waited, the more I felt that waiting along and think "one day when my skill has reached the level to tackle this subject" is never going to get me there. One can only learn how to tackle an unfamiliar and daunting subject by working on them again and again! So here we go -- these two colorful parakeets (love birds as they are commonly referred to in their native tropical Indonesia) whose body languages and facial expressions just crackle me up every time I look at them.   

Curiosity - Day Twenty-Three of the 30/30 Challenge

Curiosity, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, 2015 #25

Bid in My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $95)

Day Twenty-Three of the challenge -- I don't paint animals often, especially those with feather and fur, not because I am not drawn to these cute little critters, but due to the fact that I am really not feeling very competent with creating realistic texture of feather and fur with watercolor. Taking the opportunity of this challenge though, I decide that I should not shy away from these subject if I ever want to get better at painting them. Instead I need to tackle them head-on! So here it is, my very first attempt at a furry critter, it's big cute eyes just melts my heart... The fur patterns has taken my many wet-in-wet glazes and careful lifting with small stiff brushes to do, and I still cannot say that I have fully mastered how to do it for all future instances, but it's a start! I have also discovered in the process that Yellow Ocher has very interesting granulating qualities that is different from it's warmer, more transparent sister, Raw Sienna. I would like to explore it a bit more...

A Little Experiment with Gold Leaf...

California's Gold, 

Watercolor on Aches #140 Cold Press Paper with Gold Leaf, 8"h x 8"w, 2015 #2

Bid in My DPW Auction ( Starting Bid $85)

At school break I experimented a little bit with texture and really enjoyed it -- combining wet-on-dry glazing of very thin washes with wet-in-wet technique to depict feather and fur, as well using gold leaf as background for a watercolor painting. I really love the shimmering gold and thought they are just great in capturing how I feel when seeing this little creature glittering in the morning light as it zipped back and forth around the prickly pear cactus flower in my garden. It's hard to imagine that little body containing enough strength and tenacity to fly a thousand miles every spring and fall, through mountains and across oceans. It is a fierce, exuberant force of life...


In case you want to try your hands on the gold leaf technique (it's really fun! Albeit a little messy...), my friend Carrie Waller -- a fantastic artist -- has a great tutorial here. Enjoy!

California's Gold, Detail of the Little Hummer

California's Gold, Detail of the Prickly Pear Cactus Flower

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

Sugar Swirl, Watercolor 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:

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

Spring Feast, Watercolor 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:

Some New Directions -- Divergence from Florals!

Low Tide - Plein Air at Muir Beach, 

Watercolor on Richeson Zoltan Szabo #140 Cold Press Paper, 7"h x 11"w, WIP 1

I've taken a sabbatical from my floral watercolors lately to explore other directions, and I thought maybe I should be sharing some of them with you here. I was a bit hesitant since I have no idea how they would turn out -- it's both scary and exhilarating to explore new territories! Oh well, you, my blog friends have been very kind and supportive to me throughout, so maybe my worries are unfounded! Here they are:

The first one is another little plein air watercolor I did recently at Muir Beach. It's painted on Richeson Zoltan Szabo #140 Cold Press paper and the size is 7"h x 11"w. The sky was over cast that day, therefore all the colors are more saturated without being bleached by the all powerful sun, and I really wanted to accentuate this in my painting. I liked the result in the field and thought it was finished. However, after going back home and giving it a second look, I noticed that the center of interest - the dark rock - is almost smacked dead in the center of the painting -- a compositional NO-NO. I also think the dark shapes of the wet sand can be improved a little more as well... So, back to the drawing board it goes! I will post the modified version in a couple of days...

In Between, Watercolor on Lanaquarelle #140 Cold Press Paper, 15"h x 11"w, WIP 1

The second project is a found still life. Now, if you have followed my blog for a while, you probably have noticed that my florals are often very high in chroma, and seeing flowers in sunlight often make me feel inspired to work, but light is the first painter that reveals beauty in a lot of commonplace objects, even neglected corners. I found this dried leaflet and branch perched in between pebbles on the roadside while taking a walk in the neighbourhood a couple of years back -- and when the sunlight was cast upon it, the pattern of light and shadow is absolutely beautiful. When I pulled the photo out of a dusted drawer during spring cleaning (yes, even I occasionally do this!...) it inspired me to try a subject that is unfamiliar to me. The reference image is low in color saturation so it will be interesting to try different approaches -- increase the chroma or emphasize the value difference in low saturation -- and see which one I like best! (I am even thinking of starting a new series of still life paintings with the theme "Everyday Beauty". If you have reference photos of objects that often do not catch the eye of most people, but you find very beautiful and inspiring, please share with me by posting it here or email me at arena.shawn@gmail.com!)

The Gossiping Ladies, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 9"w, WIP 1

The last one of my newest projects is really a step out of my comfort zone and something I've rarely tackled before: animals. This image of two parrots perched on mossy branch in bright tropical sunlight has caught my eyes a while ago and I've finally decided to tackle it after gathering my courage for a while. I love the bright plumage colors of these birds, and their expression really reminded me of some of my relatives gossiping about family matters while resting in the traditional front yard after a day's work -- a scene so common back in the days when the large, extended family still lived together in the countryside, but more and more rare these days with the younger generation moving away into towns and cities and forming their own nuclear family... My main focus of this painting is trying to depict the texture of the fur and feather without painting them one by one, as well as capture the individual personality of these cute little critters! I am a bit nervous about how they would turn out. Please feel free to give some critiques and suggestions!

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:

Work in Progress: Cardinal (My First Animal Painting!)

Back to watercolor painting today... To continue the scary but exciting journey, I tried my hands on something new -- my first animal painting! I did the drawing for this painting several years ago in a workshop with an amazing artist, Terry Armstrong, when I was still in graduate school in Indiana. I did not actually get to the painting part in that workshop, since I drew too slowly... (Yes, besides watching painting demos by Terry and finish this drawing, I did not accomplish anything in that workshop... =___=b...) I came across the drawing again and decided to give it a try to refresh what I have learned during that workshop: doing the indication of feather patterns wet in wet as big washes, then using fine brushes to paint the feathers here and there, but not all over the body -- mostly in the mid tones and on the edges of the bird shape. So far I'm quite happy with how it turned out. Fingers crossed since I am going to do a big wet-in-wet washes on the background... Terry has this method of masking the center of focus with masking tape after finishing them, then splash the background with free, direct strokes of wet-in-wet color application as well as masking fluid application. He also mixes his colors with egg-yolk to create more prominent granulation effects in the background, which I would like to try on this one. But maybe I should experiment on scrape pieces of paper first...

February Flame - Red Cardinal,  

Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper , 11"h x 14"w, WIP 1