Heliconia Dance

Heliconia Dance,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 7"h x 5"w, 2014 #11

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $105) 

After finishing "Soar II", I realized that I am really missing painting flowers -- or, from a design point of view, missing working on brilliant colors, and more detailed shapes. Since I have a couple of floral that have been lingering in the studio for quite some time, I decided to get my focus out and finish them!

So, here is the first one I have managed to finish over the weekend, despite of my lingering cold and stuffed sinus (in a way painting actually helps to distract me from the physical discomfort -- it is almost meditative when I am doing the finishing 20%!). The reference photo of this painting is from Chris Gardner who runs a lovely blog of her own photographs of a variety of flowers, and has kindly allowed me to use her pictures as reference photos. I really loved the curvlinear movement that dominates the photo, and decide to use wet-in-wet dynamic lines to further emphasize that. I have also tried to play up complimentary red-green color scheme, using bright, saturated red to emphasize the Heliconia flower, and muted yellow-green and blue-green foliage in the background as "supporting actors". To avoid monotony in the "green, green, green" background, I have dropped in Ultramarine and Winsor Red wet in wet in small amount here and there to add some "zing" factor to it. I am quite happy with the final result, except for the fact that it has taken way too long to complete it! Now it's time to move on to the next painting...

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:

Exhibition at Filoli Garden, and Thoughts on Chinese Painting Philosophy

Fighting with my jetlag and trying to finish some small pieces for the exhibition at Filoli Garden - "Nature’s Many Splendors: Farms, Gardens and Woodlands". The show runs from August 27th through October 27th, at the art gallery area in Filoli Garden, which is located at 86 Canada Rd in the lovely town of Woodside, California. The garden opens every Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm. Besides the art exhibitions, Filoli's other attractions include a lovely greenhouse with constant blooming flowers, and more than 600 acres' nature preserve with beautiful grassy hills and woodlands abundant with wildlife -- from turkey to deer. It is a great place to spend a family weekend to hike, bike, play and relax. There would also be an "Meet the Artists Day" event during the weekend of Saturday, September 14th and Sunday, September 15th. On this special art-festival-like weekend, visitors can meet the artists in the show, watch them doing art demos, chat with them and learn what has inspires them to create their art pieces. Framed pieces, prints, note cards and other items will be for sale both during the show and at the "Meet the Artist Day" event. I will show my main piece in the next few day's posts. For now, I'm working on a few other pieces that will be available for sale during the show and at the "Meet the Artist Day" event, and I will share the progress of some of them here with you, my friends:

Fire Dance,  Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, WIP 2

"Fire Dance" has been in the works for quite a while, off and on since the end of last year, and is nowalmost complete. I am currently adding darks to the center flower in focus to model its form. I thought the background may need another coat of darker mingled colors to bring the flowers forward, but not very sure. What do you think, my friend?

Orange Freesia, Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, WIP 2

For "Orange Freesia", I am still playing with thing glazes and wet-on-dry mingling of color for modelling. I am fighting the temptation of going too dark too soon and using saturated color in one go wet-in-wet, because of the delicate and subtle colors that I have in vision for this particular painting. Also trying to play with abstract shape more in the background -- like playing with a puzzle -- it's really quite a lot of fun!

Heliconia Dance,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 7"h x 5"w, WIP 4

For "Heliconia Dance", I have put it away for a while and just recently started working on it again. Looking at it with a fresh eye, I think it still needs a final application of wet-in-wet on the background to soften it, and add some "punch" of darks -- to reach that balance between "too similar to the photo reference" and "too abstract from the reference"... Ah, maybe I should start from the beginning of the story: Last night I was reading ancient Chinese literature, and one passage of art critique says, "If a (realistic) painting is too identical to the scene in front of the artist, it is not great art because it's kitsch; on the other hand, if it is just haphazard slapping of color on paper without enough reference or similarity to the scene that inspired it, it is also not great art because the artist is on the suspicion of trying to hoodwink people with insufficient skills and gain fame that they don't deserve. Therefore, the best type of (realistic) paintings always walk a tightrope between "similar" and "dissimilar" to its original inspiration." (bear with my terrible translation -- the original was much more poetic: "画太似为媚俗，不似为欺世。画之大妙也，在乎似与不似之间。") 

Reflecting on my own painting practice based on this standard, I think I am still leaning too much on the "too similar" side to my photo references. Therefore, I've decided to consciously challenge myself to break away from this tendency, and design my shapes -- especially those away from focal areas and in the background -- more deliberately, not so "carbon-copy" of the shapes in the reference material. It takes some effort to get used to new working methods, but I'm very excited about all the different possibilities this may lead to... For the starters, it makes the painting process much more exciting! 

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: Tropical Flowers Continued

Just a quick update of some of the tropical flower paintings I am still working on -- it's been a long time! October is flying by with almost an art fair every weekend, together with school it has surely bitten into my painting time! It's time to get them finished and posted!

Jungle Fire,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 8"h x 10"w, WIP 5

"Jungle Fire" is almost done and only a few glazes on the petals to make the red-orange really sing and glow! "Heliconia Dance", on the other hand, still has a long way to go, and I am enjoying playing with wet-into-wet in the background and all the subtle muted colors created by letting a limited palette of Cobalt Blue, Aureolin Yellow and Permanent Rose blending on wet paper...

Heliconia Dance,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 7"h x 5"w, WIP 3

Work in Progress: More Tropical Flowers

Time flies -- my post here has been sporadic lately, although I have not been slacking off! For one, the study at the Golden Gate Atelier has resumed on October 1st after the summer break, and boy was I rusty! I am struggling Monday through Thursday trying to regain the skills of seeing shapes, comparing values, measuring angle and length by drawing from live models and copying master drawings, which leaves only the weekends to paint. Even those are hard to come by, however, since I have a couple of art fair events coming up every weekend of October (I will talk about my experiences in tomorrow's post, since I've learned quite a bit in my first art fair, and during the discussions with other artists who are veterans in these affairs)! Between printing, framing, setting up and taking down tents and panels, and long driving sessions, there are only a couple of hours here and there left to create new work. I am itching to paint and managed to paint in early mornings and late nights for an hour here, an hour there. Progress has been slow, but I thought I should at least share them here:

Soar,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper , 6"h x 6"w, WIP 2

I've got farthest with this little 6" x 6" little painting of bird of paradise. It is not a very complicated image, and the reference photo is very colorful. I decided to try out the multi-colored layering techniques I've been learning in the fabulous Jeannie Vodden's class, and practicing painting with lots of water, thin layers of pigments, and wet-on-dry. Well, I would not say I was completely successful -- in some of the shapes of darker foliage areas I got carried away and again started blending thick, juicy pigments wet-in-wet. But I am not unhappy with the results. I would like to practice saving areas of delicate, light-valued passages using this method in my next exercises... I feel I do painting too heavy-handed sometimes and did not quite utilize the full potential of the delicate nature of watercolor glazes. Something to ponder about in future projects!

Jungle Fire,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper , 8"h x 10"w, WIP 4

In this cropped bird of paradise painting, I have practiced the same glazing method as in the one above and managed to achieve soft blended edges in the background foliage areas. Now it's time to get that intense, rich orange color of the flower on there!

Heliconia Dance,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper , 7"h x 5"w, WIP 2

This heliconia painting is still at its beginning stage. I am learning from the two bird of paradise projects, and taking my time to build up values using blended thin layers of pure colors. I love paintings at this stage -- you can play with the abstract shapes of light and dark, take liberty with the colors, and enjoy the flow of wet pigments on paper without worrying too much to make it look like the photo. Since I am enjoying this process so much, I am suspicious I've indulged a bit too long at this stage... :-P

Work in Progress: Sun Dance (Getting Close to Finish!), and Wild about Tropics...

I've been trying to finish "Sun Dance" without rushing it, adding layers upon layers of yellow glazes comprised of Aureolin, New Gamboge and Quinacridone Gold to try to recreate that glowing, velvety color of petals on paper. On areas that a purple tinge stubbornly keep on showing up, I have resorted to glaze with Cadmium Yellow, which is more opaque and therefore have a good unifying effect. The biggest struggle is trying not to lay any layer down too thickly -- which makes the yellow look opaque and muddy. Yellow has limited covering power and sometimes up to a dozen glazes are needed to reach the desired color strength. It is a very testing process to one's patience...

Sun Dance,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper , 8"h x 8"w, WIP 7

Waiting for the yellows to dry, I've also managed to start several small pieces of tropical flowers. The one with bird-of-paradise in close-up, I've tried to lay down all the background foliage patterns in one wet-in-wet application, while the one with heliconia (photo curtsy: the wonderful blog "Digital Flower Pictures". Thanks a lot for allowing me to use your beautiful heliconia photo as reference!) I'm trying to go slowly and take the layered approach. This is an experiment for me to figure out which one produces the best balance between interesting abstract shapes -- which often happens when you let watercolor flow on wet paper by itself without much interference -- and the hint of foliage -- which requires more careful planning and application. I will share my discovery with you here in a couple of days, hopefully... ;-)

Jungle Fire,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper , 8"h x 10"w, WIP 1

Heliconia Dance,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper , 7"h x 5"w, WIP 1