Pink Ladies in Progress, and Thoughts on How to Use Reference Materials

Pink Ladies, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 8"h x 8"w, WIP 2

I am trying to ignore the fact that I have not posted here (or on my facebook page, or on my Daily Paintworks gallery... =_=b.....) I used to beat myself up for these artistic "dormancy" periods, and feel like I am being lazy and irresponsible to not turn up one painting after another, or worse still -- not even working on any paintings for an extended period of time. When I am in school doing oil paintings, I feel at least there is a reason (or excuse to forgive myself?...) that I am not producing more watercolor paintings, since I am learning something new and not turning out finished products that can be shown to the world (without shame...) is allowed; but doing the breaks between semesters, I often go through these extensive periods feeling so guilty that I am not working more on my watercolor painting, or painting bigger, more substantial works that I've promised myself so many times I would do...

But, guilt aside, I do start to realize (after fighting with myself so many times) that these dormant periods are essential to my growth as an artist. I almost always come out of them learning something new, and paint a little differently. So, this time I am trying to not feel too guilty about it when it happened, and embrace the time I feel needed to study other artists' wonderful works (both on the amazing web and in museums), watch tutorial videos, read instructional books, and most important of all, think about my own approach to each potential projects that comes my way, trying very hard to analyze what is missing in my paintings at this stage of my artistic development.

Gradually it becomes more and more clear: I am too much of a slave of beautiful reference photos -- for the colors used, for the shapes presented, for the myriad amount of information presented in the photograph. The more time I spent setting up a still life/floral, or walk around trying to find that "perfect view" to take my reference photos, and the more photos I take "just in case" none of the ones I took previously turn out to be just "right", the more I seem to be unwilling to let go of it during my painting process. But can one really learn to run without finally casting away the walking stick that he/she has held on so tight for dear life?... Especially as an artist working in the realistic tradition, how much should one be bound by the information (shapes, colors, values, edges, etc.) provided in the reference material and how much artistic liberty can (or should) one take?

Obviously every artist (even the most photo-realistic painters) takes some liberty editing their reference material to create their art -- without this editing painting simply becomes a mechanical "pixel-by-pixel" copying of the reference photo, and cease to become a window into the artist's soul, therefore cannot hold its own. However, not all alterations from a reference material automatically improves the art piece -- nature often provides us with much more interesting shapes and subtle value shifts, for example, than most of us could come up with if we are given a blank piece of paper and no reference to work from. The hardest thing is how to make all the editing actually add onto, instead of detract from, the final resulted artwork. It's a true test of the aesthetic taste as well as technical skill of the artist, and it's scary as hell.

But maybe, it is time for me to start...

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:

Fire Dance (Very Close to Finish...)

Fire Dance, Watercolor on Fabriano Artistico #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, WIP 7

I am currently working on two small paintings of tulips -- perhaps being inspired by the beautiful tulip garden cultivated by our Dutch neighbor that I can see every time I look out of the window facing my painting table. An artist is definitely aesthetically influenced by his/her immediate environment -- albeit some more than others -- but that perhaps is a good justification for our desire to surround ourselves with beautiful objects such as other artists' work?...

That aside, this particular tulip, "Fire Dance", paintings have taken me a long time to complete, dragging from last spring to this one. Numerous times I have seen it as finished, even framed it and showed it in galleries, and eventually after looking at it for a while, I would feel something is still missing, and eventually remove it from the mat and rework it some more. From the last WIP of it shown on this blog, I have followed some very good advice from fellow artists and softened the edge between the leftmost flower in the background and the background itself, linking the two together, as well as separating the center flower from the rest by darkening and neutralizing the flowers out of focus in the background. I've lost some beautiful passages of effects along the way, but I feel the whole painting does stand stronger this way, and it is very close to finish... I just need to think about how to define the front petal in the center flower better -- without losing the light on it. I need to spend more time staring at it and think than to actually move my brush at this stage...

How to finish a painting is a very personal problem that each painter solves in their own way, and may vary from one piece of work to the next. However, being able to actually "finish" a piece without rushing it through deadline or beating it to death by overworking gives a tremendous sense of satisfaction, as well as confidence to build on the knowledge gained in this difficult process and apply it to the next painting. Wish me good luck to pull it through, 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:

Hummers! (No, Not the Monstrous Vehicle... It's the Tiny Bird I am Referring to...)

Rufus!,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 7"h x 7"w, WIP 1

This is my latest project -- a little Rufus Hummingbird painting to be completed with gold leaf. 

Last September my dear artist friend, the amazing Carrie Waller, has shared a technique of how do combine gold leaf with watercolor on her blog. I was very intrigued by the effect you can get using this particular technique, but was not sure what subject would work best with it. Carrie has done some beautiful still life paintings of fall leaves and pears using this technique, as well as a larger painting of humming birds. I especially liked how the shimmer of the gold leaf would work with the brilliant colors of humming bird plumage, and after some researches of suitable reference materials, have settled on a series of Rufus Hummingbirds to try my hands on. This is the first one of them. All the yellow backgrounds would be covered with gold leaf in the finished painting. I almost cannot wait to do it!

I think the emerald green and green gold used for the feather of the humming bird would work well with the gold leaf. And after reading Chris Beck's tutorial in the latest Artist's Magazine, I decided to give masking fluid another try on the cactus flowers. I used a dipping pen to apply them for the thorns (the masking are removed here and you can see the resulted white shapes of thorns on the cacti), and find them easy to use, as well as capable of producing much thinner lines. I took the maskings off before applying the final wash, so that I can modify the edges of the masked shapes with some brush work, and tone them down if they appear to be too stark... 

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:

Soar II

Soar II,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, 2014 #10

Sold!

I have mailed out "Soar II" to its new home in England earlier this week. I thought it was finished at the end of last year, but as I looked at it everyday during the Christmas break, I just felt it is still missing something, so I held off mailing it out to the client (who has been very kind and not rushing me at all) and hope I will know what final "punch line" to add. I often do this to paintings and normally it takes a while for me to actually say to myself "this is done, I have nothing more to say in this piece", but in this case because of the special circumstance I feel I need to finish it ASAP. However, after gauging with myself for a couple of days I really thought I don't want it to take any less effort or attention just because I am repainting the piece, and I don't want it to be a mere repeat of the one that got accidentally damaged. Instead, I want it to be better than the first one -- at least in my own judgement.

As I was doing this my family member got admitted to the hospital due to cardiac issues, so everything got put aside, as you probably already know from my previous blog posts. However, when he got a stent put in his artery and I was in the hospital, I took this painting together with other two small pieces tat I once thought was finished, but not sure, with me, as I would have long time to look at and think about them. I did just that, and worked on all of them in the past two weeks again. I was really happy with how this one turned out...

Soar II,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, 2014 #10

This is a previous version before final modification. I have decided to darken the leaf against the light stamen of the flower on the upper left to add more contrast, and I am sharing this WIP image which is very close to the finished painting here as an example of the type of modification I have done during the long pondering period. On the topic of when a painting is done, there is really no road map. Most of times we could only trust and rely on our best judgement, which is continuously being refined as we make numerous mistakes and shout out "I wish I had stopped a couple of strokes earlier!"...

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:

A Still Life Study, A Small Landscape, I Am Hanging on There...

It Takes Two to Tango,  
Watercolor on Saunders Waterford #140 Cold Press Paper, 7"h x 10"w, WIP 2

With a dear family member falling ill of cardiac issues and later myself getting sick with flu when in hospital taking care of him (thank you all who have sent me kind words and prayers!), I guess I have fallen off the bandwagon of "30 Paintings in 30 Days" challenge this time. I have decided not to beat myself up for it, and just try again next time in September when Leslie is hosting this challenge again. In the mean time, I found out that floral/still life painting actually suited the fragmented schedule I have in between hospital visits and bed rests better than landscapes, so to get back into the groove and also actually learn how to paint glass, I have resumed this study from master artist Jan Kunz's tutorial. Unlike most of my floral work, the two roses here are mostly done wet on dry, so that I could practice softening edges with a damp brush, while in the mean time try to make good shapes with each brush stroke. It's amazing how time consuming all the small shapes of the flower petals and especially on the ball jar are -- I have an increasing appreciation of the amazing work you do, Carrie!

Frosty Morning,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 7"h x 10"w, WIP 1

When I actually have some chunks of time at hand, I worked on several more small landscapes. Most of them still have not taken shape yet, so I've only included one here. It started as a "Sky" painting in the challenge, and from that palette of Cobalt Blue, Turquoise and purple grey mixed with transparent primary colors, I decide to portray early snow in the mountain highlands, with lake water in the foreground, and some small shrubs still exhibiting fall colors reflecting in it. The focus here is to try to evoke the feeling of chilly late autumn morning air in the highlands. We'll see how it goes! :-) 

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:

Sky in Progress -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge, Round 3, Day 8, 9, 10, 11

Tranquility,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 9"h x 12"w, WIP 1

With a progressing cold I fell significantly behind on my "Sky" paintings the past few days. I have been painting but since painting sky requires some serious wetting of the paper, I tend to work on several of them at the same time, so that I can continue working on one when others are in various stages of drying. So, here they are, some very close to finish, just waiting for me to put on the details; others just starting, with one or two wet-in-wet layers of clouds and nothing else yet... 

Amber Glow,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Rough Paper, 7"h x 10"w, WIP 1

Shades of Dusk,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 8"h x 10"w, WIP 1

Night Sail,  
Watercolor on Lanaquarelle #140 Cold Press Paper, 3"h x 7"w, 2014 #8

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:

Autumn Colors... 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge, Round 3, Day 4

Bon Fire,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 10"h x 4"w, WIP 1

With theme of today's painting being "Foliage", I could not decide whether to work on a tree or a field of grass. Being the ADD artist I am, I ended up doing the exact wrong thing -- being way to ambitious and decided to work on two paintings in the same time, one a small vertical format study of an autumn maple tree, and the other the exploration of textural and wet-in-wet manipulation of color on a golden wheat field of countryside. I liked the progress of both, but with the day fast drawing to an end, and the obligation of having to drive down to the south bay to hang some of my work at Brian's Restaurant in Los Altos for a little two-person show arranged by my local Los Altos Art Club (LAAC), I realized that I might not be able to finish either of them today! I don't want to just rush to an end since I liked both of them at this stage, and want to take time to tweak shapes and colors, doing a little calligraphy here and there, and a lot of gazing in between. We'll see how I am doing! I would do an update before going to bed... It's going to be a long night...

Fields of Gold,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 9"h x 12"w, WIP 1

Update: I did not finish this painting until the morning of the next day, but I was happy about the extra time I got to explore the shapes and space divisions by the branches. One thing I found about making small twigs looking real is to lighten and cool down their color toward the end. Of course a little dry brush work also goes a long way!

Bon Fire,  Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 10"h x 4"w, 2014 #4

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $35) 

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:

Emerging after My Long Period of Absence... Some Fall Colors in Winter, Some New Finished Paintings, and My Last Holiday Fair of the Season

Fall Colors, Little Cottonwood Canyon, Utah,

 Watercolor on Arches #140 Rough, 12"h x 9"w, WIP 1

Finally painting again! From October to December the Atelier work turned out more demanding as the projects get harder, and I will finally start chalk and charcoal next semester! It has seriously eaten into my watercolor painting time, and the busy holiday fair season did not help either -- between getting prints and small gift products ready for the shows and doing my charcoal drawings from life, I did not have much breathing room in the past few months... Hence the lack of new paintings here and no update on my blog (shame on me...) -- but, no more excuses, I am painting again! Yay!

Quicken Aspens, Park City, Utah,

 Watercolor on Arches #140 Rough, 8"h x 12"w, WIP 1

Here's a couple of landscapes I have started in Carl Purcell's workshop the past summer (really? It has been so long?...) and like everything started during a workshop, they did not get finished. I've started five of them and the closest one is about 70% done, but none of these. Maybe it is just me -- I always feel quite rushed in the drawing part whenever I am attending a workshop, and was not quite happy with the hard-edged shapes of the foliage on all these tree paintings. To me, a foliage clump in a painting needs to have very interesting and well-designed but natural-looking shapes and a blend of hard, soft and broken edges to really make it look like "foliage" instead of just "choppy brush strokes", and mine in any of these paintings certainly did not meet the standard. 

Quiet Meadows, Sonoma Pasture, 

 Watercolor on Arches #140 Rough, 12"h x 8"w, WIP 1

Not to worry -- off to the faucet! Arches paper can really take some abuse and that's why we love it! When the paper is soaking wet and the half-finished painting is not completely erased but with a lovely ghost image left on the paper, I took out the reference materials from the workshop and started to lay in colors wet in wet. Then I let them dry -- and I've liked these altered images much more. Next step is adding more definitions on dry paper, which involves some serious thought process on designs. Busy paintings filled with various shapes and colors (such as these depicting woods, forest, undergrowth, etc.) really needs succinct silhouette of the center of focus and some quiet areas to let viewer's eyes rest. For example, all the foliage clumps in "Quiet Meadows, Sonoma Pasture" are too symmetric and similar in size, which  is a residue problem from the not-carefully-thought-out initial drawings during the workshop, and therefore needs to be redesigned. I will do some sketch to figure that out... 

Summer Glow II, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 5"h x 7"w, 2013 #81

Sold!

Here's a couple of paintings I've finished but never had a chance to share with you on my blog. The first one is a second version of "Summer Glow"... All because I was stupid enough to want to repair a small smear damage on the first one, and you know what happens next -- the repairs have completely damaged the first version and the only thing I could do is to repaint it... I should have learned my lessons of not messing with a finished watercolor by now... Sometimes I really wonder what I was thinking...

Soar II, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 6"h x 6"w, WIP 1

This one is actually finished and sold to a collector in England. I just did not have a good photo of it -- accidentally dropped my camera and broke it so now I only have my ipad as a camera, which is seriously not adequate to take images of finished paintings... (WIP photos, maybe, but not finished works, especially not when a piece is flying out and I may never get the chance to see it ever again...) So I will be posting the finished image when I get my new camera, I promise ;-)

Finally, since I did quite a few holiday shows this winter, and the holiday fair season is drawing to a close, I thought I'd give a shout-out here for my last fair of the season... It is a very cool venue: I will be selling my Watercolors, Giclee Prints, Holiday Cards, Calendars and MORE in the SF Bazaar Zoo Lights Event at San Francisco Zoo Entry Village Circle, located at Sloat Blvd. & the Great Highway this weekend (both Saturday and Sunday), December 21st & 22nd, between 3:00pm and 8:00pm. So if you find yourself in the city over the weekend, or want to take your kids to see the animals in the San Francisco Zoo under the evening lights, drop by and get some beautiful, hand-made, animal-related art gifts for your holidays!

Especially for this fair I have designed and made some holiday cards (yes, they are year-round good but I made this set of eight especially for the winter season). These little ones are printed on 3.5" x 5" sized Strathmore watercolor cards, and a set contains 8 different winter snow scenes, with name of the painting and my info printed at the back of the card. I have named it "Winter Wonderland" and will upload it for sale to my etsy shop soon, at a price of $20/set. I also have the same set of a larger size -- 5" x 7" for $25. Drop me an email if you are interested in having one!

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:

Petunia Done, Tulips Still in Progress... It's Almost Holiday Fair Season Again!

Rise and Shine, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper, 5"h x 5"w, 2013 #78

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $35) 

Finishing up some little paintings for the upcoming holiday fair season, and my solo show in the gallery (more details in the next few days, stay tuned!... ;-). After completing this petunia, I thought it would actually make a nice pair with my earlier painting of morning glory... What do you think? Won't they be a cute little diptych together?

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

Can't believe I am still working on adjustments on this one... Sometimes I suspect it will never finish... I've darkened the upper right corner according to suggestions from you guys to my last update on this one. Now I am puzzling over how to make the center flower stand out more against the rest blossoms... Any suggestions? Please!...

A reminder to those of you who lives in the bay area: I will be at the Art in the Park event in the city of San Ramon this weekend. This two day event held at San Ramon Community Center located at 12501 Alcosta Blvd will be a showcase of local artist and artisan talents with live chalk art demonstration on location, and a great selection of live music, dance and theater performances. It lasts from 10:00 am to 5:00 pm for both Saturday and Sunday. If you are in the east bay - trivalley area and have some free time over the weekend, be sure to stop by and say hi!

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:

South Wind -- -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 22 (This One is Finished!!!)

South Wind,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 11"h x 15"w, 2013 #72

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $95) 

Today is a really productive day -- I finished two 11" x 15" sized paintings -- "South Wind" and "Stormy Weather", and almost finished "Under the Autumn Sky". Most time were spent designing the shapes of various trees, meadows, rocks, etc. in these paintings, as the shapes of these objects in the initial reference photos may well need to be altered to be made interesting. This is one of the things I consider as very difficult for landscape painting -- often you cannot simply put down what you see in front of you, not like still life and flower painting! It is certainly a brain-intensive day of painting...

Stormy Weather,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 11"h x 15"w, 2013 #71

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $125) 

This is the final version of "Stormy Weather" -- I was very happy with the negative painting of some of the light fir trees on the left side, as well as the calligraphy to suggest tree branches in the middle ground light colored tree shapes. I did quite a few negative paintings on this one, using the dark mountain shapes behind to set the edge of the middle ground tree that is being lid. The main point of exercise for this one is trying to depict dramatic lighting, and using brushwork to suggest mountain, tree and grass. I have certainly learned quite a bit designing those shapes...

Unfortunately, along with these good progress something really bad also happened -- I drove to the gallery today and discovered that one of my little landscape painting was stolen from the gallery. It was unframed, only matted and put in the "matted original" bin in the gallery, and it is nowhere to be found. I have left it in the gallery only a week ago after my "Meet the Artists Day" in Filoli, and now it's gone. I checked the sales records -- it was not sold; I checked everywhere in the gallery, and it was just nowhere to be found. It really saddens me to think anyone who likes my art to the extent of wanting to bring it back home would opt to not pay a mere $35 and choose to steal it. This just breaks my heart... I do not know whether I should feel sad or angry about such incident... Has it ever happened to you, my artists friends? 

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:

Stormy Weather -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 21 (Sorry, WIP Again...)

Stormy Weather,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 11"h x 15"w, WIP 2

I've been painting a lot of landscapes lately, and some of them are getting bigger than the usual size I work on. This one is not finished and now I have to try really hard not to wreck it! I've nervously stood in front of this painting putting on one stroke after another using a really big brush (the size of the paper is 11" x 15", which is not really big, but big for me) when it was changing from soaking wet to almost dry, and I think I've gained another level of understanding of wet water cycle on watercolor paper after this one! I am really excited about all the soft but definite edges I was able to achieve on it...

I feel very lazy comparing to all my friends out there who are really finishing a painting a day -- from tomorrow I will try to finish the piece I am working on again, and get the last two pieces finished! I promise... I think although this has been a great exercise of discipline, it does start to take a toll on me to paint non-stop from morning to late night for more than three weeks. Sometimes I swear that I literally feel my wrist is getting stiff! But, I do not want to be a whiner -- I just really admire those of you who, despite of all the other tasks and obligations in life, still manage to start and finish a painting in a day's time! Hang on friends, we are almost there!... ;-P

Stormy Weather,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 11"h x 15"w, WIP 3

This is what it has progressed to after more work last night and this morning. With three unfinished work going on in the same time, it was actually fairly easy to get a refreshed view switching back and forth between them. I think with a few details on the middle ground trees and some further refinement of the conifers on the left, it could be finished within a couple of hours. I will take extra caution not to get carried away adding those last details...

Stormy Weather,  Watercolor on Arches 140# Cold Press Paper, 11"h x 15"w, 2013 #71

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I think this piece is now finished -- I was very happy with the negative painting of some of the light fir trees on the left side, as well as the calligraphy to suggest tree branches in the middle ground light colored tree shapes. I did quite a few negative paintings on this one, using the dark mountain shapes behind to set the edge of the middle ground tree that is being lid. The main point of exercise for this one is trying to depict dramatic lighting, and using brushwork to suggest mountain, tree and grass. I have certainly learned quite a bit designing those shapes...

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