Summer Heat, Central Valley -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 14

Summer Heat, Central Valley,  

Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press Paper , 6"h x 9"w, 2013 #65

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $55) 

This piece started quite a while ago as a study of negative painting in a workshop with the wonderful landscape artist and teacher Roland Lee. I saw this scene first when driving down to central valley on one of the little winding roads from Pinnacles National Park (at that time still only a national monument). The heat has totally scorched the land. There is only yellows, orches and browns in my field of vision. Now and then, a single, very skinny cattle or horse would been seen lying under valley oak trees, trying to get as much shade as possible from the what little shadow a lone tree could offer. It must be over 100 degrees even in shadow. Every inch in my line of vision is burnt by heat. Even the wind was choking hot, and when it titillated with the dried up grass it almost sounded like the vegetation were moaning out of pain and thirst. An old wind pump was slowly operating on the roadside, draining what little water it could squeeze out of ground into the huge rusty metal tanks standing beside it. I couldn't help but imaging how hot it would be if I put my hand on the shiny surface of those tanks... I can almost feel the thirst on my lips again when finishing this piece last night, although I was sitting in my cool, damp, comfortable San Francisco home...

I guess this is what I love most about painting -- it allow you to recall and relive the experiences that has once moved you, or forever scarred you. The pleasure and pain that has once changed us are, through the movement of a brush, fixed on a piece of canvas or paper for eternity...

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:

Fisherman's Evening -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 13

Fisherman's Evening,

 Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press paper, 6"h x 9"w, 2013 #64

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $35) 

After a busy day at Filoli, I was happy to be able to still finish this little painting tonight. I used a very limited palette because I was inspired by some Sumi ink paintings and Haiku-like photographs I saw today. When I was painting it I thought about fog gradually rising on empty river surface, a lonely fishing boat anchored near shore, with its fishing-cormorants resting on the long pole at the end of it. The fisherman with a glass or two of hard liquor, resting after a day's hard work... It's a more and more rare scene even in rural China nowadays, the country being so rapidly developed. I know the romance in rural lifestyle is probably exaggerated while the hardship deliberately overlooked with people outside writing or painting about it, but still, born and raised in a mega city, I cannot help but being slightly nostalgia when thinking about such life of the past, which I have never experienced genuinely... :-P Life is full of controversies I guess. 

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 Meadow, Tamalpais -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 12

Spring Meadow, Tamalpais,  

Watercolor on Winsor Newton 140# Cold Press Paper , 6"h x 10"w, 2013 #63

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My theme for the "30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge" this week is "landscape with water" -- I guess fog is a form of water hence this painting still fits the theme. ;-) I've learned a lot about using aerial perspective and soft-to-hard edge transition to create a sense of depth from doing this painting, as well as how to create varied shapes within repetition -- it is really hard to make every next stroke representing a fir branch to be of a different size, shape, direction and color from the last one! I don't think I've done an excellent job here -- more practice definitely needed. I've also experimented only using color transition and texture to represent the meadow. Unfortunately it looks more interesting in person than on the photo...

For those of you who are in the bay area -- tomorrow (Saturday, September 14th) and the day after tomorrow (Sunday, September 15th) will be the "Meet the Artists Day" event for the exhibition at Filoli Garden - "Nature’s Many Splendors: Farms, Gardens and Woodlands"! You are all invited to this special art-festival-like weekend, to 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. And I will be doing demo there! 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.

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:

Edgewood -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 11, and What I Have Learned from It about Underpainting

Edgewood,
 Watercolor on Saunders Waterford #140 Cold Press paper, 10"h x 10"w, 2013 #62

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $65) 

One of the consequence of painting landscape everyday for quite a few days is -- I start to crave to paint on slightly bigger pieces of paper and really allow the wet paint flow. This is something very hard to achieve on tiny formats such as 5" x 7" or 6" x 6" -- there is just not enough space for very wet washes to run, and the quantity of water has to be very strictly controlled so that you do not lose all precious white space after the first wash. And a few pieces that I liked after observing what such runny washes have done were further developed with glazes, including this one.

When applying the first layer of underpainting, sometimes I just apply a very simple all-over color tone to unify the future painting, giving it certain mood -- for example, a light yellow first layer can almost warm up the coldest, harshest paintings on top of it and gives a subtle sunny feeling to it. But most of the time, I would try to create soft-edged shapes with this first, very wet application of paint. Sometimes these shapes are related directly with the shapes, tones, directions, sizes, lines textures and colors which will follow, other times I just start with a rough idea, which means the first underpainting layer would only by partially, or approximately related to these aspects of the painting to come. And then, on other occasions, I've started with a blank mind not knowing what I'm going to paint on this piece of paper, and just apply very light colors an tones on soaking wet paper, and observe their movements -- which may give me some idea. I have even superimposed the value and color structure of another painting or other reference materials (instead of the one I am currently painting) in ghostly light versions as an underpainting, which means it would not at all correspond to the shapes, colors and values of the current painting that is to be developed on the same piece of paper -- and surprisingly, often enough, I have found that add a lot of surface interest instead of being a total disaster.

This has made me think why I have always liked to start with such a soft-edged, light underpainting layer, if it is not always to hint what's going to come. I believe underpaintings comes with its own advantages: It gives variations in the "white" section of the painting, and allow optical superimposition of color and tone. Since optical color is the synthesis made by our eye when seeing the underpainted color thought the overpainting, it is unlike any single layer and has its own mysterious "shine" or "glowing" quality when done right. An underpainting, especially when not totally correlated with the overpainting, often promotes an abstract quality of the image developed, and soft under hard edges usually makes a rich counterpoint and makes the pictorial experience more interesting and stimulating for the viewer. As long as one keeps the underpainting layer soft and light (usually lighter than midtone in value), allowing for final considerations and readjustment of edges and drawing during the overpainting process, it usually would not be too intrusive as to interfere with the viewer's experience with the overpainted image, just like the ambient sound of forest or ocean often do not interfere with our experience of music in such environment, although their rhythm or beat may not coincide with that of the music's.

For this particular painting, I have applied a very light, gradated magenta wash from top down, adding various greens, blues and purples toward the bottom, because I roughly had the idea that I wanted to paint a sunset  in the woods on a cold, snowy winter day. But I did not exactly draw out the trees, the rocks or the topography on the snow-covered field. Instead I have concentrated to vary the color temperature and value while applying this wet wash. As a result, I really liked the added interest this first layer has created on the otherwise all-white snowy field. And because of the dark woods and rock shapes developed in the overpainting, the light purple and blue areas at the bottom still read as "white" and "snow". One thing I wanted to improve on this is to add more color variations in the areas that I know will be very light (such as the sky) when doing the underpainting. I was a little timid about doing this when painting "Edgewood", and as a result, there is not a lot of color variations in the sky, and makes it a little bland compared with other areas of the image. Luckily, there are enough business in the woodland area directly below it, so that quiet patch of sky can actually give the viewer's eye some rest and relief. It was not planned, but I'm glad it worked out this way... What do you think, my friend?

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:

Misty Dawn -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 10, and Thoughts on How Artists Create Art

Misty Dawn, Ruby Beach,
 Watercolor on Richeson Zoltan Szabo #140 Cold Press paper, 5"h x 7"w, 2013 #61

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Since I was going through the reference photos I took on the trip to Ruby Beach, Washington when doing "Sea Stacks, Ruby Beach" a couple of days ago, I couldn't help but picking out a few more favorites to work from, hence this little one today (and a few more to come). Lucky for me, it still fits in my theme for the current week: landscape with water (ok, ok, yesterday's piece was landscape but without water, I got it :-P... I just got carried away designing those trees and finished it in the end...)

It has been a long time since I took the trip, but I stood on that beach from dawn (which was nice and sunny) till past dusk (which gradually got very cloudy and finally started to rain -- as I complained in the post about "Sea Stacks, Ruby Beach", looked, listened, smelled, pondered, drew and painted, even took a nap! The place with its unique windy, salty atmosphere was well burnt into my memory. Had I not spent such precious time lingering in a place like this, but only snapped a photo and left, I probably wouldn't have felt being suddenly transported back again when my eye accidentally scanned across the reference photo I took there at dawn. I remembered how the warm mist gradually rose from water as the sun slowly climbed up, as if the spirit of the land was waking up along with the warmth provided by this source of life. I remembered the amazing rosy golden glow around everything behind the veil of fog, and the purple-orange shadows of the back-lid sea stacks standing against the rising sun...  I just had to get it down on paper.

After finishing this piece I started pondering about the creative process -- what an artist, every artist goes through after being hitting by that overwhelming sense "I have to paint that!!!"... First comes looking: a sensation; seeing a piece of nature and saying, "There is a beautiful tree", or "I love the light reflected on water's surface". We as artists start to be aware of the "present". Eyesight reception stirs up a chaos inside us. Something has to be done. Then it all quiets down to a more pure, condensed perception: the artist acknowledges him/herself the existence of the scene, and a deep, more real "seeing" is retained within our memory with every extra stare, providing a storehouse of visual data for us to mull over and over, ponder and digest, which finally may be integrated into a "concept" -- a perceived experience with intention. At this stage we as artists have gained an awareness of what stood in front of us in the totality of personal experience. It has become axiomatic, and can be held as a scheme in our mind's eye as an integration of similar units whenever we want to recall it. It matures, and waited to be executed, carried out as a visual statement about the experience -- experience not as what happened to us but what happened in us. And as we finally do that, the finished work becomes separated from us, the artists by time and space. It enters a life of its own, to stand or fall, no longer within our control. There is often a sense of deep vulnerability felt by the artist when such a product makes its public appearance, as for so long we have lived with it, held it deeply in ours minds and hearts, being tortured by its will of coming out of us, worrying that even after giving it our best effort, the result still could not stand up to the beauty we see in our minds' eye... 

It is such a painful, labored exhilaration, an addiction, a powerful experience that we repeat again and again, everyday. The most powerful and most vulnerable position: the position of the creator. 

... And that, is exactly why I am doing it again today.

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:

Wild Growth II -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 9, and Some Thoughts on Beginnings

Wild Growth II,
 Watercolor on Winsor Newton #140 Cold Press paper, 4"h x 11"w, 2013 #60

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Today is a good day at the studio in terms of actual work that's been done: I have laid out different maker's different surface-finish of paper, tried all of them out by starting a new landscape wet-in-wet on them. So... There were a lot of messy starts -- not one of them finished since a quarter-sheet soaking wet requires some time to dry naturally, hence I was running between projects. For wet starts like this I also stand up and paint, which means at the end of the day, my legs are about to give out. But it was exhilarating, since I can see a few possible good paintings start to emerge, and I have also discovered some good techniques for certain makes of paper that I did not know how to paint on before.

But I did not forget about the challenge! I developed one of the sheets (ok, only part of it) into this little study of texture of field and shapes of dark conifers. It was painted more abstractly than normal, since my focus was to test out how different texture-creating procedures would work on this particular type of paper when it is gradually drying. Of course, only textured, undefined large span of field requires some smaller, more defined areas with hard edges to contrast with it so that the whole picture could work, hence the conifers, which were painted first as abstract combinations of shapes made by deliberately varied brush strokes. The whole painting process is very brain-intensive, and I felt totally exhausted coming out of it, but also filled with sense of pride and joy, because I have challenged myself and learned something again. 

It is Glasworthy who said, "The beginning and endings of all human undertakings are untidy: the building of a house, the writing of a novel, the demolition of a bridge and eminently, the finish of a voyage." So true.

These new starts I made today would become finished paintings in the next few days. I am so excited and could not wait until tomorrow to work on them again!...

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:

Rockaway Beach, Pacifica -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 8 (A Plein Air One, Finally!...)

Rockaway Beach, Pacifica,
 Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press paper, 4"h x 6"w, 2013 #59

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $15) 

I had an ultra-busy day today: the new show at the Main Gallery is being hung today, so is my 3-person show with Los Altos Art Club (LAAC) at Simply Be Salon in Palo Alto. The show in the Main Gallery runs from September 11th through October 13th, with artists' reception held between 4 and 6 pm this coming Saturday, September 14th. The show in Simply Be Salon will be on view through the month of October. So if you are in the south bay area during the month of September and October, there would be plenty of place to see my work!

After a whole day's physical labor, I rewarded myself by driving along the coastal route 1 instead of the boring normal commute highway 101 back up home. Just as a spur-of-the-moment decision, I turned onto this hidden little treasure patch of sandy beach when passing Pacifica -- not many people know it, except the locals, so in the late afternoon of a Monday, it is very quiet. Only the sound of waves and heat of the setting sun keeping me company... I quickly found a patch of shade under a coastal cypress tree and started this little plein-air sketch of what's in my field of vision.

It was a relatively quick effort. Even in shade the heat reflecting from the sand was getting my washes drying very fast, so I chose this tiny size and did not labor on any particular technique, instead just got the view in front of me down on paper with straight-forward layered washes. In hinder sight, the composition probably can be improved quite a bit. Yet it was just a fun excursion for me, and when looking at it, I can almost feel the scorching heat on my skin again, hearing the roaring waves again, and smell the salty scent of the sea air again. To me, plein air painting like this are precious snapshots of time for myself first, studies for future larger studio work only serves as a second, side benefit. 

Of course, sometimes I go out and plan a whole day's plein air painting and they are solely to study a place, a season, a particular lighting condition. Those are different -- a lot more useful perhaps and I take them as very serious exercises, but I have to say this is so much more fun!...

I felt I have really missed doing this -- painting purely for the fun of it and indulge myself (at least for a moment) forgetting that this is my full occupation, my career, my livelihood now, and just view it as pure fun. It is much easier to do this when I still had my engineer day job. Now... I often find that I have taken painting too seriously, too much like a regular job, to the point any time I found myself really enjoying it, I would feel slightly guilty about that, as if I am not working hard enough. But I don't want to view painting just as another job... I DO NOT EVER WANT TO FORGET THAT IT IS LOVE AND PASSION THAT HAS ATTRACTED ME TO BECOME A PAINTER.

... And fun, like today, I've come back with a not-so-impressive painting but also great memory and fun. I think it is time well spent... 

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:

Sea Stacks, Ruby Beach -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 7 (And I Did Finish This One!...)

Sea Stacks, Ruby Beach,
 Watercolor on Arches #140 Rough paper, 7"h x 10"w, 2013 #58

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I've always loved Travel. A journey to somewhere always seem to give an aim of some sort to me: I have to get on with the trip every day when waking up, and the road is right there in front of me;  accommodations and dinning options are often frugally simple, far from extravagant to say the least, but just because of this, I believe journeys are addictive, at least to me. In between a long journey's quiet loneliness and busy clamor, there is often a clear river of thoughts extending until infinity. Thoughts about past. Thoughts about future. Thoughts about people I have met and people I have missed. Whenever I have a little bit time, anytime, I often would rather spend it on the road. This one has started as a plein-air sketch on the Ruby Beach of Washington coast. Time was late. The sky is always cloudy there. It almost seemed like it was going to rain, but finally didn't. Last light of the day has gradually seeped though the bottom of the meandering clouds, back-lighting all the sea stacks. The sky was a strange deep, saturated blue-purple, with a tinge of warmth along the horizon. Then it started to drizzle. My paper got damp. I got back into the car.

But I've never forgotten that moment, just like I've not forgotten another ten thousand random moments on my journeys.

Then recently, I have thought about how ancient Chinese Sumi Paintings are taught, and started to do another type of study -- I realized that landscape painting is largely about creating your own symbol of different landscape items (trees, rocks, clouds, grass, water, etc.) and express them with abstract brush-stroke-created-shapes. Dots and Dashes. Lines and Curves. The next question is: how do you translate the landscape in front of you into an image basically composed of these dots, dashes and various shapes? I believe this is like learning a language: you have to learn the vocabulary before being able to make a prose. Then, can brushwork be learned? Some say not -- they say it is part of you and has to come from within yourself, but I believe otherwise: one's "self" is constantly being shaped by what we take in from others -- by that I mean from other artists as well as the nature. You can collect the silhouette of a real tree by sketching it on paper, and you can collect a beautiful tree shape created by another artist by practicing making it on a scrap piece of paper as well. Guaranteed, it will probably not be identical as the original, but by this practice you can learn how the individual brush strokes creating that shape is made -- their direction, strength and timing, as well as just practicing making a pleasant abstract shape. 

That is exactly what I do every morning nowadays: just like the morning workout routines for some people. I would take a random piece of image from an artist I like for his/her ability to create beautiful shapes of landscape elements, and isolate one shape -- a tree, a rock, a cloud shadow, you name it -- and try to analyze how he/she has made that shape with their brush marks, and try to recreate it on my practice paper. By isolating the shapes the task does not seem as daunting: I am not asking myself to recreate an often seemingly "fast and loose" master landscape painting entirely, but just a tiny section of it -- one shape. By doing this again and again, I've already realized that I've started to incorporate these learned shapes into my own paintings out of memory. Again, they won't be exact copies, but my hand seems to have gained some muscle memory of the dots and dashes it has been making again and again!

So finally I've taken out this piece and decided to give it another try. This time I felt much more smooth and confident, more at ease with it, and much less mechanical when making the cloud and rocks of this painting compared to my first attempt of it (which I did not dare to share with you guys), and I think I have to thank such exercise for it. Maybe I should also thank time -- it is time that has made the scene simmer in my heart until it was ready to flow out.

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:

Summer Glow -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 6 (Not Quite Finished -- Again?!...)

Summer Glow, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press paper, 5"h x 7"w, WIP 2

OK... I wouldn't exactly call this one "finished" -- but it is not because I am slacking off! I have struggled over this little piece more than anything I have ever painted... You know that "ugly stage" that every painting seems to have to go through, when you tell yourself that you don't exactly know where this is going? For this painting, that awkward stage has lasted almost from its beginning to this point. 

The reference photo of this painting shows a lovely white water lily glowing against several large, mid-dark valued leaves, with no obvious value variations within each leaf shape, or between different leaves. In other words, it's an image of very contrasting small light shapes of the flower petal, and large, uniformly-dark shapes of leaves, with no actual mid-value shapes in between. It seems I have found this problem not challenging enough, and decided that I don't want to just paint the white flower "as is", with mostly neutral grey shadows. Instead, I have decided to try out the multi-color blending and glazing method from Jeannie Vodden, and make the white petals and shadow areas on them "more colorful".

The problem is, when I had the best intentions starting out, I did not exactly have a clear vision of how the finished painting would look like. "Colorful" itself is a very guideline to say the best... As a result, I ran into different problems almost right from the start with colors, and struggled with it for several months. After putting it away and taking it out, staring at it and thinking really hard, I have realized that my first mistake with this painting: I did not decide a dominant hue (or family of hues) for the white petals from the starting point. Since white flowers do not have an apparent hue to their shadows in most lighting conditions, my water lily almost had the entire rainbow of colors evenly spread in its shadow areas. No dominance leads to a cacophony of colors, not a symphony, and it never looked right.

The second problem is the value of the shadow areas on the flower -- I have initially made them almost as dark as the reference photo (which had no mid-value shapes to start with), and they just looked wrong, as if somebody poked a black hole in the center of the flowers. After squinting a lot and again thinking really hard, I have realized this (which an initial value sketch could easily point out, but, alas, I wanted to "get down to the fun of painting" too fast when starting... :-P). After some scrubbing and lifting out, glazing back, lifting again -- finally I have ended up with the value of the flower center in a mid value range, between the lightest petal area and the really dark leaves behind the flower. Now there seems to be a bit depth and the flower center seems to recede a bit back in space, and everything just looks more "right"... Well, the color of the center petals became a bit dull and less saturated because of the repeated lifting and glazing back, but the correct value relationship is more important than all the other aspects of painting, and made this version just looks more believable. 

I am quite proud that I have stuck with the suffering and figured out what the problem is, and what I need to do to make it work. Due to the limitation of the paper -- you just cannot keep on putting on colors and taking them off, even when working on the tough Arches -- I may not be able to totally realize my vision for this one from its current stage, but next time, when facing with a similar problem -- white flower with very dark backgrounds, without much intermediate value shapes in the reference image, and when I want to again try to make the white "colorful" and not just straightly paint the grey shadows I see in the reference material, I will have a more clear vision of what to achieve, what to avoid, what has to be tackled first, from the starting point. Now for this one, I just have to finish a few darkest shadows and crevice darks on the flower, and the reflections of the petals. There is a bit of work, but not anything conceptually hard, so with a couple more hours here and there, it should fall into place... 

In the mean time, I have again spent five hours sitting in the art fair, which gave me ample time to some other watercolor sketches and studies. This time I want to just use texture - brushed on, spattered, imprinted with various textured materials, sprayed by clear water... you name it -- to create a sense of ground and growth (i.e., grass and bushes) without actually outlining any tree shapes with pencil. Again, it was great fun, and very different from what I usually do.... I am seriously thinking that I need to do this more in the future.

Wild Growth, Watercolor on Arches #140 Cold Press paper, 6"h x 10"w, 2013 #57

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $20) 

OK, I think I've had quite a few days with flowers... (Ok, I did not quite finish the flower pieces I was working on for the past few days, but I will in the coming days! And I did spend a solid day on each of them, trying very hard to finish... But sometimes paintings have a will of their own! :-P) Starting tomorrow I will begin a new theme for the challenge -- landscape with the element "water" in it. I think it will be quite exciting... Stay tuned!

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:

Awaken -- 30 Paintings in 30 Days Challenge (Round Two), Day 3, Some Thoughts on Why I Took the Challenge, and Show Updates

Dancing Tulip V, 

Watercolor on Richeson Zoltan Szabo #140 Cold Press paper, 9"h x 6"w, 2013 #54

Bid at My DPW Auction (Starting Bid $ 65) 

Day 3 of the challenge! I am still alive! When taking on this daunting challenge (again!) I was hoping that it could help me wrap up some difficult projects that has been lingering in my studio for way too long. So far it has been good -- I've managed to make paced progress on a few of such projects. In the mean time, I have also realized that the reason these project have been lingering without much progress is that I have been more or less stuck on one point of them or another. In other words, I've been having difficulties doing "finishes".

Finishes are hard... Starts are hard in a different way: that mental pressure of facing a blank piece of paper... But there would be a stage after overcoming the initial fear, that we (as artists) gradually let the piece sink in our mind, feeling really "at one" with it, and this middle stage is comfortable. Often, we (ok, at least I...) let this stage extend too long, subconsciously procrastinating on the difficult work of "finishing it up".

Why? Because finishing means you have to seriously look at the work in progress with critical eyes, and ask yourself: does this piece look like a coherent unit? Is there anything that stands out like a sour thumb? Can I adjust anything to add to it? If I add a stroke here, would it make the whole piece better, or is it just fiddling? You may have to stand back and try to evaluate from ten feet away, to see if the larger value pattern makes sense. You may have to look at it right under your nose, and decide whether any area is too empty therefore in need of a mark, a textural interest, a subtle color change... You may have to go back and fourth several times, until losing fresh sight of the entire process and cannot go on any more... Yet you are still not sure whether it is done finally!

It is mentally tiring. It is a lot of work. But learning how to finish is also a critical lesson of learning to be an artist. And I'm glad that I am now forced to do it every day because of this challenge. 

Maybe this is one of the real reasons why I took on this challenge again... How about you? What attracted you to it, my artist friend?

On a different note... I almost forgot to mention: I have an art fair coming up this weekend! It is organized by Silicon Valley Open Studio and as an artist participating in the open studio events, I was juried into this exhibition at Jennings Pavilion of Holbrook-Palmer Park, located at 150 Watkins Avenue, Atherton, CA. The show runs on Friday September 6, from 5 pm until 8 pm, and on Saturday September 7, from 11 am to 4 pm. Admission is Free! Painters, sculptures, watercolorists, and photographers, along with others will display and sell their latest (and finest) work. I will have two 6'x 4' panels to hang my framed watercolor paintings, as well as a 4' table to display smaller pieces. If you have time, please also join me on Friday evening for a reception and a chance to meet the artists participating in the exhibit and discuss their work. You can enjoy the refreshments and cast your ballot for the "People's Choice Award". When you are there, please do pay a visit both to the main exhibit in the Jennings Pavilion as well as to the Highlight Gallery Exhibit in adjacent Palmer House -- the print of "High Summer Dreams II" will be showing there as a selected piece by the juror, Claire Verbiest. Looking forward to see you at the exhibition, my 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: