"Rock Piles in Yellow Mountain"

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This is my second painting in my "A pile of things" series. The scene is the Yellow Mountain in Anhui China. It has a pile of rocks and a pile of trees. I felt slightly better than my previous painting. The rock pile seems more solid and tree piles start to show more believable structures. My objective in the current project is the texture presentation. I am glad I can see tree trunks in the painting. There still has quite amount of ambiguity in my tree mass, but I have progressed.

"Blue Bucket"

6" x 8", oil on canvas, framed, $300 + shipping
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Sorry I have not been active in painting lately. I have run into some personal trouble, and have to deal with it alone. My mood now will be reflected by the Imagine Dragons's song "Demons".

This is a beautiful painting. However, the beauty is hypocritical. Only the blue is the truth.

"Mountain Labor"

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Last September, a group of artists and I arrived at the top of the Yellow Mountain (China) by cable car. However I have found that the most of supplies for hotels on the top of mountain was carried up manually. The work is very hard. I feel sorry, but that is their way of make a living. I took quite few photos. The painting was done based one of them.

It was a few days struggle to do this painting (no comparison to the person who carried a giant oxygen tank climbing who knows how many steps). Somehow I feel this is my self portrait as well, carrying a heavy load on my journey going up. There is no way back, and there is still a long way to go. Even I don't know if I can make it.

Tomorrow will be the deadline for my 2016 China trip. We still need a few more people to make this trip a "Go". I hope some of you can join us. I am very sure it will be a wonderful trip.

"Red Hair"

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Painting figures is really my dream. When I started painting, I immediately went into figurative. Very soon I have realized how difficult it could be. So I took a detour and went into still life painting to strengthen my foundations. You have seen I only occasionally paint head studies and figure practices. So fast, more than a decade has passed. Now I come back to my try love.

"Pink Rose Study 02" --- Sold

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Flower painting, I have done quite a bit, but I still see much more room for improvement. I'd like to paint from life as much as possible, but this one I did from a photo. When I in a studying mode, I tend to paint very slowly. The flower does not want to sit still. It grows right in front of me. Some time I paint so slowly that I feel I was chasing the growth of the flower.

I have started an new online activity: selling my art directly from my website. Please check my "Available Paintings" web page. I want to be the gallery owner of my own art. I appreciate all of you to support my new endeavor in this part of art business. If you have any suggestions, please let me know. Thanks.

"Demo at Lancaster 2016 2" --- Sold

For the second demo at Lancaster, I showed painting architectural structure from photograph. This project gave me more chances of using palette knifes. The key to get a good architectural painting is to make sure the perspective is correct. I tried my best to manage the perspective on this one, but it still was not perfect. Well, I have learned.

"Demo at Lancaster 2016 1" --- Sold

After Williamsport workshop, I drove a few hours in the rain and arrived at Lancaster PA. In the wonderful Amish country, I did two paintings. I want to thank Beth Bathe for putting this one-day art class together, and thanks to all the artists for coming to see how I paint. I like that silver tea pot a lot, I deliberately put the handle to the front to cast a nice shadow across a high light. Dramatic effects can happen any time. We just need to pay attention.

"Demo at Williamsport 2016 3" --- Sold

Silver and roses, they are the two my favorite items I love to paint in my still life paintings. I like the contrast of textures. The glossiness of the metal and delicate softness of the flowers make the painting still life exciting.

"Demo at Williamsport 2016 2" --- Sold

Now it is common I paint something I never painted before when I demo for the workshop. I had a lot of fun painting that oil coffee grander, which is my first time painting it.

"Demo at Williamsport 2016 1" --- Sold

I am a way behind. Before I went to Tucson, I was in Pennsylvania and did quite a few paintings there. This one was my first demo painting on the Williamport workshop. I want thank Bibi Brion for organizing my workshop, and thank all the artists for attending. We had a few snowy days, but inside the Pajama Factory was warm and happy. I saw so many old props, felt like in an antique show. I had a delicious feeling when I paint this one.

"Demo at Sacramento 2016 3" --- Sold

Demo three: painting flowers. When I set up the still life, that flower was rather small, but it grew so fast. During the demo, it got so big making my composition off the balance.

"Demo at Sacramento 2016 2" --- Sold

I really like the second demo I did. My color presentation gets more impressionistic now. Colors do not need to "belong to" any physical objects. I concern more how to make the painting better rather than to make the scene realistic.

BTW I am at Williamsport, PA now and started another workshop teaching.

"Demo at Sacramento 2016 1" --- Sold

This is my demo 1 on my Sacramento workshop. However, what I want to say today is that this painting was done about two weeks ago.

Life has successfully stopped me from painting for about two weeks now. I must admit that I have lost the battle this time. Like most of people on this world, I was sooooo busy. This busy-ness has driven me nuts. Painting? who care about that? I have been doing "important" things.

Being busy is a very dangerous disease. The Chinese character for "busy" has two parts: the left means "heart" and the right means "death". So if you are too busy, your heart will die. If you feel no way out of those "important" things, you want to be alert now. This world will turn you into a zombie.

I want to thank Patris Miller for organizing this workshop and thanks all the California artists for coming and paint with me.

"Demo at LAAFA 2016 3" --- Sold

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My third demo: painting flowers. I have got more and more abstract nowadays, some time even chaotic. This painting is reflecting the current status of my mind. This year is rather difficult year for me. Quite many friends has asked me. "You teach so many workshops. Do you feel tired? Have you felt burnt out?" Well, what can I say? As a matter of fact, I have been burnt out a long time ago. On this difficult journey, I don't have much choice except keeping on going, and going. Experience the hard time makes the art more meaningful.

"Demo at LAAFA 2016 2" --- Sold

This is the second demo at LAAFA. Apples are my favorite still life objects. This painting is predominately warm. So the green apple stands out more and becomes the center of focus.

"Demo at LAAFA 2016 1"

LAAFA (Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art) is a wonderful school provides rigorous training of the academic way of drawing, painting, and sculpting. I am really honored to teach still life painting workshops here. It is my second time coming to LAAFA. I want to thank all the wonderful artists for attending my class. This is my first demonstration.

"Plein Air at Xidi Village (Day 2)"

I have started another large painting. When I was at Xidi last September, I saw so many artists plein air painting all over the place. I really want to do several serious paintings to reflect the lives in this small place. You have seen I painted quite a few doorways there, but that was just the necessary foundation work. This one I start to involve more figures, which are the artists in the village. I know it is a challenge for me to paint any serious painting with my fragmented time, but I will give a try.

"Xidi Doorway 7"

I used this ref photo the second time. Xidi village is the place that keeps coming back in my dreams. This morning I painted this Xidi doorway again. I want to practice this technique more to gain more control and gradually develop a style. There is a Chinese character on the red sign posted about the door, I have waiting the paint to dry to write it on.

"Boedges Study 1"

Mark Boedges is the artist I started to follow very recently. I met him at the Scottsdale Artists' School last month and saw his paintings at the Legacy Gallery. I like the way Mark composes his color designs. Pure landscape painting is not my cup of tea, but I want to study and practice more to get better. So I decided to copy a few Mark's paintings to understand more how he handle his colors. This is the first one I have done.

"Demo at Sedona 2016 3" --- Sold

The flower demo was on the last day of the workshop. I saw a bouquet of white roses casually set in an empty can. I move it to my still life station. It is almost perfect as my subject. However, from my greediness, I tried to "arrange" it to make it "better". Well it ends into a disaster. Finally I have to pull all the flowers out of the can and redo it. It happens too often, that the mother nature presents the best design for us, but our ego will come to say: I can do better. Well the result is often the opposite. So the ability to "discover" is more important than the ability to "create".