Lake During Overcast

I did a few studies of the lake during overcast for Landscape Painting class last summer. The last image is probably the biggest painting I've done...I started it as the final piece for Landscape painting, but it took another semester to finish. I enjoy painting patterns in nature abstract :)



Study 1 Gouache on canvas panel

Study 2 Gouache

Gouache and acrylic

Figure drawings

Here's a couple figure drawings from last year.
These two are probably my favorites.


Pastels on gouache washed paper


Graphite

Anticipation

So I actually painted the balloon sketch posted earlier today. It felt like a painting day. Hopefully there will be more painting days.

It's all gouache. Here's also a better scan of the sketch.


Anticipation

New doodles

Quick badly lit photos of last week ~ today's doodles.
Planning to try the balloon one in gouache, and work more into the brain salad one.

The Blue Bird Theory

Here's a series I've done with watercolor, india ink and pencil. I really like this combination. I hatched using a very light pencil, so it didn't capture in photograph very well.

This series is inspired by the concept of blue bird of happiness from the opera L'oiseau bleu (The Blue Bird). I've always liked the story, I discovered it when I was little as a children's book. I was thinking about the struggle within ourselves when we can't let something precious go even after we realize it's an illusion, and end up being possessed by the illusion of happiness. I originally had more pieces in mind for this series with another character, so I might come back to it.



Click to enlarge

The Blue Bird Theory


Stage 1



Stage 2



Stage 3


Some detail shots

well

I think I'm going to migrate to tumblr.
So here it is :)

http://sleepyrae.tumblr.com

Spring Art Sale and documentation!

Thank you for everyone who have purchased my works, encouraged and visited me at the Spring Art Sale! I am dancing around in happiness. (some of you might actually have caught me dancing behind the table at the sale)

*
Dear purchasers,
Thank you so so much! Please feel free to contact me if you have any questions :) I hope you enjoy them as much as I did creating them!
*

So prior to the sale, I finally documented most of my works (including the ones not in the sale) with appropriate lighting and camera. I love using umbrellas on lights, they're so strange and fantastic. Perhaps this fascination partially has to do with the fact that I created a cabbage umbrella during First Year Program. That was fun carrying it down the street, on a bright sunny day. (I couldn't fold it without destroying the interior, so it was transported above my head)

Okay, back to the documentation. So sometime soon these documentations shall be edited and ready to be posted either here or on my website(most likely after I stop screaming about the internship application I'm working on). The only pieces I couldn't photograph was my attacking birds watercolor/pencil drawing series...because of their delicate lines, it must be scanned. So those three pieces missed the art sale...but you might see it in the Holiday Art Sale! (I hope!)

Figure paintings from winter session

Scroll down to just skip my blah-ing and see more images :)


I used to be really afraid of painting beyond watercolor. In order to overcome my fear of painting, I tried gouache in Elizabeth Ockwell's watercolor class a year ago. Something clicked. I continued with gouache in Richard Deutsch's summer Landscape Painting class, and gave acrylics a second chance last semester in Karl Wirsum's Water based Painting Studio.

And then, it was time to tackle my biggest enemy. Oil paint.

It was like alien from Mars to me. Not the friendly kind with big marbly eyes that waves at you and asks if they could join you for breakfast french toast and coffee in an exotic but also robotic intonation. Oil paint to me was more like the alien with 100 poisonous tentacles doing a demonic hula dance hissing "I'm gonna eat 'chuu" in a not so cute sounding alien language. It was the stage boss. And I had to fight you to go on to the next level. (I had a video game night with my friends last night, if you can tell)

Since I got so much out of Marion Kryczka's Figure Drawing class, I decided to take his Figure Painting class over winter session. 3 weeks non stop oil painting.

And who knew? Next moment I'm hula dancing with this actually friendly alien, even drinking my breakfast coffee together. Oil painting lets me give off my artistic energy in a different way from my detail obsessed drawing. I actually like the slow drying time. The process may be physically exhausting, but it's the fun kind of exhaust. The kind you're proud and satisfied of.

Now my next challenge is figuring out a way to combine my painting style with my line drawings without them clashing. :P



Please excuse my poor lighting, I'm still learning about documentation.
There's funny glare on all of them distorting the actual colors. :(
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Mid-term self portrait