Watercolors, Experimental

Exploring different papers and different techniques is a must to a developing artist in my opinion.
All I need is some kind of paper and some kind of color to paint.  I've even painted on coffee filters in hotels, of course nowadays they don't use them that much any more.

The carnations below were masked for the white areas first and then poured over the thick paint, saving particular areas for the flowers.  Some of the petals are filled in last.

The lilies above are painted on watercolor board.

"The Grapes" is mixed media.  I painted the central area on rice paper like I do when Chinese brush painting, and then pasted the painting onto a canvas and painted around it using acrylic paints.  I can say that I invented this technique years ago to save myself from having to frame my Chinese brush painting under glass.  The disadvantage of glass is that it reflects the light.  OK, we can solve that problem by investing some money on non-glare glass.  It's also fragile and heavy of course.  OK, we can use plexiglass, but still have to deal with the glare.  Nowadays they make non-reflective plexiglass, so whatever works.

Flowers in oils

Working in oils has its pros and cons, of course.  It feels wonderful under the brush but I always have to wait for a nice, cool and dry day to do oils to get the fumes out.  Not an easy task when you live in a hot and humid climate.

Let's share some of my flowers with the viewers.

 

Flowers in watercolor, Gouache on Yupo

One of the most joyous ways to have fun painting, to me, is Gouache on Yupo.  Yupo is a non absorbant paper that feels more like plastic than paper really.

I'd like to share some of my flowers that were painted that way.

Flowers in watercolor, Chinese brush paintings

Flowers, a free gift of beauty from nature, who doesn't like them?

Being a naturalist, I have always been fascinated by the different charming shapes and colors of flowers.
Under watercolor, I've painted thousands of flowers in Chinese Brush Painting, Gouache and Western watercolors.

From top to bottom, here are my Hydrangea, Queen of the Night, Magnolias, Chrysanthemums, Kapoks and Ceres under the full moon, all in Chinese brush painting.

Plein air painting

One of the best ways to see lights and shadows is to paint outdoors under the natural light.  The sun, of course, moves fast, so we learn to paint fast.  There's something about painting in the fresh air that's unbeatable.  We endure the rain, wind, sunburns, allergies, cold, heat and everything the weather dictates just to achieve that spontaneity and freshness.

I painted my "Lilypads of the Liliponds" (above) on a winter day, not much sun but a lot of wind.  That was one of my first plein air paintings in the area called "Brookshire" in Texas.  I saw the real colors the way they actually were instead of working from a photograph.  Of course, being a colorist I have a tendency to exaggerate the colors a little.

My "Prickly Poppies" (below), on the other hand, was done on a very hot Texas summer day in an area outside of Austin with a fairly dry climate.  It was so hot that day that I had to paint indoors but the fun of it was that I would be going outside to observe the prickly poppies, their flowers and leaves, the anatomy and behavior of the whole plant before I could come inside to paint them from memory in the fashion of "a la prima".

Some experiences are hard to forget and the details of the process of painting these two paintings are still with me.

From Impressionism to Abstraction, Cozy vs Crazy

The painting on the left is my first in acrylics that I painted years ago.  I called it "The Archway to More".  This painting reassured me then that I was an impressionist.  It was unknown to me then where art may take me in the future but now, years later, after I painted the abstract painting on the right hand side -- called "The Fourway" because it looked right to me every which way I held it -- I understand that the world of art is endless indeed.

Now I know that I can call myself a realist, impressionist, contemporary artist, abstractionist, colorist.....maybe just an ARTIST because at this point I don't necessarily need to be inspired by any particular element to paint.  I can pick up the brush or palette knife and start painting and yet be confident that I will create an original painting that only I have created without being influenced by others.  All I had to do was to paint persistently, every chance I got, to get to where I am now and I hope I can continue producing more original works in the future to contribute to my growth even further.

My main source of inspiration is often Nature itself.  I paint out of what's on my mind which is the result of what I've observed, learned and experienced all my life.

Old and New, Drama vs Cheerfulness

The sunset landscape up far above is the first painting I did in oils years ago.

The abstract painting below that ("Golden Showers") is one of my latest in oils, talk about gravitating towards abstraction as we grow.

Amazing feeling, I get up in the morning, pick up a certain medium to go with my mood, choose my palette and get busy painting.   A few hours later I feel exhausted and starved.  Then I realize that I've just finished a painting without feeling the time.  Lately, I surprise myself when I step back and look at my final result!   Golden Showers gave me that feeling, very rewarding.

Today's show

Today I showed some paintings at JoMar gallery in Houston.  The three above were the stars posing for a lot of people who took many pictures of them. 

The one on top, I call "Zzzzz's of Nature", because it's soft and dreamy.  I used acrlylic paints and a soft brush. This one is one of my calmest paintings.  It happened some time after my dear father died.  I guess some of his calmness is reflected onto my paintings subconsciously.  I only became aware of it after I called it finished, noticing the lack of my usual vibrant colors.

The one in the middle is called "Origin", also in acrylics but using a palette kinfe and impasto technique, lots of paint heavily textured, with dry brush painting in some areas.

The one at the bottom named "Dragon Head Mountains" is done in oils using brush and palette knife. This one has a contemporary feel to it.  I call this type of painting "representational abstract".

From Realism to Abstraction

Most of us artists start as realists.  We soon find our own style and ways of rendering our artworks and develop towards our inner bank of unknown surprises.
I started arts with Chinese Brush painting years ago.  I learned the "traditional" method which is very realistic and soon advanced to "Ling Nan" method, an equivalent of western impressionism.

One of my realistic paintings (kingfisher) on the right, a contemporary figure ("Nothingness is Everythingness) in the middle, and one of my Ling Nan paintings (Lotus) are shown down bellow.  The one at the far bottom is an abstract that I call "Creation".  The top part of the painting represents a mother's womb and the part underneath shows the growth on Earth.                                                                                        Chinese paintings or Japanese Sumi-e paintings are basically the same art form and are usually painted in china ink on rice paper. I some times use western watercolor paper as I did to paint my Kingfisher painting on the right.  Of course everybody uses a range of watercolors depending on what they paint according to their preference.

             

                                             

I call this abstract painting below, "Creation". The top part of the painting represent a Mother's womb, the middle round shape in the middle represents the Sun and the lower part is Growth on Earth.

 To paint the top part (the womb), I dipped my brush in ink, started painting from the central left side, continued without lifting the brush from the paper till I ran out of ink around the central right area, Contour painting, in other words.   The red areas representing the ovaries was added later.

Spring is here!

 According to the solar-based ancient calendar, Mother Earth rejuvenates itself once a year around this time.   Inspired by the arrival of Spring, I painted these blossoms in oils but in the manner of Chinese Brush Painting.

And these pink blossoms below that I painted many springs ago are done in watercolor on watercolor paper.

 

Palm Painting

I finally got a chance to visit China last year.  Guilin is the place to be for an artist who does and teaches Chinese Brush Painting.
We were sightseeing when we came across a side walk artist, painting landscapes using the side of his palm, finger and fingernails.  He called this technique "palm painting".
I spent a few minutes watching him, bought a painting from him and decided to come home and try myself.
Here's the result:

All I used was china ink and my little pinkie.
This one was done on yupo.