Updates from Arena Shawn Watercolor Studio

Leslie Saeta's "30 Paintings in 30 Days" Challenge for this September is officially closing, and I sort of fell off the wagon again in the past few days due to preparation for the start of my atelier's new semester. I will be starting to paint in oil this coming semester! I am so excited and terrified at the same time... Luckily, I have you guys -- my wonderful artist friends who are veteran oil painters! Well, be prepared... I will be bugging you guys with tons of questions (many of which very silly I'm sure... :-P) I experimented with this water lily [...]

​This is the first one of my attempt to Leslie Saeta's yearly "30 paintings in 30 days" challenge - how wonderful it is that Leslie takes the trouble hosting this event twice every year! Although I have quite a few family and school-related obligations this September, and may not be able to complete a painting each day, I will definitely try to get as much done as I can! I think the whole spirit is to try to commit to painting every day, and not linger on a piece for too long so that the freshness could be kept (which is [...]

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? 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 [...]

Well... I have been brave (bragging, bragging... :-P) to take up artist friend Leslie Saeta's "30 Painting in 30 Days" challenge, and this is one of the first few pieces I have managed to finish. 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 [...]

"Sun Dance II" is juried into the 2013 exhibition at Filoli Garden - "Nature’s Many Splendors: Farms, Gardens and Woodlands". 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. The garden opens every Tuesday through Sunday from 10:00 am to 3:30 pm. Besides the art exhibitions, Filoli's other attractions include a lovely greenhouse with constant blooming flowers, and more than 600 acres' nature preserve with beautiful grassy hills and woodlands abundant with wildlife -- from turkey to deer. It is a great [...]