Updates from Arena Shawn Watercolor Studio

I've not painted many boats -- don't get me wrong, I really love them. Living on the coast and literally less than three miles away from the ocean, I almost come across them on a daily basis -- from gigantic ocean liners to tiny speed boats. But what impresses me most are the elegant sail boats that one is guaranteed to spot on a good sunny day in the San Francisco Bay, their smooth curved body braving the green-blue waves, their white sails catching east wind, zipping by at lightening speed. With the American Cup underway now in San Francisco, top-of-the-line [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]