Updates from Arena Shawn Watercolor Studio

"Crystal Springs Sunset" started out as an exercise in Stan Miller's workshop. Using a black-and-white photograph as reference, Stan asked us to use any colors -- arbitrary colors even, like green for the clouds -- to paint each shape, mostly wet on dry, soften edges as we go. The only requirement is to get the shapes painted in color as close in value as the black-and-white reference photo. It was a very valuable exercise, teaching me the importance of value to create a believable illusion of three-dimensions on a two-dimensional surface. As long as the value relationships are right, almost any color [...]

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 [...]

​Second day's painting for Leslie Saeta's September 2014 "30 Paintings in 30 Days" challenge - I've started a couple of landscapes today but only finished this one. I have not painted this wet for a while - with paper dripping with water and the painting elevated at a steep angle, every passage is an exhilarating yet scary race against time. My aim is to finish the entire painting in one wet-to-dry cycle, getting the background mountains in when the paper is soaking wet so that the colors would run and diffuse smoothly, then putting in the fall foliage and darker shrub [...]

​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 [...]

(See a Larger Version of this Painting Here)   A while ago (yes, in the last 30/30 challenge!) I've explored this theme and really loved the composition. Back during my trip back China visiting my parents, I've got the opportunity to sketch out some old fishing boats and dingles that are common sights along the river ways of populated historical cities and towns built on the fertile delta of Yangzi River, so I thought I'd do a series of painting featuring various interesting ancient boat designs. I also wanted to try out different materials and this is the first time I painted on a hot press [...]

I was quite busy over the past weekend, trying to finish some paintings for the "Art in the Park" event held in the central park of the lovely tri-valley city of San Ramon. And the show was a true blast! Not only did I meet some old collector friends, gained some new ones, I also got to meet a lot of wonderful artists working in a whole range of media from monotype and collage to pastel over traditional Chinese ink painting... The quality of artists are the highest among all the art fairs I have participated in, and they did a [...]

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 [...]

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 [...]