Painted With Much Affection

I am getting older, and perhaps wiser. Somehow, the process of searching for my own modern aesthetics is not satisfying. So, I just paint what matters to me. I spent quite a bit of time painting this picture of my daughter. She is an ex-classical musician, and now a litigation attorney working in NY City. We visited her in May and went to Metropolitan Art Museum to see the Picasso exhibition.

I spent quite a bit of time composing this picture. The figure in Picasso painting and Chi-Ru are facing in opposite directions creating some interesting dynamics. It also presents me with some difficult design issues to solve. I use the picture frame on the right side to stop the visual path from going out. Same mechanism is provided by the strip of wall on the left. The repeated vertical lines with varying spacing creates some sense of rhythm. I painted her in a confident, inquisitive, and yet feminine posture, a lady litigator. The "zebra" print on her dress supports the large area of hair, painted relatively flat, and leads to her face.

I really enjoyed the process of making this seemingly simple picture.

Put In Stings to the Picture

I took a picture of the previous post and load it in ArtRage 4. It has stickers of bees. One can vary the size, orientation, and put it on the picture. I thought this gives some needed "sting" to the picture.

Suppression of Ego

I painted the second one. But, it is a larger than life, strongly egoistic image. I thought it will be good if I paint a triptych starting with self-inflating image, to self-doubting, and finally to the suppression of ego that is in peace with...
That should be the goal I set for myself in life.
So, I paint this image that is merging into the background. Don't quite get what I want. Just the best effort for now.

wax medium

After the wax-mixed-paint dries, I use a hair dryer to heat up the paint. It does give a nice sheen resembling the encaustic painting. I will mix more wax and use thicker paint in my next experiment to see whether one can get close to a painting using traditional encaustic technique.

Buddha in Us

Continue trying wax medium using self-portrait. This is a larger picture at 30x30. Buddhism's searching Buddha in ourselves is quite an attractive idea relative to asking the divinity for salvation.

Photos Turn Art - Anching's Work

These are work by Anching Lin (or Anking Lim) using a software on the photographs he took in Taiwan. I am just amazed how well these photographs turn into pretty convincing pencil sketches. Do click on each picture to enjoy the convincing pencil strokes and marks.

Red Door - Another self-portraist

I bought the wax painting medium. I am using self portrait trying to learn how to use the new medium. I paint in the garage. This is my painting corner.