"Spring Garden" (oil on stretched canvas; 12" x 16")

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Take a walk with me in the enchanted garden of white roses, May snowballs, and azaleas. The air is thick with the perfume of flowers. Time has stopped. Let's linger.

The Collage of My October 2015 Paintings

The collage of my October 2015 paintings

I was super productive last month until my accident!  Which painting is your favorite?  This month I will be probably busy with custom pet portraits for the holidays, but still intend to squeeze in a few watercolor florals.  Wish me luck!

"Azalea Sass" (watercolor; 8" x 8")

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Wednesday evening of the last week, I fainted at home and fell forward.  I lost consciousness for a few seconds.  When I came to, I was in excruciating pain in a big puddle of blood. I have several fractures in the nose and right cheek bone, which require surgery.  After hospitalization, several tests and more to come to find out what caused the fainting episode, I am taking it easy.

Even after a full recovery, things won't be the business as usual.  Life is precious.  Everyday is a blessing.

"Pink Peony Magic" (watercolor on Yupo; 8" x 10") sold

sold

Backlit pink peonies against a dark night sky.  Does it make sense?  Yes, because it's magic!  Of course, part of the magic is Yupo.  All the swirly stuff in the background was created by manipulating wet paints.  How?  I held the Yupo sheet gingerly by the edges and moved the paint puddles left and right, top to bottom as well.  Very messy and nerve-wrecking.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.  This time it worked!

The painting was published on the Daily Paintworks site this morning.  Someone left this comment: "Such a lush, translucent watercolor.  Strong use of this medium."  Isn't that nice?

The winner of "Moonrise over the Sea" is Elizabeth Ferguson.  Congratulations!  She is a relatively new fan and one of the most enthusiastic Facebook fans of mine.  She leaves a wonderful, positive comment on many posts.  Thank you, Elizabeth.  Artists are like movie stars.  They want to be seen and loved!

"Spring Garden" (oil on linen; 12" x 12")

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This beautiful and inviting front garden bursts with spring flowers: azaleas, irises, daisies, etc. Red poppies bloom on the painted mailbox perched on a tree stump. In the back I can see a pergola for grape vines. Wouldn't you like to walk up the stairs to look around?

"Azalea Woods" (oil on linen; 8" x 10") sold; "Iris Shadows" (oil on linen; 14" x 11") sold

sold

On the second day of Gregory Packard's workshop, Greg didn't do any demo.  What to do?  I did have some photos, but couldn't resist the fresh irises, azaleas, and many other flowers that some local workshop participants kindly brought from their gardens.  So I set out to do a still life painting of yellow and purple irises.  Boy, it was a big mistake!

My still life setup

"Iris Shadows" in original state

"Iris Shadows"
sold

Although the Bon Air Community Center, where the workshop was held, was a spacious, beautiful place, one thing it lacked was the spot lights.  Light was defused in the interior on a rainy day. There were shadows on the table, but they were faint. There were no distinct lit/shadow variations on the flowers.  I struggled for four hours, making up sunlight that didn't exist.  The yellow iris on the right opened up, so I had to change it from a bud to an open flower.

In the end, both Greg and I agreed that enough was enough.  The shadows were so big and dark that they competed with the flowers.  I filled the canvas with the flowers to the brim, so the painting became claustrophobic.  The flowers were overdone because I kept fiddling.

After I returned home, I decided to fix the painting.  Why not?  There was absolutely nothing to lose.  I introduced the table to break up the background.  I shrank and lightened the shadows.  I also decreased the size of some flowers and made some bluer, or purpler, etc. so that they were not all the same.  All in all, I think, the painting looks better.  It feels airy.

To get frustration out of system, I decided to do a landscape during the remaining hour.  I pulled out a photo of azaleas blooming in sunny woods.  Using the piles of paints on my palette, I whipped out "Azalea Woods" so fast that even I, a notoriously fast painter, was surprised at my speed.  Greg was impressed too.

The difference between the two painting experiences that day is that when I have a game plan, I paint decisively, assured of what I am doing.  When I try to make up things as I go along because I don't have a clue, no matter how hard I work at a painting, it goes nowhere!

"Pig in the Garden" (watercolor on paper; 12" x 16") sold

sold

Speaking of azaleas, how about this painting of azaleas?  You don't want a pig in the garden, unless, of course, it is a cute statue like this.  There is a story behind the statue, which used to belong to the brother-in-law of my dear friend, Marilyn.  After he passed away, nobody in her family wanted the "ugly thing."  I wanted it.  I love pigs.  I was born in the year of the Pig too!

"Azalea Shadows" (acrylic on canvas; 20" x 16")

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What would happen if I apply the same approach that I have been using for my watercolor florals on a white ground to the medium of acrylic that dries fast like watercolor?  That's exactly what I did with "Azalea Shadows".  I didn't want the ground to be chalky white so, guess what, I went "wild" with pink!

I arranged the azaleas from my garden to cast beautiful blue shadows. Can you find a butterfly shape in the shadow?  If you are looking for a happy painting, this is it!

Edges are all crisp, as in my watercolors.  I used to think that paintings with all hard edges are no good.  That is one of the reasons that I had stopped painting in watercolors.  Now that I have evolved and matured more as an artist, I don't have such an attitude.  Beauty in art comes in all different edges!

By the way, I took a flower arrangement class for a year at college; flower arrangement is a big deal in Korea and Japan.  I am wondering if my "floral education" is finally paying off!

"Spring Bouquet with Azaleas" (oil on linen, 14" x 11") sold

sold

I thought I would paint some azaleas before they die out.  What other flowers would complement them?  I found chives, sweet williams and blue pincushion flowers.  After the latest still life project, I learned my lesson, so this painting is smaller, the vase a simple blue mug, and the cloth just a backdrop.  As the azaleas were already showing signs of stress, I also took a picture as a backup.

I zoomed in to fill the canvas with the setup.  The design employs a classic cross shape.  The white azaleas in the shadow had to be repainted a couple of times so that they were keyed correctly.

"Azalea Garden" (oil on linen, 9" x 12") sold

sold

Back to River Farm in Alexandria, VA.  It was supposed to be in the 80's with scattered thunderstorms today.  As you can see above, it turned out to be a breezy, but gorgeous spring day.  I sat on the ground in the dappled shade and painted what I saw--lovely azaleas against a low red-brick wall.  A rather shallow space.  Hmmm.

Originally, I had painted in a fake blue sky behind the wall.  Sara Linda Poly, my plein-air painting teacher, suggested grayed woods instead.  During the lunch/critique, a friend of mine protested against the brick wall.  After a heated debate (I saying that the wall was there, he saying that it detracted from the beauty of azaleas), Sara mediated with the idea of introducing the blues and greens to the wall and adding a bit of sky to the background.  I went back to the azalea bed and modified the painting as suggested.

The moral of today's painting session, I think, is humility.  I was pleased with my painting and even thought about skipping the critique.  Although I was a bit annoyed at my friend's critique, I listened and tried to look at my work with an open mind.  He did have a point.  There was a lot of reflected light on the wall from the mulched bed and light greens of the plants.  It was practically glowing--something you cannot see in the photo.  The wall was not a red-brick color as I had painted.  Smug self-satisfaction is something we artists should watch out for.