Quick Hit

For a friend’s housewarming, I painted the outfit my friend wore in her recent Kathak dance performance, which I attended with that friend group.

I was so diligent on this project! I was inspired by another friend's suggestion on a Tuesday, did a sketch to test viability, and ordered supplies that night. Picked up supplies on Wednesday, painted it all that night, and applied isolation coat/varnish (first time for me!) on Thursday and Friday. Gifted it during the friend's housewarming on Saturday (which went until 2am doing absolutely nothing in the most chill way possible).

I’m not posting this painting to the IG, but still wanted to document a few random thoughts on the process:

-Gifting: Before this, I’ve made 2.5 other paintings for other people as gifts. In general, I don’t like to paint for gifts due to a combination of (1) lack of inspiration, (2) not liking the expectation, and (3) not wanting to give away my creations, legitimately. But this one was fun because I was super excited about the idea. (My vision for the subject matter, pose, medium came really quickly.) I was also warmed up from my painting retreat, which made it lower activation energy.

-Uncertainty: Sometimes I surprise myself with how easy paint is to work with. For the two hours it took me to complete this, it was looking wonky for a good hour. But the amount of control and ability to “erase”/adjust indefinitely using acrylics, really helped in making the angles and proportions look right in the end. I was extremely unsure whether I could do it, since it is a larger human figure than the characters in my Christmas card series, but it felt similar enough that there was hope to be worth a try!

-Medium: I knew immediately that I wanted to paint on a ceramic coaster to make into a magnet. This might be my first time painting on anything that’s not canvas. But having prepped with many base coats of gesso on the unglazed side, the painting experience really wasn’t much different. To assemble the magnet, I superglued 3 small neodymium magnets to the back, which I tested to be the right strength.

-Varnish: This was also my first time trying varnish, but I felt it was important to protect the piece. My varnishing did the job, though the edges were uneven. There's more I'd have to figure out to be confident enough to varnish my other paintings. I'd need to find the right larger brush, and solve the issues of dust and streakiness. I also learned that the varnishing process is lengthy. Isolation coat should be put on after the painting is completely dry which could be several days post-painting. Varnish is then put on a day or more after the isolation coat.

The part of my vision that didn't pan out was that I wanted everyone to sign the back, but markers wouldn't stick to the shiny glaze of the original coaster. That would have been perfect though if it worked out.

But yes, this was a fun and productive gift project. I don’t have an urge to paint another gift. It is difficult. But no one’s asking either so I don’t have to worry about it. :)

It turns out, this is the best photo I have. Don't mind the shadows.

Composition of Identity... Unironically

I’ve been experiencing good change in small ways recently, and of course discovering that any change that I don’t anticipate, even if it’s good, feels weird! I felt this with Thanksgiving painting retreat this year – while painting has always been a happy escape, I didn’t need an escape this year (although two and a half days of being quasi-off the grid was nice). I think this has been a good year – I’m happier and less "what am I doing?" existential overall, and perhaps have found different methods to self-regulate as well. But it does make me a little nostalgic for the more neurotic headspace of past painting projects; where did she go? Should we search for her??

Ideation: Brainstorming the creative vision felt rusty and rushed this time. This painting is a version of my original idea from last year for an underwater seascape with fish characters from my childhood like Spiderman. Since I already painted the background last year, I was constrained to this theme and decided to reimagine the fish to express things I care more about presently. (I'm beginning to think that I think about myself too much, but this is what I care about.) Namely, I have been thinking about the evolution and reconciliation of my East coast and West coast personalities, so the fish represent different aspects of who I am or was, with my success-oriented experiences represented in the fish along the bottom-right to top-left diagonal, and my freer, curiosity-oriented self on the cross-diagonal, generally. I suddenly feel like I’m thinking and talking about myself too much. Hope no one has to read this. 

Painting process: 

-Color: I didn’t have a clear plan for color, so I played with muting the jellyfish and turtle colors with more blue tones, as an underwater scene would realistically do. I potentially should have muted the coral reef the same way (although color mixing would have extended and already tedious process.) I also found it difficult/annoying to mix an aqua blue, that had enough green tint but not desaturated, so there are some wonky bits in the background due to that difficulty. 

-Composition: On composition, I scattered the fish evenly, as the canvas was too narrow to do much else. If I had the space or played around with it more, having one larger cluster of fish might have conveyed better flow. There were also some holes I had to fill on the fly at the end, where the seahorse, dust motes, and skeleton fish now sit. They are welcome additions.

-Illustrations: In terms of the fish, it took about 30-45 mins per fish mainly driven by needing to layer for opacity. The “Taylor Swift” fish took the most revisions, and is likely my least favorite because it doesn’t resemble the inspiration. The hiking, Linus and skeleton fish are the next-least favorites, however the variance in quality among the fish in this painting is overall tighter than my previous egg painting, so I’m happy about that. The only other thing is that I’m not sure whether the back foot of the turtle makes sense, but not overthinking it.

 

List of fish (top to bottom; fish marked in asterisk for those representing key formative points): 

-*Green/white (“Consulting” fish): Representing my time working at OW, inspired by a work outfit from that time – a ruffled green blouse and an expensive Kate Spade scalloped cream cardigan. (Time period: OW) 

-Airplane (“Aviation” fish): Representing my aviation affiliation at OW. (Time period: OW) 

-Pastel X (“Pastel Kaws” fish): Inspired by one of my favorite manicures I've done on myself (sparkly pastel holos with white X), which itself was inspired by the popular Kaws bears, one of which was in the lobby of the OW New York office and is also a key feature in RM’s office decor/jhope’s album art. (Time period: OW / my visual art preferences) 

-Scuba diving (“Scuba diving” fish): Representing the adventurous excursions I've experienced while traveling (and conversely, the lack of opportunities/friends to go scuba diving again with these days). Also, I was pretty tickled by the idea of a fish in scuba gear. (Time period: OW / my adventurous preferences) 

-Kangaroo (“Kangaroo” fish): Representing animal encounters that I enjoyed while traveling, especially solo traveling. (Time period: OW / my solo travel preferences)

-Sunset cityline (“Hong Kong cityline” fish): Representing the Hong Kong cityline during golden hour and my heritage ties to that place. (Time period: throughout)

-Linus (“Linus” fish): Representing one of my mom’s favorite characters. (Time period: childhood / throughout) 

-Purple/sparkles (“Magical” fish): Representing magic as a genre of shows/books that I love. I had Hotel del Luna and Elantris in mind, though the palette also unintentionally reminds me of Tangled. (Time period: early adult) 

-*Squiggly lines (“Calculus” fish): Representing studying in high school, particularly inspired by note-taking for BC Calc. (Time period: high school) 

-Yellow/bow (“Taylor Swift” fish): Supposedly inspired by Taylor Swift Love Story, which was one of my favorite songs in high school. I tried so many iterations to depict her dress from the music video that just didn't work. I landed on a simple design to capture the vintage gold color palette and added bow/swirls in the color of Speak Now album for visual interest. 

-Green/black (“Hiking” fish): Representing my new lifestyle habits since moving to the Bay Area, inspired by a current hiking outfit. It’s a green cropped jacket, lululemon leggings, and a grandma-style visor hat. This outfit is fairly mismatched, but I don’t seem to care. (Time period: current) 

-*Gray hoodie (“Gray hoodie” fish): Representing the general casualness of the work+life dress code (and attitude) of the Bay area which I have adopted since moving here, inspired by my oversized COS hoodie from Korea which still has an edge of chic imo. (Time period: current) 

-White llama (“RJ” fish): Illustrating the character RJ (from BT21 by Jin of BTS), of whom I have a lot of merch because RJ is cute and easy to match with my aesthetic. (Time period: pandemic to current / my preferences for self-care) 

-*Purple whale (“BTS whale” fish): Illustrating the BTS Tiny Tan whale, which I have in plushie form in original packaging. (Time period: pandemic to current) 

-Orange/cream (“Hamtaro” fish): Illustrating Hamtaro, the character and stuffed plushie that my sisters and I played with when we were younger. (Time period: later childhood) 

-*Strawberry (“Strawberry/TCS” fish): Representing a strawberry-patterned outfit I wore when I was very young, as well as a plaid hunter-navy tail as a call back to my middle school TCS school uniform. TCS was probably lower t traumatic, and therefore very formative. (Time period: early childhood + middle school)

-Skeleton (“Skeleton” fish): Representing a minimalistic sketch style of art that I like, but also because a transparent fish looks cool. (Time period: n/a)

"Ocean Depths"

My Favorite Things, Revisited

Woo yay I finished it! I designated this Thanksgiving break as an art retreat, and it was nice to have this detailed piece completed for my portfolio this year.

Recently, the storytelling mode in my brain has not been fully functional, so I'll be speaking in bullets today.

Art process

• Ideation: Trying to move away from abstract, I went back to painting lists – each egg here depicts a piece of art that I have loved or been moved by recently (incidentally, the fact that these images are copied/inspired did make this piece a bit easier). The nest concept is inspired by the pigeons who intruded my balcony this year and our ongoing battle for territory.

• Process: It took me a couple sessions to do the nest, and I'm relieved it came out well. I spent about 16 hours on the 14 eggs. A couple comments on my work environment, I listened to and finished The Seven Husbands of Evelyn Hugo ebook as well as most of The Witchtrials of JK Rowling limited series podcast during this project. Also, the lighting in my apartment is not ideal so I've found that application can be spotty or messy without me realizing it in the moment.

• Overall thoughts: Thanks to recent progress in therapy, I was much less hung up on how perfect/imperfect the output was this time. Having said that, the lowlights are that this piece is not particularly cohesive, and I tend not to like the landscape-y eggs as much (nature is not my forte). The highlights are that the concept is unique and I really like at least half of the eggs. One major thing I contemplated early on was whether I could make the eggs look more 3D, however I think that would require perspective warping, lighting and shadow effects which are well above my skillset.

Egg List

If you recall, one of my first paintings was also vignettes of my favorite media. As before, I will discuss each egg starting from the top right.

(1) Karl Lagerfeld coat: This year's Met Gala Lagerfeld exhibit was beautiful and impressive.

(2) Yayoi Kusama's Death of Nerves: Another great museum piece; this was at M+ in Hong Kong. I did arrange the cords myself, inspired by the original.

(3) RM's Indigo: BTS members released solo albums this year, and I covered (my favorite) three albums in this painting. RM's egg depicts a mashup of two scenes from the Wild Flower music video -- petals in the wind at dusk and firework sparks in the night sky. As mentioned, I generally don't love the natural color palette and had to redo the dusk part once, but Wild Flower and the other music videos on the album were stunning and I wanted to represent them here.

(4) SUGA's D-Day: SUGA's was my favorite concert I attended this year, which is almost blasphemy considering that Taylor Swift also happened. I initially put paintbrush to canvas for the teal jacket from the Haegeum music video, but I was too out of practice with detailed painting, so called an audible to paint the simpler Amygdala music video instead. The lyrics for D-Day (and Indigo) are relatively profound.

(5) Jungkook's GOLDEN: Finishing off the BTS vignettes, while the GOLDEN album was less artistic and more for mass appeal, the mini-concert depicted here was the pinnacle of a fabulous promotion period overall. This purple background recalls the opening of Magic Shop in the set, and the staircase references the really entertaining mid-concert chitchat. Good send-off vibes as JK and the other remaining members head off to enlistment.

(6) Gold Crown Ornament at Gyeongju National Museum (item 618): I didn't get much historical context on this particular artifact (don't come at me if this symbolizes something bad I don't know about), but it's no surprise this was a memorable museum visit in Korea, as I generally find Korea and dynastic Asian history interesting.

(7) Pickle by Moriah Elizabeth: As one of two art Youtubers featured here, Moriah Elizabeth specializes in painting pastel rainbow plushies, and may or may not have a target demographic of children. Regardless, Pickle the Dinosaur is one of her classic characters and I watch her new videos upon release every Friday.

(8) Make Stuff with Stories by Nerdforge: Martina (and Hansi) from their Youtube channel specialize in epic fantasy-inspired creations, and Martina herself is a very talented painter. Depicted is the cover design of their sketchbook merch.

(9) Studio Ghibli scene: One more bonus Youtube-inspired piece, this egg was inspired by the jelly gouache painting videos that I periodically watch, which are so ASMR and clean. The execution turned out way better than I expected (but the egg shape made it hard to maintain straight lines and stay centered overall).

(10) Speckled robin's egg: I just wanted to put a regular egg in. I used the splatter technique, but didn't do it outside like I normally do, out of laziness, so suspect I'll be finding black specks around my dining room area for a bit... In hindsight, I wish I did both black and white speckles

(11) Watercolor sketch: I'm really enamored with a watercolor sketch-y style of tattoo that periodically shows up on r/tattoo. My vignette couldn't capture the thin black lines typical of this style. However, I love how the background turned out, thanks to the colors (which I fortuitously had from leftover paints) and the new technique I used to mimic watercolor texture. 

(12) Neon jelly: My favorite nail polish brand, Holo Taco, released fluorescent jelly nail polish this year, and one aesthetic trend was to layer colors in a plaid pattern. I had to buy cheap craft store acrylic paint for this, so it really brought me back to the OG days of painting the same square five times to get opacity. The result is all bumpy, but I put real holographic nail polish on top, which smoothed it out slightly. The execution is unkempt but the egg is overall very cool.

(13) Dragon scales: I dedicated some time to learning how to paint scales. I want to make scales even more glowy/shiny/dimensional next time, but I'm happy with how this turned out, and think a dragon egg in this nest is awesome.

(14) Dewey beachhouse: Well, my dear friend and book buddy passed away this year, so I painted the view from her guest bedroom (where I always stayed) as an homage. We met when I was in first grade as part of a school reading program, and kept in touch through my childhood and then through her retirement living in Dewey Beach. I'm sorry that I'm not better at naturalistic scenery, but the sunset is a callback to one of my paintings that she liked. I really treasured my time with her; may she rest in peace.

"Nest Eggs"

Reference images:

Links: [11], [12]

Addendum #10: Sandcastle

Phewph, I've used up all my excess paint! In addition to this one, I got through half of another Addendum before I finally ran out.

While this concept was the practical choice to use up large amounts of colors, painting it wasn't super enjoyable. Doing several Addendums in a row was getting boring and blocky squares are not my vibe. However, this does exude a certain kindergarten fun.

With that, I'm done with my fourth painting in 4 consecutive days. I have several great ideas on the docket, so I'm excited to figure out how to work on larger projects while maintaining the rest of my life (realizing now, I have not painted any major projects outside of quarantine).

Addendum #9: Cappadocia

As I said last time, I ended up doing quite a planned and high quality Addendum here, because I had so much excess paint to pick from.

I am in a very completionist headspace right now, trying to get through all this excess paint (don't know why there's so much). After the last Addendum on Saturday, I have taken 5 hours tonight (a weeknight) completing this painting and the base of a whole other one (just need to add detail). I wonder if I'll change my plans for the week and finish up the excess paint in the next couple evenings. (It will probably take me through to part of a fourth one.)

I've had this idea to paint Cappadocia for a long time, but never did it properly because it was on the cusp of being too difficult and not inspiring enough. Executing this idea as an Addendum was a good approach. My light critique of this painting is that the outlines of the baskets were an afterthought and slightly too dark, the two-toned sky is a little funky, the leftmost balloon colors is the least like the others, but the texture/depth on the mountains worked better than expected.

Yay, this was fun!

Addendum #8: Planter

This one is quite cool! It reminds me of an art style I'll have to look up the name of later -- not exactly Picasso, but color block-y.

It would have looked really interesting if the leaves had more sections of different colors. But practically speaking, I have large amounts of paint in several colors, and was trying to get through them.

I still have a whole bunch of excess paint, and hoping to get through them in the next Addendum later this weekend. I've never started an Addendum with all the paint that I have to use, so maybe I can plan something more interesting.

Apparently, this kind of plant is called a Bird of Paradise.

Pastel Detox

I have been gravitating towards expressing feelings or concepts in abstract recently, but the thinking part of my brain also finds these less satisfying to paint or to look at. It can get boring quickly if I do multiple in a row.

So this painting is a compromise of real and abstract things. Similar to the last post, I still feel that my recent paintings are lacking in creativity/newness but also feel really me -- like that they always existed and I'm just manifesting them now.

I chose to do this painting over others that I might have been more excited to start, because I'm trying to get through my rainbow ideas and clear out my current paint pots.

The concept for this painting is focus, inspired by a fun concert I attended. I have resolved to being more focused/committed and that has returned good results so far:

-Focusing helps me experience more nuance and enjoyment, represented by the colored dots in the middle vs. gray dots on the edge

-But I also can't help that my thoughts wander to think about related things, indicated by the spotlights pointed in different directions and the many dots on the periphery

Application:

-Gradient backgrounds always make it more challenging/limiting in erasing/undo/fix what's on top

-The dots feel wonky and I can't put my finger on why. I used a dotting tool, and both the sizes and placement might be off

-This is a 5x7 panel

Anyway, it's cute, yay.

"What Do You Think?"

일코하려고 했었어요.

-"Love Yourself: Answer" color scheme was actually an accident. My intent was just to paint a regular rainbow with a different starting color.

-Blue and orange panels call back to the Agust D tour, with great efforts to avoid looking like UVA colors.

-Instead of pastel dots, I could used the bold red, green, and blue of the concert colors; but didn't think of it. It might have been more unique for my portfolio, but less representative of the concept/message, which is "happy".

To Clutter or Not to Clutter

My urge to complete paintings in a timely manner comes at the cost of taking more risks. I notice that my recent paintings lack the pizzazz of my full vision, as I opt not to pursue the 20% additional detail which could take 80%+ more time (or risk ruining the painting altogether).

The specific issue is that I can't visualize the details until I actually put it down in paint. If it's complex, I could end up spending forever repainting until the details look right, so I usually go simple instead. That's what happened for this painting too. My original vision was a mosaic of different-sized rectangles that sparsed out (and became lighter) towards the outer edge. I was concerned about complex layout, time-consuming color-mixing and the possibility of triggering trichophobia in the final effect, so decided not to pursue it. In the end, I like this final painting up close, but the overall composition and coloring is a bit basic.

Painting discussion
Concept: This painting expresses loneliness. The center rainbow represents my fairly full and balanced life, but is blocked off from the gray border representing deeply integrated relationships.

Adjustments: Initially, the center rainbow was supposed to be missing one color and that color was supposed to be in the border. While that would have worked better symbolically, I didn't like the aesthetic of a colored border. Secondly, the center swirl was envisioned to be dark gray, but was replaced with a light gray during execution because I felt a bit lighter at that time. Lastly, the rainbow was supposed to be darker in the center and blend to a light pastel outward, but that proved to be impossible to implement.

Technical: 

-I'm happy with the blending, which has been difficult for me in the past. 

-I had a lot of fun with the painterly style for the border. 

-I spent a lot of time calibrating the medium purple and seafoam colors, and am really happy with the outcome.

-Challenges: The white walls are a hair too thick. The blend of the rainbow into the gray border was difficult. The area inside the white walls felt too small and hard to compose, especially with the swirl.

But overall, I really enjoyed making this painting. It took me about 10 hours, although ~3 hours was unproductive as I was watching a replay of the Agust D concert in Seoul, and ended up redoing most of what I painting during that time. lol

"Invisible Walls"

My Favorite Multiverse

I had a zen moment a couple weekends ago when I painted the first four panels here, without rushing through it or trying to make it perfect. I did not feel very busy, so felt like I could take the time. A lot of things are a state of mind; I can make myself feel really busy or not busy.  

This painting doesn't have much meaning; it's themes that I like, loosely inspired by a longstanding idea of portal doors. I usually try to be original, but some of these themes are inspired by past paintings and I'm ok with that.

The entire layout reminds me of my interior design painting ("Reading Room"). In order from least to most original (to my portfolio), the doors are:
-Jelly Jelly: A direct extension of my "Ribbon Collection" jelly panel, down to the color scheme and highlights. The new twist here is the jellyfish. 

-Confetti Museum: This has "Color Play" vibes, from the 5x7 rainbow panels I did.

-Cat Bus: Inspired by Cat Bus from Totoro; I have painted Totoro in "Animation (2 of 2)"

-Garden Arch

-Depression Tunnel: This panel isn't exactly a "fun door" like the rest, but it resonated with me and the aesthetic fit.

-Sorcerer's Atrium: I'm surprised I've never thought to paint magic before

I thought about redoing the bench in Cat Bus, but not sure I know how to make it better. I'm curious how I'll rank this painting after a little time passes. It's kind of interesting.

"Magic Doors"

Addendum #7: Octopus

Woo-whee another Addendum! Addendums use leftover paint, however I did sort of fix this one.

The first version was real cute! Very thrift shop-y. But when I looked at my Instagram feed, this seemed out of place, so I painted over some of the uglier colors. It was hard to go pencils down on this one. On the upside, after finishing all the fixes, I checked Michael's and extreme couponed some nice canvases, so it was a successful evening. 👌

What should I do for my next Addendum? Maybe a storybook pop-up willow tree, waterfall with rainbow rocks, a big leafy plant, a twisty clock. Might use some of these ideas for regular paintings.

New one

Original one

Simple Systems, a Revision

I have reimagined the concept from my previous painting that failed in execution. Today, I painted from 10am-7pm, plus ~3 hours of "post-production" (and touch-ups). In other creative news, Next in Fashion Season 2 is back, and I am loving it.

Concept summary: This painting is about foundations. Six elements in six foundational categories: natural elements, types of intelligences, life purposes, basic emotions, the six quarks and fun punctuations (not a foundation). I noticed midway that this resembles a subway line map, but I think it works because subways are underground where foundations are. 😂

Overall assessment: I had a great time with the entire process; top 3 paintings in terms of enjoyment, a sign of personal growth.
-The visual concept came to me quickly, which is a phenomenon that always surprises me. This painting is a callback to my flower maze painting and my core style, being less abstract than my recent ones.
-A couple points of self-critique: I prefer the more organic feel of my original sketch, where I had looser lines that didn't align perfectly to a grid format. I didn't know how to recreate that in a painting.
-I also made a calculation error and added an extra row about 1/3 down. I could have used that extra space in the bottom instead. While at first this seemed like a major miss, it's more like a "happy little accident" looking at it now. 

All of these shortcomings can be attributed to lack of formal artistic study and also trying to go fast. But issues aside, I'm feeling less regret than I usually do. 8.5/10

Detailed commentary:
-The line colors are based on my iPad Notability palette, which I spent some time perfecting a while back, so it was nice to get more mileage from that.
-I tried not to overthink the icons, and just set the bar at elegantly simple but not too tropey. I redid an icon, so the old version is on my Insta and the new version is below. There were a couple other small details I didn't/forgot to optimize for (order of icons, which line goes on top).
-Noting that I needed to force-fit six elements per category. In particular, there are commonly eight intelligences, which I find to be excessive/indulgent anyway.

-Also noting I included the quarks category because I read about them in a book a long time ago and they fit the theme perfectly, but I fundamentally don’t know what quarks are.

Here’s the full log —
-Teal line (natural elements): fire, water, air, wood, stone, plants
-Magenta line (intelligences): musical, logical, linguistic (mountain ie storytelling), relational, kinesthetic (sock), visual (squiggly)
-Lime green line (typical life purposes): for the moment, for growth/change, for influence, for knowledge/wisdom (notebook), for recognition (medal), for morality/deontological
-Wine red line (basic emotions): happy, sad, angry (brick), afraid (monster in the dark), disgust, surprise
-Blue line (punctuations): asterisk, and, quotes, colon, bracket, degree
-Gold line (quarks): top, bottom, charm, strange, top, bottom

Original sketch

Epilogue: 

Thought #1

It occurred to me that I could have included seven deadly sins or seven senses (incl. balance and body awareness), perhaps instead of the punctuations. However, Sins seem to be quite similar to life purposes, and Senses are quite overlapping with intelligences. So that’s interesting

Thought #2

As a significant part of art is about expressing your style, the self-expression that I express today is structured thinking and colorfulness. Self-expression is very life-giving actually. It was on my long list of life purposes that I attempted to distill in a MECE way, and I think it is some combo of "growth" and "recognition".