Painting in Action: Self-expression and Decor

I'm less inclined to paint now that I have moved. No space, no time, no mom saying "I liked your other one better, but you can give this to me anyway". So I prefer simple designs that I can complete in two days, even if there's a 1.5 month gap between the days. This painting was meant to be sad and symbolic, but day 2 ended up being very calming.

Painter's notes:

The background -- yet another galaxy that never comes out as enveloping as envisioned. But there is a warmth here that I like.

The cracks were difficult as anticipated, hence the procrastination. At completion, I was surprised to find it slightly creepy, as opposed to the brokenness that I intended. It resembles "eyeball", "lightning", "web", that I wonder whether dark lines would have mitigated. However, the accidentally beautiful upside of light lines is the optical illusion, appearing lighter in the center and darker outwards on the SW-NE diagonals, which are a single shade in actuality.

Per usual, I was struggling to appreciate the piece at completion but quite happy with it after several days. The lines are clean as heck, and the swirls are my specialty. Swirls represent intuition, balance and calm -- all things I like.

Below are also a couple pieces I did for home decor, aluminum light gold birds completed in June and a cloud painting from October 2021. My apartment is sky-themed.

 

"Unforeboding Joy"

This painting is quite large actually. The width is longer than my entire arm. Probably not longer than yours.

"Ether"

Though these days I don't feel like painting much, I wanted some painting catharsis this weekend.

This concept was not pre-planned, and I quite like it. I considered including an downpour of rain or shooting stars, but firstly I forgot, and secondly I'm not sure how that would work. I would love to attempt that idea sometime.

In terms of execution, the background gradient here was not painted in a highly intention manner, but the streaks are. These are the words that go with this painting: cast, light, move

The last time I did art was early October, and then a couple times in September (a couple gifts). In other news, I have begun working on a multi-canvas project for my forthcoming-new apartment, but that project has been continuously deprioritized (which is ok).

The sun and universe, with cosmic streaks

Back to the Basics

The paintings I have done earlier this year have tended to be very quick and not deeply planned out.

This painting is more in line with my typical process, iterating until I'm happy with the concept. The result is:

1. This is the paradigm of my style.

2. This aggregates feelings from the past few weeks, as opposed to just one day. It is more balanced but less emotive.

The squares are life building blocks that you keep working to stack.

Technique

I'm pleased that my background gradient blended nicely. The color selection and pattern is random (read: not optimized), but it looks soothing from afar.

I also tried a new technique for the orange box, using twine to stamp. I envisioned using thin yarn for a cleaner look, but this ended up cool too.

Artist's Self-Critique

Overall, I'm surprised it turned out quite appealing. 

It's a smidgen too simple. If the white clouds showed up better and if I could think of something more to add in the empty spaces, that would have been better.

My favorite part is the black box with the chaotic scribbles. My least favorite part is the water bubbles – the border and color of the box are messy.

In spite of that, this might end up being one of my favorite paintings. (Maybe I should rank all my artwork sometime?! I love ranking things.) Looking back at the past few months of posts, I'm really happy that I'm taking the time to paint periodically. These pieces are like journal entries for my creativity, emotions and aesthetic as we go along.

"Building Blocks"

Addendum #6: Unicorn

I had lots of pastels lying around. It was perfect for this concept.

Now I'm starting to run out of ideas for Addendums where the lines are flowy. Will have to start experimenting with other types of lines and shapes.

Learning Korean

Things have been busy lately, but I decided it would be good to make some art this weekend.

Swirls are usually easy, but they were difficult here because of the large space I had to fill. The final result is acceptable, but not as organic as I'd like.

You can see the swirls are traced in Korean lyrics, a shoutout to my new side hobby. As an adult, there are things I thought I wasn't good at or interested in that I have changed my opinion on. Learning a language is one of them. Apparently, my memory is not as bad as I thought, and I like the intuition required to understand the spirit of words.

I have a friend who is learning Korean like I am, and we agree that it is a particularly fun and interesting language. The writing is nicely uniform and, as with other languages, it's insightful to learn how cultural norms are imprinted into grammatical structure. 

Okay. With only the swirls on the canvas, I was dismayed that it was feeling unoriginal, looking suspiciously like Chinese Bible tracts I saw around the house in the 90's.

So I brought in some Little Twin Star vibes, and somehow that saved the painting. Done!

"Blossom". The yellow bits are warm metallic gold in person.

Addendum #5: Hair Bow

I quite like the concept of this Addendum. 

It's been sitting around, waiting to be completed for a while. It's time I clear it off the docket to start the next one, as I have a lot of purples in storage that couldn't fit here.

Starting to Put It Together

Happy 2021!

Even though I typically don't make resolutions, one of my key goals nowadays is to appreciate both the negative and positive things in my life. I don't have to like everything, but it's good to recognize the inherent value in experiencing things. This approach should broaden and balance my perspective a bit more.

Moving on, I am very pleased to have made a painting so quickly at the start of this year. The concept was an engaging one, as I challenged myself to take the following elements and find a way to harmonize them: trees, water, fire, moon, stars, wispy clouds and swirling leaves (later changed to abstract specks).

I developed a backstory for how the elements fit together, but it's rather metaphorical and specific, so I don't think it's necessary to explain. As a result, this is one of the more non-literal paintings that I've made. Suffice to say, developing an underlying narrative from a loose theme made for a fun process. 

The painting also presented technical challenges in my key areas of growth, which are composition and nature realism. Overall, I rate the execution a generous 7.5/10.

Development

In making the sketch, the first question was how to depict fire, specifically a non-man-made one. You typically think of fire as a vertical object, but it needed to be horizontal to agree with everything else. Thus wildfire on the plains worked really well.

I didn't want fire to be the focal point, so I kept its footprint small. Instead, I built the point of interest around the coil where the cloudy haze and the swirling specks intersect. With those key points in place, the rest of the elements quickly got sorted out.

Evaluation

Overall, the painting is pleasantly subtle. It could have afforded more brainstorming time to improve the composition and more painting time to improve the natural texture. (More detailed commentary at the bottom.)

On the other hand, I'm very impatient these days. Many an idea has been lost to refinement-purgatory, so I'm glad I was able to manifest a fairly cohesive piece.

In conclusion, though it's lacking in some ways, I made it with care, with the dexterity that I've been developing, with an eye that distinguishes my style, and with an idea that came from my heart. Happy start of a new year and may we have the best year we can!

"Coherency"

Additional commentary and points for improvement:

For better composition, I could have unified the elemental shapes under a stronger rule/pattern. Additionally, the cloud coil should be more natural, the swirling specks should be simpler, the smoke from the fire should be more inspired, and the stream is overall very wonky (complicated by my inexperience with perspective). I'm not entirely sure that the placement of everything is right either.

Interestingly, the top and bottom half of the painting look all right separately.

As for nature-painting technique, the grass and stream are too flat and it only just now occurs to me that the fire should emit a glow onto surrounding grass.

Anyway, I better try to workshop each of these skills separately in the future, and stop analyzing this painting now.

Do Something

With my previous painting, I did the background and left it sitting around for a month before finally finishing it.

To avoid this type of situation, I prefer doing simpler paintings now. I'm also inclined to be more relaxed in order to focus more on conveying feelings and to train my intuitive ability to make things look good without extensive pre-planning.

Having said that, here is a painting that could have used a smidgen more prep work. Somehow, the focal point and angles are slightly off. 

I will try a more balanced approach to preparation next time. On the up side, I think the patchy rays turned out really cool, and the rainbow colors are of course my trademark and my love.

There's a graphic novel feel that I wasn't exactly expecting.

2020 Christmas Cards: Ribbon Collection

It's time that I post my ribbon paintings in full resolution, now that I've decided not to send them out as actual physical cards.

Unfortunately, I wasn't able to print them into Christmas cards in a nice and inexpensive way. Additionally, I didn't have a particular message to send to friends during this pandemic year.

Anyway, looking back at these paintings, I surprise myself that I had so much motivation and patience to finish the whole collection. Painting is a very arduous process for me, because I am in nonstop evaluation mode over whether the painting is turning out how I want, when I'm painting. On a random note, this is how I drive too. I subconsciously continuously micro-adjust the wheel, and I've been told that this is not normal.

I'm so glad that I have these paintings to capture my peak skill, back when I was painting frequently.

Holiday Gala

Tiffany's

Water Current

Galaxy

Color Run

Designer

Jelly Donut

Another Day

Sometimes pandemic days feel like time without markers, just continuous targetless time. 

I wanted to capture my current feeling that nothing is happening, and that this is both a positive and a negative sentiment. I didn’t set out with such a clear articulation in mind, but I think the result reflects this duality of a stillness that lacks nothing, yet also a sense of wistful aloneness that is 2020 quarantine life for me. (Ah, art.)

Talking through key elements, I was really loving the aesthetic of a sunset rainbow gradient when I started this painting in mid-October. The technique for a perfect gradient is still a mystery to me, but it was cathartic to just sweep the brush back and forth for a couple hours.

The cliff is lightly inspired by McAfee Knob (March 2018). Expansive views are healing for the soul and that is one of the things that we have been missing, due to quarantine. 

Lastly, the angle of how the girl sat was very important. I didn’t want her too crouched over – too inward and depressed. Nor too leaned back – too open and free. Something in the middle is just right – relaxed, pensive and a little self-protective. I’m not sure I got it exactly right but it’s close, and … I love how the purple sweater turned out.

"Another Day"

Arts and Crafts

Not too many paintings were created in Q4 2020. I have temporarily moved on to several new hobbies.

However, I painted a couple basic panels for decorative purposes. 

This purple one is a polaroid photo frame for my sister's birthday.

The green one was supposed to fill a gap in my Zoom backdrop, but it wouldn’t stay on the wall (read: I didn’t make an effort to find strong tape…). Now, it lives on a shelf with my other 5x7 panels. The hand lettering creates a nice effect, though it takes more steps than I imagined between drafting with a brush pen, tracing, and laying down paint with a Posca pen.

I feel satisfied that I've acquired the basic competency to put together these functional projects easily. 

Having stepped away from making art daily, I’m surprised by how many art supplies I bought and how much I painted within a short amount of time this year. I like learning new things in an immersive way – focus is the key to doing anything quickly and well. However looking back at these phases always gives me the feeling that I was in a quasi-fugue state (but a good one).