Mother's day

I did this piece specifically for Mother's Day. Inspired by some of my fondest memories of my childhood with my mother. Living in the US (my parents resides in Hong Kong), I sorely miss her cooking, as I'm sure most of you out there can relate. Nothing beats Mom's cooking!

Used this opportunity to try out a new technique. Basically after my initial lighter layers of watercolor are dry, I used a scoring pen to indent the watercolor paper, leaving patterns to indicate the steam, smoke and aroma of a home cooked meal. Then I added a layer of color pencil on top.

This is a very personal piece to me. This year for the first time in my entire LIFE, I forgot my mother's birthday! I was so filled with guilt and sadness! Not that my mother was mad or made me feel bad, she was actually fine with it. We are a very easy going family. In fact, I recall her forgetting my birthday last year. I was just so sad that I have become so preoccupied with my life that I'm starting to lose track of my family back home. My parents have sacrificed so much for my brother and I. They worked hard their entire life and saved money for our future. Now my brother and I are both living in the US, and I only visit every 2-3 years, the least I can do is to remember their birthday! Plus, I've always been proud of remembering all my family's birthday.(unlike my father and brother cough* cough*)

So right after that, I immediately started working on a card for my mother. Finished it a month before mother's day and mailed her a large size print early. I ordered some postcards too to spread the love! Cheers to Mother's everywhere!

Sketching a lot lately

At Golden Gate Coffee waiting for our brunch:

My little vine plant, loving all the sunlight!

Finally got to go to Asian Art Museum!

Pinic and drinks in Alameda:

Went to Academy of Science too! The Whale Exhibit there was amazing! 

so is the taxidermy room!!

It's so much fun to doodle!

Watercolor Demos

Here's a few demos I've done for my classes this semester.

Did this little sheep as an example of the Facet Shaped Assignment, it's a great exercise for practicing edge control and play with design/patterns:

Here are my animal demos. Beginning later and finish.

I remember timing myself and I finished the rooster in 1.5 hours! The demo only lasted 30 mins, then stayed after class to finish it up. I was pretty happy with that time, teaching definitely helps to train me on my speed

 Then last but not least, portraits. Thinking about adding a listing to my esty store for custom portraits...emm....maybe....

Quick Studies

February - May, I made a point to force myself to go to more quick studies workshop at the University that I teach at. I've always been rather intimated by all these 1 min, 2 min, 3 min poses, especially when some of my friends and colleges who go there regularly are just so amazing at it.

I had only gone a handful of times before this year. BUT NO MORE! The only way to get better at something is practice! I went almost every week, sometimes every other week...

Now looking back at it, I have definitely improved a bit from the start. Can't wait for next semester!

Experiments with Yupo paper

Yikes, has it been almost 3 months since I last updated? Well to make it up. I'm going to post quite a lot these next few days! So where did I leave off last time? February - March....

In my last post I mentioned I did some experimenting then with Yupo paper. It is basically like painting watercolor on plastic. Hard to control but a lot of fun. Unlike normal paper, the watercolor does not get absorbed into the paper. Instead, it sits on top of the Yupo surface. I love the interesting patterns and edges when you do wet-on-wet, but it also means you can't build a lot of layers on top because it lifts so easily. The upside to that is you don't have to save your "whites" anymore and can easily scrub away any mistakes/highlights...

I named it the Aftermath. I watched a documentary last year where a scientist explained that an over populated ocean with jellyfish is a symbol of an dying sea, one of the many effects of global warming/pollution. Since then I had this idea of a single boat passing through an oil spill, revealing our sea over crowded by jellyfishes, creating a beautiful mess. Below are some WIP and final pictures.

I also did a fan art illustration for my friend Ben Jelter (Instagram name @BenJelter ). This is the main character in his webcomic Heliosphere. You should all check this crazy story out, really great stuff. http://Heliospherecomic.com

I like this paper, plan to do some more of these in my spare time!