Watercolors in New Orleans~

Hi friends,

Had a 4 day vacation in New Orleans ~ What a blast!! Have to get back there soon!!!! Bought a little Winsor Newton Coleman water color kit and a moleskin watercolor journal along that fits nicely in my little green purse: Best decision ever!

This one was done waiting in LAX with 50 mins to kill~ Of course the buses and planes all move around constantly~ Frustrating but super fun as well.

First day in the French Quarter! On the balcony seating of the "Royal Oyster house"! Amazing, gigantic oysters, great street music, martini and watercolor are probably my favorite combination of a day well spent~

Brunch in "The Country Club"!! This little patio seating is so heavenly, I had to pull out the set just cause! :P

Cemetery in the Garden District~ Peaceful, Hot, Serene~ I did three pieces here and they are the ones I like the most~ Gotta do more next time I am here!

Oak Alley Plantation! This one is frustrating as hell because the location is soooooo beautiful yet we had so little time painting here! Next time i will get a bed in the hotel on the premise and just paint for 3 days straight~ The oak trees are so gorgeous, i am just going to paint all of them~ :D

At the Lafitte's Blacksmith Shop! It was getting so dark that 30 mins into the painting I can no longer tell the colors I am putting down! Had to use flash to take a pic of this when done! Fun tho~

At the 24 hour go to place, Cafe Du Monte!! 24 hour Beignets, hot chocolate, street music... are you kidding me!? Best place on earth!

At the St. Louis Cemetery No. 1~!! Again, gorgeous!! Maybe with a little too much tourist traffic, but I do tend to blame EVERYTHING but myself when the painting doesn't turn out as good as i would like it to be! Must do more Sargent copies! >:(

This is when i can tell i am over the edge: Trying to paint on the plane! Yep. It doesn't look like it's moving ever, right? Wrong! Had to make up a lot of the stuff! :S Fun as hell tho~

SO that's it Folks! Hope you like the works! And if you want to, pick up the set and try it out in your next travel! it's deeply satisfying for some reason, to paint what you are looking at, like taking a piece of the spirit of the place with you~ :D

 S

Finished~

oil 6 hours~

Faces~

Show me your true face
Full of fear, hate
Show me what you are afraid of
Love, failure
And I will show you the gate

To be sad
When you were so glad
To behave
When you only want to escape

The voice we all shared
The will to create
To break out of this temporal shell
Bathe in eternal grace

Show me your true face
That will lead you through the gate

(Paintings reference the subway photography of Bruce Davidson)

Mamusiala

I painted my very own house deity after work this week, "Mamusiala". She loves flowers and music, and I shall burn a candle for her whenever I clean~ she's also suppose to ward off the creepy crawlers, because I hate finding them in the tub~! O___o

Studies

A little gauche of the night and First week of a 2 week oil painting from model~ ^0^

still in progress~

Something about this i thought is worth pursuing~ Still a work in progress:

exercise of tonite~

Life is a beautiful gown, the inside of which is covered all over by fleas. - Ailing Zhang

Tried to illustrate this sentence tonite~

Another photoshop experiment of the night~ Based on a photo of Mai Hosho by Kishin Shinoyama~

Testing out some photoshop brushes~! Sorry, Relatives in town and busy at work, haven't been going to figure painting for a while! X_____X Hope you guys are doing better than me!

Best best, Shell

Long pose postmortem

First 24 hours long pose drawing~! Learn a lot: trying to distill some thoughts for next time:
1. During the block in stage the legs appear right, and I did know they were probably too long, but didn't bother to change them. And man was I wrong: at finish stage what look flattering in block in made the model look gigantic, 8 head tall! Could have been such an easy fix early on.
2. After first 2 sessions, had time between class to really model the soft turning forms of the head. This alone took more than 3 hours after class, and is really the most successful part of the drawing. The other forms that should appear soft also, like the belly and the thighs, lack this in-between pass, which seems to give the rest of the drawing a hard feel, as if she's made of stone, not flesh.
3. Feet! Toes!! Have to get these things in my priority of get better at these list!

more practice and master copies~

New oil, 4 hous

master copy~

Looking at some hi Rez Zorn lately and so affected by how great his simplifications are~ will do some more~ especially legs~

First oil this year!

Dude~ can someone share an app with me that post to Facebook, blogger and instagram at the same time? Takes so long to post the same painting 5 times~
Thank you in advance! Happy new year!
Shelly

Last oil piece for the new year~

Or is it? :D

Ann Gale show at Dolby Chadwick

If u were in SF this month, you r in luck! A new found favorite contemporary artist of mine, Ann Gale, is having a solo show at Dolby Chadwick gallery~ Go check out the show! Photos just don't do them justice~

Happy Thankgiving!

Hey friends! hope everybody has a happy Thanksgiving! Some new paintings to share, hope you like them~

new Oil~

7 hours:

The color is strange, :S i wish i take better pics! Oh well maybe when i get my iphone~

APE weekend!

I had a great weekend at APE! A lot of ppls from Pixar and old and new friends! Also got to hang out with the great Barron Storey and watch him work~ amazing.

So here are some photos from Ape and some paintings from the past two weeks~! Hope u like them!

P.S. there's this wonderful gentleman who bought items from me at Ape today, Sunday. I am sorry to say that I got confused and charged you 18 dollars more! Please write in the comment/email me and name me the two items you bought, and I will happily mail you a check and the two postcards you wanted as my apology!

Oil painting workshop~

Hi friends, I was pretty busy for a couple of months and skipped out on many oil painting workshops~ Now I am back~ :D

                                                                                Oil, 4 hrs