Watercolor Essential and Workshop open enrollment in September

 
This is the first time I paint a guinea pig. I treat it as anything else I paint.

This is the first time I paint a guinea pig. I treat it as anything else I paint.

 

 This past weekend I did a small painting of my friend's guinea pig. This is the very first time I paint this specific subject. Yet, I know exactly how to approach it and yield a satisfying result. Not only I enjoy this little painting, I made my friend really happy as well. This has always been the goal of my course.

Watercolor Essential is a course that empowers you - an aspiring watercolor artist, with the knowledge you need to start painting your favorite subject in watercolor!

  I will be going over more about the course in the next few weeks. However, I want you to know that I am going to open enrollment for the online workshop this coming September. I am thrilled to be able to open enrollment again and take on new students. Since I launch the course last year, I made some great progress in my own painting as well. Whenever I discover a new way of presenting an idea and knowledge, the first person I want to share it with is you! I want to provide more value for you and to make this course a turning point for your painting journey. Throughout all 42 lessons in this course, I lay out everything I know from the very basic fundamentals I learned back in the art school, to some of the advance knowledge I obtain in recent years. The more important thing is that I focus on your need. I created this course with your struggle in mind.

 If you have already purchased and enrolled the full course, I want to assure you that you not going to miss out anything. You are going to get everything that I plan for this September completely free! I am so excited to share more about it with you. Stay tuned for more announcement!

New Painting video

 I released a new painting demo on YouTube this Monday. If you haven't seen it, be sure to check it out!

Have a destination for your brush stroke

 
IMG_0144.JPG
 

 I never mentioned that I have a motorcycle license. I used to ride a small 250cc motorcycle to work back in California. I sold my motorcycle after we moved here to Seattle. It is unlikely I will be getting another motorcycle soon, but I always remember one of the important tips when I was taking the riding lesson. My instructor kept telling us that don’t look down while we ride, look where you want to go. Look at your destination as you will end up where you were looking at. That was a very important tip. It is very dangerous if I don’t look ahead to where I am going while riding. The same thing can apply to paint watercolor. You want to have a destination for your brush stroke. When you put down your brush, you should have a clear idea where it will end up. You want to make every brush stroke count. 

 This is especially important when you are painting something very specific such as a portrait. Some students tend to dab a lot. I think one of the reason is they are unsure where to put the brush stroke, so they dab a lot and hoping they will hit the right spot. It is similar to when someone is trying to draw a straight line with many tiny little marks. If they draw those type of hairy-looking lines, chances are they dab a lot when they are painting. Instead of doing that, think about where you want to put down your brush and where you want to lift it. Don’t just mindlessly put down marks on paper and hope it will work out. That is like shooting a bunch of basketballs without aiming and hope one of the balls will make it in. 
 
  It is not easy, in fact, it takes a lot of practice. You also need to train yourself to resist the temptation of trying to “fix” things. Follow this threes steps: press, move, lift. Press the brush down, move towards the destination, and life the brush when you are done. This will help your painting look cleaner with confident brush strokes. 

What NOT to do to keep the wash clean

in

 A first clean wash is really important for a successful painting. If your first wash is dirty, it not only affects the look of the painting, it also affects your moral negatively! Imagine you set up your painting materials and did a good drawing. Then comes the first wash. All seems well and good until you did something irreversible and messed up the first wash. It will really kill your motivation to continue painting. The thing is, it’s not so much about what you should be doing to keep the wash clean, is more about what you should NOT do.  

Read More

Finding time to paint

 Lately, I've been getting emails from people telling me it is difficult for them to find time to paint. The older we grow, the less time we seem to have. With all the chores and errand we need to take care every day, this can certainly be a challenge to face. My wife is a full-time mom which I argue is one of the most difficult job in the world. To alleviate her stress, I help her to get my kids to bed during the evening. After that, I am facing dirty dishes in the sink while trash piling up waiting for me to take them out. All of these while that white piece paper on my easel is waiting for me to turn it into a painting.

Read More