The Mentor - SOLD

"The Mentor"
6x6 Oil on Panel
SOLD
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This is one of a three part series I'm winding up for a commission. It seemed to me like this little boy was sitting and contemplating the wisdom of times before, and the great face in the stone very much looks like a wise mentor to me. What do you think?

As much as everyone decries the evils of Facebook, I had a acquaintance from high school that happened to have an 18 hour layover here in Singapore. We were able to meet up, and I got to show her around Singapore, which was so much fun. Her husband then commissioned me to paint a series of three small paintings from their trip to Cambodia and Thailand for her Christmas present (shhh, don't mention it on FB! It is a secret!). I loved doing this because I had been to these places and could also connect with the locations - plus the husband is an excellent photographer, and has a great eye - which made my job much easier!

Holiday Cheer study - SOLD

"Holiday Cheer Study"
SOLD
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I have been remiss in posting, but part of that is because I sold so many paintings in the last week, I have had to hole myself up in the studio. That, and I've been working on some larger pieces so they're not ready to post yet. Overall, not a bad problem to say the least. This is one of the guys that sold before I could even post it! It was a study that I did for the larger painting I used for my Christmas cards. It is a beautifully decorated home on Balestier road. I just love the moulding, as it really looks decorated for the holidays - year round!

Emerald Sunset Study II

"Emerald Sunset Study II"
6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard
$120 Unframed
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This is another study of my larger piece, Emerald Sunset. I love that little strip of shophouses up on Emerald Hill. They are so beautiful at night.

Peranakan Pottery

"Peranakan Pottery"
6x6 Oil on Gessoboard
$120 Unframed
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This little shophouse is from one of my favorite areas of Singapore - Joo Chiat. It has some wonderful traditional Peranakan houses with old ceramic tiles on many of them. It also has the best American BBQ in Singapore. Mmmm Baby Back Ribs.

Surveillance

"Surveillance"
6"x6" Oil on Panel
$95 Unframed
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You better watch your potato chips, he's conducting some surveillance. Don't be fooled by this relaxed, one-legged pose, he's watching your picnic basket!

Santa Monica Tower

"Santa Monica Tower"
6x6 Oil on Gessoboard
$95
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This was from my last morning in Southern California. I had just endured an awful week of the June Gloom (it was April). Not exactly inspiring, and pretty impossible to paint when you can't see across the street. But I woke up the last morning at my cousin's house, and the sky was a beautiful California blue. So I walked down to the beach and just enjoyed the solitude. There is something about the ocean that just renews my soul.

SOLD - Joo Chiat Icing

"Joo Chiat Icing"
SOLD
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This wonderful guy from the Joo Chiat area sold to a collector who came over for a studio visit on Friday. It was a fantastic way to start the weekend! This will eventually be traveling to Houston as a gift for her mother. I'm still hunkered down in the studio this week, painting away. I have a super busy fall coming up, so I'm just trying to get as much painted now as I can! Happy Hari Raya, if you are in the Sling!

Behind Club Street

"Behind Club Street"
6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard
$120 Unframed
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This little guy is on the street just behind Club Street, Gemmill Lane. I'm really starting to see colors in shadows, which is really exciting. Right now it is really only when looking at photos, but I've been going out to get photo references and sketching more right now than I have been, so hopefully I'll start seeing in person soon too. It feels like a paradigm shift. At the edge of a lot of shadows there is either an acidy yellow-brown color, or like a crazy pthalo blue. This seems to happen mostly with white (or light colored) buildings and super strong sunlight, when the shadow takes on almost a blue hue.

A great example of an artist that over-exaggerates those colors is Wayne Thiebaud.

Here's another great example of how he exaggerates the shadows. 

Emerald Sunset Study

"Emerald Sunset Study"
6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard
$120 Unframed
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I had a really tough time with this one. The shophouse is pretty much silhouetted, but I didn't want it to be flat. I really wanted to get the correct shadow colors. In the end I really feel like I did a good job with it, and I love how realistic it looks. One of the toughest parts of it was getting the dark red color correct. Until I used the Photoshop color dropper to make a swatch, I kept making it a dirty dark red. In fact it was a really beautiful fuschia. All by itself it was a crazy pink purple, but in the context of the whole painting it reads as a dark red, which is just fascinating. 

The other color that was giving me a run for my money was the reflection of the sky. Initially it seemed like since the sun was setting, the window should reflect a yellow color as well. But since the sun is coming from behind, the window is reflecting the sky in the opposite direction of the views, which is the blue you find towards the top of the sky during a sunset. Even that blue kept on coming out more muddy - until I used the color picker again. This is a fantastic tool to have in the arsenal! I like to use it to get a truer idea of the color, and then I push or pull it in the way that I whichever way I want to empasize it. In the meantime, it gives me a great jumping off point.

Club Street Arches

"Club Street Arches"
6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard
$120 Unframed
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This is a lovely little house right up on Club Street, close to Chinatown. I was finally able to get there during a time of day that had a lot of the houses in this beautiful light. Turns out that time of day is first thing in the morning!


Right now I am finding more growth and development in my art from trial and error and seeing what works than I could learn from somebody telling me how to do it at this point. Mostly this is because I am working on developing my style - that involves quite a bit of inner reflection and study of others that you simply have to do on your own. Your style has to do a lot with three things - your color palette, your brushstrokes, and your subject matter. 


My subject matter is slowly growing and evolving, but I'm really trying to define my style more through my colors and brush strokes. To do this, I'm especially enjoying studying other artist's paintings - how they crop them, how they frame a subject, the lighting. Then I look at the color and brushstrokes and figure out what I like, what I don't like. I have especially started looking at other artists for their color handling. For example, I have been struggling and struggling with yellows. How to have them go to shadow without having them look muddy. For the painting above, I took a look at Karin Jurick's painting, "Hot Seat." (Click Here to view/purchase)

Since I was having a rough time with the shadow side of yellow, this was a perfect painting to use for study. She has one small spot that is pretty much black, and another that is a very warm black/brown. But then for the rest of the medium shadows, it is much warmer than I initially tought. I was taught that shadows make colors cooler, which initially you are taught to mix compliments - so that would mean to add blue/violet. And yes, they do, but if you go too cool, too quickly, the color winds up looking muddy and dead. 

Karin's shadow is ALIVE. She doesn't define too much, and she doesn't make the shadow just one flat plane, but it the shadow stays nice and warm. It is basically a burnt sienna, and in some places a really lovely red orange. When you use these warmer darks, it still gives the impression of shadows, but the shadows become much richer. Shadows aren't always blue. In any case, since my shophouse was a yummy buttery yellow, I didn't have the shadows go too warm, as I didn't want the shadow to be warmer than the sun-drenched portion. This was a great exercise, and I learned quite a bit.

Light Urple

"Light Urple"
6"x6" Oil on Panel
$120 Unframed
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Yes, yes, the title for this one comes from one of the great 90's SNL skits: Celebrity Jeopardy. If you haven't seen the skit before, here is a link, I hope it makes you smile today!

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c2c5b0b7a3/snl-celebrity-jeopardy-4-15-00

If this shophouse looks vaguely familiar, well, I've done this one a couple of times. It has sort of been my baseline since it was the first shophouse I ever attempted to paint.

Yeah, so looking back on the last one is kind of a bit embarassing, not going to lie. I kind of miss that point when I thought everything was a wonder and that art supply stores held lots of mystery. Nevertheless, it really helps reinforce that as you get to a certain point in your work, "brush miles" are what really count.

Chinatown MRT

"Chinatown MRT"
6x6 Oil on Gessobord
$120 Unframed
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Back to the shophouses! This one is right by the entrance to the Chinatown MRT. If you come up from the MRT, and look up to your right, this house is right there. As for painting the shophouses, it feels good to be back. I really enjoy coming back to them and trying new ideas on them. On this one I really wanted to try and work on painting the details in the architecture. I've done it a little bit, but not in quite as much detail as this one. Man, it was fun.

Motel California

"Motel, CA"
6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard
$95 Unframed
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This is another one from the California series. The Eagles song "Hotel California" was stuck in my head, so pardon the punny title. :) I basically pulled into San Luis Obispo for about an hour and took a bunch of photos. I'm still sad that I was only there for an hour, and that it was in the middle of the day, when the lighting wasn't so great. It is such a neat little town. Definitely on my list of places to go back to in California.

At the end of last week I took a look at the calendar and had a small breakdown. I realized that the fall show season is only a couple of months away, and that I had very little new work showcasing Singapore. Whoops! So, the California series has been put on the back burner while I come back to Singapore. This fall I am doing some larger pieces, and I'm really enjoying doing them. Shophouses have kind of become my happy place. I'm always growing, learning and exploring, but I love coming back to the houses after a break. I usually come back stronger, with fresh, new ideas. Here's a progress photo of one currently on the easel (it will eventually be 12"x24"... that's BIG for me!).

Roadhouse

"Roadhouse"
6x6 Oil on Gessobord
$95 unframed
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This is a wonderful little signal house that I saw as I was driving south on the 101 from Palo Alto to Newport Beach. That highway has some beautiful scenery on either side of it. I am only sad that I didn't have the time to really explore more of the nooks and crannies - I had to boogie down to Newport Beach for my workshop. 

Sorry about not posting much the past couple of weeks. I've been working on this California series, and after letting it sit for a week or so, I went back to the paintings. Only a couple of them were really up to par, and should have been wiped off. I think I was just locked in such a battle with them that I didn't want to let go. But that is one of the things I've started to learn about painting - when to not release things. The journey is about painting every day - but there are going to be some lemons in there, and that is okay. The lemons are an important part of learning, it means you are pushing yourself.

Southbound

"Southbound"
6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard
$95 unframed
Click Here to Purchase

It's that time of year, the great American summer roadtrip. I figured that with this week being the 4th of July and everyone embarking on their family vacations that it would be a good time to start posting my CA roadtrip series. This little number is on 278 in South Carolina, on the way from HHI to the Savannah airport. I seem to paint that highway quite a bit, but then there are some pretty sights to be seen there!

Old Fashioned

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"Old Fashioned"
6x6 Oil on Panel
$80 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

My husband and I stumbled upon (quite literally) this classic while in the town of Galle, in Sri Lanka. It was just begging to be painted.

In other news, the luncheon last week was a great success for me. I sold some great work, and might even have some commissions coming out of it. Pretty exciting! Not to mention the fact that I was able to meet some other fantastic artists here in Singapore. Getting to network with other artists is such a rare treat for me.

As I'm looking at the best way to reach my audience, I think I am going to hold off on any fairs until the fall. So, in the meantime, I'm re-focusing on my Etsy store (you can visit it here) so that I can continue selling to people in the US. I'm also going to look further afield for my inspiration. I've travelled so much in the past couple of years, I really want to make good on those experiences. So, look for some fantastic paintings from NYC, Italy, the Lowcountry, and even the rest of SE Asia. I'm so excited about branching out!

Boon Tat

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"Boon Tat"
6x6 Oil on Panel
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This was a view at dusk on Boon Tat street looking down into the CBD. One of my regular wanderings around the city, on this particular one I dragged my husband along. Luckily, there is a 7Eleven every other block, so he was able to 7Eleven hop and not get too bored. Now what, you might ask, is 7Eleven hopping? Only the best kept secret in Singapore. 7Eleven hopping is kind of like bar hopping. Singapore doesn't have an open container law (they just haven't figured out to make one yet, I think), and there is a 7Eleven on just about every corner. Plus, when a beer can cost you $12, it is pretty much the cheapest in town. Cheers and happy Friday!

Telok Ayer Street

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"Telok Ayer"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

This shophouse is on Telok Ayer Street, which is an area I have only recently found. There are all kinds of awesome restaurants in this area, many of them much higher end. It is kind of behind Club Street, while parallel(ish) to it. So unless you know to go down into this area off of Club Street, it is pretty easy to never really know it is there. I recommend going exploring.

One thing that is kind of neat/frustrating over here about life is that there is no big box store. If you want a widget, then you can get that widget (maybe not brand specific), you just have to find the specific widget store. There is some guy, somewhere, that sells that widget. You just have to find him. In some instances, it leads to things like an entire 7 story shopping mall that sells various electronic doodads and such. Sometimes I think Best Buy and Radio Shack are more efficient, but when you walk into the little tiny cubby-hole where they can custom build you a rocketship (well, if rockets weren't illegal here), you walk out with a story. Just musing today...

Galle Lighthouse

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"Galle Lighthouse"
6x6 Oil on Panel
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This painting is from our trip to Sri Lanka. The Dutch town of Galle is on the southwestern coast. It is a little Dutch fort town that is really picturesque. In fact, it is so picturesque that I tripped down three stairs on Christmas Day while looking at something neat and had to go to the ER. In a third world country. On Christmas Day. Now I have a fantastic and amazing scar, not to mention the story to go with it ;)

Also, we were putting the finishing touches on the AWA luncheon for this Friday. If you are here in Singapore, it is going to be an absolutely fantastic event. Local dance troupes, a Chinese face changer (I get to learn what that is!), and of course, the lovely AWA artists! Hope to see you there!

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 30

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 30"
6x6 Oil on Panel
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Another fantastic shop in Chinatown. There are so many wonderful shophouses in this area, in really beautiful shades of cherry red. 

Life is crazy right now. The AWA luncheon is next week, which will be showcasing 10 local AWA artists. It is exciting, but definitely made life pretty wild. The program for the luncheon itself looks spectacular, I know all the ladies involved have put in tons of effort to have it be an amazing experience.