Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 18 - SOLD

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No 18"
6x16 Oil on Panel Diptych
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This is one of my favorites so far.  I took it on a gray, hazy day, so there wasn't a good strong light and shadow situation like with most of my paintings.  At first I struggled a lot with it - between little strong light and it being white.  But like with a lot of paintings, I just held on and kept going.  Eventually it came together, and I really like the results.

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 17 - DP No. 40

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 17"
6x6 Oil on Panel
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Happy Mardi Gras!  Since we missed our favorite holiday of the year, we are going to be heading instead to our favorite Indian place - Curry GardenN, where they have been so kind as to have a drink special just for us - Margaritas.  What does any of this have to do with Mardi Gras?  As you will notice, there are absolutely no similarities between our little celebration and what you find in New Orleans - even the TGI Fridays here has their Mardi Gras celebration on Thursday, March 11th (yeah, after the date and on a Thursday).  But, as they say, when in Rome...

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 16 - DP No. 39

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 16"
6x6 Oil on Panel
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To be completely honest, this one was incredibly tough, but I loved how it turned out.  This was a shophouse that had the trim painted in various shades of gray, that had nothing to do with where the shadows fell, or the form it created.  I thought the trim was just beautiful, and I loved the shadows, but translating all the different painted colors of gray - whew!  Such a toughie.

And here is the on location painting I did last week - Dunlop Street in Little India.  I just love this little corner, and I really like how this plein air piece turned out.  Due to the 95 degree weather, I did finish the last bit in the studio, but I think that is allowed.  So hot!

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 15 - SOLD

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 15"
6x6 Oil on Panel
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I remember when I first read Taking the Leap, which is a must-read book if you eventually want to become a full time artist.  Since then I have read multiple blogs, books, etc, all about taking that first step and becoming a full-time artist.  One thing I always remember reading is how they talk about working long hours - longer than you would ever work at a normal office job.  Even when I was doing quite well with my abstract work in Houston, and almost full-time, I kind of scoffed at those people.  I figured I could do it better, more efficiently, paint faster, whatever.  Well, now I know what they meant.  Literally, I cannot find enough hours in the day.  Nevertheless, like the bumper sticker says, "A bad day painting is better than a good day in the office."  Or wait, is it usually talking about fishing?  Oh well.  Works for me!

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 14 - DP No. 37

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 14"
6x6 Oil on Panel
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This has been such a long week, but I can't believe it is already Friday!  So much has happened, it is just crazy.  In addition to finding out about my show, I was also accepted into Fresh Paint Daily Painters this week - a doubly exciting piece of news!  There are so many talented artists whom I thoroughly enjoy following their works.  And to top it all off, I've been in the studio for at least 8-10 hours per day just trying to get enough work completed for this show.  Not enough time to think, much less relax, but I feel the most fulfilled I have felt in a very long time.  Even when I am totally struggling through a painting, I feel an inner peace, a kind of center.  

Life. Is. Good.

Blogger Artists - Having Thumbnail Issues??? Read This!!!

Okay, has anyone else noticed that your thumbnails have been disappearing from your blogroll?  I noticed this, but I had no idea how to change it.  In order to make sure that your thumbnails are appearing on other people's blogrolls (pretty important for visual artists, isn't it???), you are going to have to go in and *gasp* edit some html on your blogger entries.  Google and blogger changed something, so now we have to kind of hack around it to get it to work.  Sigh.

Here's what you do:

1.  After you have uploaded your photo, click on the "edit HTML" tab at the top of your Blogger post editor (it is the blue writing next to the "Compose" tab:

2.  The HTML editor looks like a whole lot of code.  If you normally post your photo first in any entry, look in at the top of the code for something like similar to:

a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhX_RDXngRd8EjzqUsOLFueD4ZCq2T6YuYhxzDSCDQ9f0Afw-PnibSjbxs7f-lv0cWCI2qxaYTPXRY9Gg_EfTDh9WYqqf4rlikJVHs_3hxaYJYjdtwMiHV3fHC5F5U4DVDNJsd5CJ92Lsg/s1600/sh13.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"



This type of code is for an image.  Here is what that screen will look like:

3.  In two places you will see a web address listed for your image.  When you upload a photo from your hard drive, it is then hosted on Picasa.  That is the web address that you see in your screen.  In two place in that top code, you will see an address similar to this one:

https://lh4.googleusercontent.com/-N5iFpayGPBk/TW-WpTbryYI/AAAAAAAAA3A/B0GxbXxQyhQ/s1600/sh13.jpg

You will want to change the parts that I have highlighted in RED to the following:

http://lh4.ggpht.com/-N5iFpayGPBk/TW-WpTbryYI/AAAAAAAAA3A/B0GxbXxQyhQ/s1600/sh13.jpg

4.  So, in short, go into the html editor, and change the web address of your source photo from https://....googleusercontent.com... to http://....ggpht.com...

Hope that helps, it is working for me!

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 13 - DP No. 36

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 13"

6x6 Oil on Panel

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This is one of those crazy crazy KTV places in Chinatown.  And what, might you ask, is a KTV place?  It is a Karaoke bar.  Just like what you may have seen in "Lost in Translation."  Since Karaoke is the one thing even tequila cannot convince me to do, I haven't exactly gotten into them much.  In any case, it makes for another fun shophouse!

I had a really cool morning this morning when I was painting on location.  I was in Little India again, and a couple people now recognize me (the crazy white girl sweating her you-know-what-off in the 95 degree heat at 9am).  Two of them stopped to chat with me, and I had a really nice time.  One of them owns a Thai massage parlor on the street and another was an India gentleman that runs a restaurant in Malaysia.  He told me I must come and try his food.  The gentleman that owned the massage parlor was really lovely to speak with.  And what was even cooler, was that as I was packing up, he came and gave me a soda.  So generous.  It was greatly appreciated, because literally by 9am it was at least 90 degrees, if not closer to 95.  I wound up only getting 50% through the painting because I was just too hot.  Well, so it goes in Singapore.

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 12 - DP No. 35

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 12"
6x6 Oil on Panel
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Life is good.  I hope the beginning of spring is going well for you as well.  I'm slammed in the studio and just painting away, but other than that, not much more to tell.  This is a scene from Little India again.  I just love the colors they paint the buildings there.  So vivid.  I was finally able to get out this afternoon and get some decent pictures.  I think Indonesia or Malaysia might be burning more rain forest again.  The sky is just super hazy and gray all day long, but the sun is shining through.  This creates a totally unique lighting situation that I've never seen before and don't really know how to paint.  I mean, how do you paint a totally white/gray sky with strong light and dark shadows?  Yeah.  Doesn't make much sense.  In any case, have a great day, and I'll post again tomorrow!

Paintmap - Follow the Trail!

I just joined this really awesome new website, Paintmap.  I know, I know, not another social media site, right?  This one is a little bit different, and I think it helps add to the experience of my paintings a lot.  This site has paired up with Googlemaps to add geolocation to paintings.  So, I can upload my paintings and tag them with a latitude and longitude, and you can see exactly where they came from!  When I am wandering around and taking reference photos, I often kind of lose track of what street I am currently on, but I at least know the neighborhood.  I think this will be really neat as I continue to travel and paint.  It is yet another site to upload my paintings to, but this one I just think is super cool.  So, if you would like, follow where I have been and see more of the area!  Plus, you can see some other really cool artists and the work they've done as well.

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 11 - SOLD

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 11"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

This shophouse is in Chinatown.  Don't you just love the colors?  Nice and warm with the afternoon light hitting the building and creating some really awesome shadows.  Hope you have a happy Tuesday!