Showing posts with label Paintings. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Paintings. Show all posts

How to Make a Sister

The greatest challenge in my life is when 3 years ago, moving to Canada, and learning English. 
The second greatest challenge is this painting.


That was in my grade 12 painting class last semester. Our culminating assignment was a typical high school art project, self-portrait. I've done many self-portraits in various styles, but I had never painted a full-body portrait. In fact, I almost had no experience on drawing human body.
I got my canvas a week before Christmas. It was 30 by 60 in, almost my height and almost $50.
$50 for a plain canvas for a school project is pretty expensive. 
I told myself it was a Christmas treat for me in order to make myself feel less guilty, haha.


So before I started my painting, on my sketch book, I explored many compositions and poses. 
Like I said, I never really drew much full-body figures before. Everything just come naturally from daily observation. 

We also did a few quick practice paintings on self-portraits in class. 
It was for practising using complimentary and analogous colours. 
I did it in front of a mirror for maybe half an hour each. It doesn't look like me that much, but the face always reminds me of another friend haha. 


After Christmas break, I started on my painting. 
It was a lot of work to do. I started to realize 30 by 60 is a really big size. 
I spent nights and weekends on it because I just couldn't concentrate fast and well enough in a 20-people class during 40 min only session. 

I changed the background from purple to green and then to yellow.




After a few plastic surgeries on my "face"....
Yeah, it really looked like myself!!
haha, she became my best friend and came to annoy me every day....

In the end, I change my background to blue and it looked so different.
The figure just feels pop out more and the colour matches the colour i used for the figure; and the nice blue really represent my personality.




The sweater is my favourite part of my painting.

It really brings me lots of tears and joy. 
Just like having sibling or childhood friend, lots of fights and good time. LOL


Sisters

Hey there!
 I want to introduce my twin sister. Her name is ChaoChao.
Left: My twin sister ChaoChao
Right: Me ChaoYing HAHA




I had trouble getting a good picture of her because this "girl" is 60 by 30 just by sitting there.

My parents didn't give me a sister so, fine, I created my own.
Haha joking... This is a self-portrait assignment I did in visual art class.

This is my first full-body portrait and it's my human-sized!

More information about my "sister" and the creating progress will be posted  this weekend.


I really enjoy her company.  :)


@China~ An ODD self portrait


It is an exaggerated self-portrait.
I tried to free the brush in my hand.

I am melting there,
in between fire and ice...



@China~ "ME WALL"

I did a series of self-portraits in the summer.
My mom hung them on a wall and make it a "ME WALL" XD!


Let's look at these paintings one by one. I put them in time order:).


1. This is the first self-portrait I did with acrylics on canvas. 
And then after this painting's existent, purple-yellow tone started to be call my "signature colour". 

2. Haha, it is from one of my pictures in grade ten. I was 15. 
I've got a crooked smile there.

3. My first oil painting:). 
 I was kind of chubby at that time.... 

4. Got the motivation after watching "Transformers III" 8D!
I want gold skin!



5. This is a "sketch painting". 
 it looks kind of like a sketch but it is actually an acrylic painting and I made my eyes LOL red... 
I got Monkey King's "火眼金睛".  
or if you say I look like a vampire, I will accept that too.



This is where it is located, on the wall above my piano at home in China.


@China~ Got a "Tulip Garden" at home

I did a few paintings of tulips for commitments (from family friends) this summer. I put assemble them a tulip garden in my house^_^.

(this is my TV...)



Aha, new style.
raining? reflection? near sight? I leave the imagination to you!

I enjoy the rich colour of its.


The last one is an old painting I did at the beginning of 2010 for my mom.

 An additional one that is not included.  Done it in 2009.
First acrylic painting ever!


@China~ Mama's Birthday Gift

This is the birthday card I designed and made for my mom's birthday on September 4th.;)

HAPPY 35 TH BIRTHDAY 
MAMA! 
YOUR ID: wanhong@1966.0904
PASSWORD: 1. moms are happy to be 10 years younger.
2. mama, you are the shortest.


DO YOU GET THE JOKE?
Hahaa! It was a family joke~



ANOTHER COOL VERSION OF IT

@CHINA~~ First Time Playing with Oil Paints

I'm currently in Hefei, China. 
Guess what was the first thing I did on my first day home?


TRYING OUT MY OIL PAINTS, haha~

Happy Spring

Are you tired of looking at the black & white sketches in my blog recently?
Yeah, sketching is less complicated than painting. I don't mean the process of painting is troubling though, painting is a beautiful thing. Just the things I have to do BEFORE and AFTER painting bother me so much- setting up paints & palettes and cleaning up brushes & table- how lazy I am.
Ha, I have something nice for the season this time:). 
The worst thing about the country I live in is that the winter is freaking cold. When I waked up on the morning of APRIL 4th, I saw the snow lying peacefully outside my window...  and then I swore inside my head. 
"Why is the winter here endless?"
Spring is finally here. Yeah! My t-shirts all take a deep breath from the closet.
Does this painting recall you a sweet memory of spring outing? Or does it remind you to go out and have a picnic with your friends on a sunshiny day? 





I did it just for fun, and I used texture again because it's fun!

Click on the picture and you will see more texture:).

The "abnormal things" I used for the painting are:

1. Flour

2. A "weapon" and a holder (Mixing flour and paints)

And after mixing flour and paint in the holder, I used the knife to put the mixture on the canvas. They are very sticky to the surface. 
(Accidentally, I used brown paint to mix with flour... I told myself, "don't gross out. It looks fine, just like chocolate", but seriously, someone might think I was stirring poo.... )

Cover the whole surface with the "chocolate(or ...) ", just wait for it to dry. Once it's dry, it never falls off and it smells... so good... make me want to eat the canvas like a bagel.

Then I paint my image on it. When doing painting on textures, the problem occurs when painting even colors, for example, light colors on dark background and dark colors on light background, that I have to use my brush with paint to dig into the holes in the flour. but it looks great when you want different colors appear at the same time, isolating from on another.
FUN FUN FUN


Have you noticed that my profile picture is changed? LOL.... that's a self-portrait. I'm not a skilled photographer to take a photo of it in a perfect perspective, so I will post it on my blog in later days.



Zhouzhuang, China's Venice:)

The first look at this painting, "it's that in Venice?"
Keep looking... "hey wait, there is a Chinese boat and red lanterns. All the buildings are Chinese style, and the two pillars on the arch bridge..."

Yeah, right, it's in China.
This is in a small town called Zhouzhuang. Zhouzhuang is one of the most famous water townships in Chian, located in Kunshan City, which is near Suzhou City, Jiangsu Province. In an area of half a square kilometer (124 acres), 60 percent of the Zhouzhuang's structures were built during the Ming and Qing Dynasties, which is from 1368 to 1911.

Zhouzhuagn is neither my home town, nor I have relatives there. I've only been there once and that was when I was six. That is too young for me to remember anything there, but as I grow up, I always see pictures of its beauty and I miss this place so much.
Although I've never been to Venice, I think Zhouzhuang is as worthy to visit in China as Venice in Italy. There are many pretty Chinese bridges over the water, nice temples and gardens on the land, and boats that take tourists around the town. 
You can't miss the experience of spending a relaxing holiday in a traditional and cultural atmosphere in this small town . 


Hey, go back to my painting. 
Most Chinese paintings about Venice are very stylish, with soft colors and hazy  feelings. In contrast of my painting, I use strong opposite colors to create a scene of this peaceful small town in dusk, with acrylic paints on canvas board.

This is my painting process. I like how cool it is!
 

"Lotus" in Qi-pao - watercolor (2)




 I believe this is a "sister painting" of the painting of "Chinese Woman in Qipao" in which there is a gloomy lady holding  an umbrella and walking alone in an little allay.
Unfortunately, the painting doesn't turn out very well on the computer. She is supposed to be pinkish, just like pink waterlily color. okay, whatever, I hope orange is good as well.

So I used a Chinese photo-edit program to play with colors and lights. My paintings actually look cooloer :D.
If it's too small for you, click on it and you will be led into a site of the original-sized picture.

HAHA, more interesting!

Art Class at School (2)

Second post about my accomplishments from art classes at school.
In this post, I will show you guys the works from grade 11 visual art, which I took last semester. I did fairly well in this class and got the top mark:) Haha.
One thing really enjoyable about art classes for me was, that I could work with a group of artist at my age:D. There is no one better or worse in art, and all ideas are accepted and acclaimed. After each assignment, Mrs B, my art teacher, always asked us to do presentations about our works and to speak about our ideas, creating process and anything we might want to say. I love the moment when everyone was listening to my presenting and telling me what they liked about my pieces or what I could improve on anything.
But the very one thing I disliked was about marks. Art should really not be related to marks too much, though the teacher gives students marks based on their works. If someone create an art work just in order to gain the teacher's favor and to get a good marks, that is not a good purpose of working. An art work without sincere passion is meaningless. That's why ambition in the class kind of bothered me somehow at that time, however, I feel very thankful to Mrs B for the education.

I arranged some of my works by date created. I hope you will find them interesting.

September, 2010,  Pencil sketch, size: about 1500mm X 700mm
This is a still-life drawing of objects Mrs B set on the central table while we were all sitting surrounding it, and we drew "eyes" into the picture. Before we worked the sketch, we had practiced drawing eyes from classical paintings. 
Here are some sketches of eyes. I think they are funny though...




November, 2010, A Scream from a Chaotic Mind
This is a very interesting assignment. We each chose an artist from certain periods or styles, such as expressionism, romanticism and so on, and we did research on his life and artworks. And Then we imagine the room of this artist based on his life, personality, art style and something like that. See what I did:
My chosen artist is Edvard Munch, an expressionist painter and I was inspired to create this chaos by his painting, the Scream.
After reading about his life and a few more works he did, I assumed that his mind was chaotic, and I decided to create the room in the mouth of the screamer from the painting, the Scream. It was a great idea but you wouldn't know if I didn't tell you so. I also used his style of brush stokes, visible lines, and use of color, opposite colors and warm-cold colors composition. It took my a lot of time to sketch and figured out the arrangement of the room settings. 
Wait! There is symbol in this painting which is the white bird, or you can say it's a book, near the central hole of the mouth. It represents Munch who is trying to escape from this chaos that is swallowing him.
Another important thing art is the teeth... that is actually my creepy teeth I draw from the mirror!

December, 2010, The Phoenix Queen, clay
For this assignment, we are supposed to make a pottery and it is a pottery as you may not know. I worked beyond that I guess. Honestly, I spent at least 5 more hours than anyone else in my class. To tell the truth, I feel so encouraged when it astonished everyone and Mrs B loves it so so much, and before all this happened, I thought I screwed up clay too much and I was too dumb for it.
This is a sketch~~~ funny!


My last assignment of the course, stamping and painting... I didn't know what I was doing though and they are not my best works... anyhow, hope you found them interesting or pretty.

I use phoenix figure again, which is on my stamps. I hope you find them more alike a bird than a cat... haha. The core of the theme is "pouring", either pouring of solids or liquid. we used transparent paper overlapping the  painting and created multiple layers, and the stamping should go with the rhythm of pouring.
 Express art as music:).
BTW, this one can go upside-down as well, still pouring.:)

Chinese woman in "Qi-pao(cheongsam)" -watercolor

 旗袍[qí páo] (Cheong-sam in Catonese) is a type of Chinese traditional dress, modified in 1930s, and it has become the most popular Chinese gown since then.
Qipao is usually made of silk or other materials, and it's tight-fitting.
My mom has one and it is Chinese red (the very bright kind) with peonies on it. She wore it a few times in Canada and people said it was gorgeous.
I think any traditional Chinese cloth or dress looks really funny on me. I guess it's because my baby-fat doesn't suit it very well... it's true that I'm not the elegant type. 
Although I've never had my own "qipao", I always love the way it is, and I love looking at them and paint it.



I started painting this picture during the long weekend and just finished the piece this weekend.
I haven't tried watercolor for so long. I got the paints last year for a civics project and I can't even remember when was the last time doing watercolor drawing... the closest is only once in grade 7 in art class. Fine, I don't think I remember anything about it. 
Pick it up again, there is actually infinite fun: not only playing with color, but playing with water. 
I use tubed watercolor paints and watercolor pencils for this painting.

Watercolor paints are quite different from acrylic paints. First, acrylic paints can be painted over by another color, and can be covered over and over again, but watercolor paints can't; second, not like acrylic paints, watercolor paints dissolve in water easily, once it's dry, you can always wet it with water and it can be reused again, that's how watercolor paints work; to correct mistakes made by acrylic paints, (if the mistake is in dark color) you need to cover it with light color, such as white, wait it to dry and start your new layer by painting over the white, but in watercolor, you can just rub it with a watery brush (not too hard) and wipe off the water with tissue paper. Then, the color will be off with the water.



I should have said this earlier: this lady is not me or any of my friends. She's just from a random photograph I found from online photo collection. But it makes me assured of my portrait drawing skills that I can draw identical portraits from photograph. (well, not 100% identical... you know what I mean). That's why sometimes I draw portraits for my friends birthdays instead of buying gifts.

A "Master Piece"

I think it's a good landscape painting.
I started the painting about a month ago but just finished the whole thing today.
from a photograph I took in Buckhorn, Ontario on Thanksgiving weekend, 2010.
kind of playing with the light somehow... that is a really nice little town for a holiday.

I plan to give it to my grandmother who is in China and just moved to their new house last November. I visited her last Christmas break in China and thought she needed a painting for the new place.
Sounds good? hope she likes it.

A few more winter paintings

LOL
Well, the picture of my painting doesn't turn out very well. The original painting is 3D! 
The birdy is actually plumped up because I used a lot of tissue paper under the paints to make the shape of it.  
Similarly was what I did to the closest branches.
The snowy background is also textured with flour. 
FUN!


I actually name this painting "What I want to see"
I kinda wanted to do this painting with the colors of Picasso's Blue Period at first and conclude with bright pink lips on this girls face.
This is textured with flour as well, but I made it plain and striped with a knife.
Well, Shirley said I did a good job on this piece.
:)))))) INTERESTING!

Valentines Gift for My Valentine

 I am trying to work on a series of paintings about winter. This is the first one I did last month.
Something to mention is that this is the first textured painting I did and what I used to make the texture is black pepper.

Using pepper for painting?
Haha, sounds weird, doesn't it? Actually that day I looked for flour in the kitchen in my church but I found none, and I was afraid to use salt instead because it too easily dissolved in water. Finally, I saw a bottle of black pepper and I thought, why not try this? Then it worked out so well.

Steps:
1. Just mix whatever you are using for texture, in here is pepper, with your paint (background color). It's gonna stick on your canvas so no need to use glue or anything.
2. Then, do something else, waiting for the paint to dry.
3. Once it's dry, feel free to work on it and you will see how effective it's gonna be.

Luckily, texture made by pepper not only lies on the canvas smoothly, but also creates the effects of snowing and the fluffs of the dog.
I also add colors all around the figure to make it more interesting.

My Acrylic Paintings

I can tell you that the day I expect the most in a week is Thursday.  Thursday is actually more precious than Friday to me, though Friday night is generally students' free night.  That is all because every Thursday after school, I do arcrylic paiting with a group of artiests, and those two and a half hours always seems to be the best time in a week to me.

I can't tell you how much I love acrylic paintings because you are gonna see my love from my paintings and my stories. Acrylics' become the material I used most often for painting.


How I recieve this treasure of art, acrylic painting, is all because of a person, my first art teacher since I moved to Canada. Her name is Shirley.

This is my first piece of acrylic painting that I did in December 2009. It was also my first time to paint on canvas.


That day was the first time when I met Shirley at her house. Shirley is a professional artist and obviously, a master of arcrylic art. On that day, she helped me to find a picture I like to start, and I chose these pretty tulips in different shapes. She also asked me to choose the canvas from 3 different sizes, and I chose the mediun one since I was a biginner painter. I had two classes to finish this painting. During the process, Shirley gave me a lot of suggestions on the dark and light, transition of colors and so on, however, she didn't paint anything on mine at all. Until now, she's never corrected or done anything for me on my paintings. She always suggests and she says I may find something else better than she suggests.
I used watery yellow paint to breifly paint the first layer of the fowers but did not schetch under the painting. The setting of the two flowers is pretty natural and lively; the unature backgroud is the creative part of this piece but the jewelry blue background with light spots matches the wealthy yellow tulips well. It's not bad for the first piece, is it?
It is a picture of the painting, however, the original piece is with many unskilled brushstrokes because of my inexperienced techniques.




This is a gift for my mum, painted in February 26th, 2010.
The reason I remembered the date so clearly is because my mother came to visit my dad and me on February 27th after had not seen her for almost half year since I moved to Toronto, and the night before, I worked on this painting in Shirley's house until 10 o'clock and she drove me home. How sweet that was!
And then, my mother loved it so much.
This painting's style is similar to the first one. The backgroud, again, is kind of creative and you can see through the layers which makes it pretty intersting. I love those claret violet tulips and the various shapes of them.


Painted in February 2010, for my best friend's, Clare's, birthday. The original picture is from Tropicana orange juice ontainer.
Clare used to be big an orange lover, and that's why to paint oranges for her birthday seemed like the best idea. She is the first friend I had in Canada, and luckily, she is an white Canadian girl who always helps me English. She is actually so special and precious... I will talk about her later.
Anyhow, I did this painting on my own, and after it was done, I brought it to Shirley and she helped me to make it perfect:). What I did is to refine the pulps of the central orange with thick paints and made it realistic.



Painted in April and May, 2010; was given to my father for his birthday.
Another story with Shirley. I forgot my Dad's birthday which was on May 14th (what a horrible daughter I was!), I felt really bad and I even wept. Shirley and her daughter, my English teacher Mrs Carbrey, comforted me and Shirley suggested me to work hard on this unfinished painting and gave it to my dad as a birthday present and so I did.
A beautiful foggy morning in spring!  I had a lot of fun paiting the fog over the painting.  What I did is to use very watery white color on a huge brush to paint over the trees, otherwise, the trees won't be seen through the fog. The further the trees are, barely they are seen. So interesting. The closer grass are darker and the grass is painted with many different green, especially with many yellow brushstrokes highlighted. Green is so lovely:).

 
 a Snowy Tree, Painted in Sep 2010 at Shirley's house. It is now at my home in China.
I don't have a story for this painting but it was a pretty good progress on painting for me.
This is a pine in winter whose pine needles have all been coverd by snow and ice. Pines are evergreen but in my painting it is blue. The original picture is from a photograph too but the tree is actually white. Why would artists differnet from photographer? Aritists can create the colors in their choice which apply to the subject. Well, everyone would know that is snow eventhough the blue is unatural. The needles are quite detailed painted: the close parts are sharp and the further parts are soft and light.  The point of view is awesome and you can see the branches of the pine stretching towards the sky or into the needles. I play a lot with lights when I did the branches.


A special winter painting. The girl on the painting is my art buddy, Nahyun. It is painted in November 2010, and is currently in China.
Nahyun's been in Canada for 2 years. She's from Korea. She had professional training on art back in Korea and she was working on a art portfolio for OCAD(Ontario College of Ard and Design University) at that time and she was in the painting group. In a word, she is an awesome artist. The environment is referenced from a Christmas card and I was about to do a Christmas theme paiting for that piece, however, one day, I left the card in my locker after school and I seemed nothing to do in my painting class that day. I suddenly had an idea that I could paint Nahyun, who was sitting right across the table in front of me. Then, I did, haha. Nahyun is really happy about the painting and she likes so much when it's done. Well, after all, it's my first painting of an real life person and it doesn't look identical to Nahyun. Anyhow, it is special between me and her:). She is leaving for Korea this month and she is going to stay there for university. I feel sad about that and I wish her the best in her education and career.