Lotus dreaming

Here is the latest painting: Lotus Dreaming. I like the muted colours, rather different to what I normally do. Maybe there are some more of these to come!

The process I am using

Here is an example of the process I am using to do my art work.
It starts out as a pencil drawing, usually on an sketchpad. I transfer that to an A3 sheet using measured squares as a guide.

After that I fill in with colours. Sometimes I use watercolours but in this case I have used acrylics. I also finish the painting by drawing in the original pencil sketch in black lines:

If you look closely you will see it has changed a bit - that's all part of the process!

After getting the colours sorted in my head I then turn the painting into a vector design drawing. I like the finish and the colours I can get with the computerised colour process.

Bamboo Forest

Recently I spent some time with Marion Davidson, my art teacher from the UAE, when she visited China to reminisce and catch up with friends from when she taught here a few years ago. We visited Huangshan (Yellow Mountain) and stayed a few days in Hangzhou. Whilst I did not see any pandas in the wild I imagined that there could have been some in the bamboo forests on Huangshan. This picture will be digitised with my new Fireworks8 macromedia program. I am just learning how to use it! My sister Helen has sent me a graphics tablet and a ssoon as I receive it I will be "down to business". I wonder how he will look in vectors with some nice bright colours - watch this space!

Also, I completed this painting the day my nephew Evan and his girlfriend Sarah had my sisters grandchild - Sally. So the painting is for Sally and will be framed and in the mail in a week or two.

I made some changes when we were doing thedigitisation and this is what it came out like:

Nanjing Butterflies

This painting will be auctioned for Hopeful Hearts a charity group here in Nanjing that raises money for children who have heart defects to have operations to save their lives.
The yellow in the painting represents Hope. The Plum blossoms are formed with small heart shaped petals. The plum blossom is the floral emblem of Nanjing. The butterflies represent the "butterfly children" from the Hopeful Hearts website.
It is at the framers now and is being framed with a cream matte with a small red stripe and a black frame - it was difficult to negotiate anything else with my limited Chinese skills!
Postscript: Here is the digitised version. You will see the changes that occur to colour and lines when the paiting is transformed to a vector design.

New series - "Symbols of China"

I downloaded the Adobe Illustrator program in Creative Suite 4 and I joined an online forum to learn how to do the vector diagrams, all to no avail - the jargon and the degree of difficulty was just too much for me! So for now I am just completing these designs "Symbols of China" as paintings and I will learn how to "vectorise" them at some later date. Maybe when I go back to Australia I can do a course that will explain it all to me!

This painting is inspired by the Chinese Opera Masks that you see all over China. Once completed I looked at it and thought they could be masks from many cultures, but I do think they have a distinctly Chinese "feel".

A portrait of Ron

Thought I would have a go at painting a portrait. This one is of Ron from a photograph taken just before we left Vanuatu. OOOps I haven't signed it - must do that!

The bridge at Huang Cun

The Bridge at Huang Cun

It took me a while to get this painting going. I loved the little village of Huang Cun at the foot of the Yellow Mountain - Huangshan in Anhui province in China. I am not confident of doing landscapes and I need lots of practice because I don't have the skill to produce something photographic and I just play with impressions. Still it is OK and I have put it in Ron's study. More practice will get me more motivated to paint more in this style.