In the beginning...
...it was just a few sketches..
A crane sketch with Ink spill.
I was a little too happy when i finished this sketch of a crane that i spilled ink and didn't bother to finish the pine tree, but hey it looks like i can paint.
My attempt at a landscape. I think this sketch gets the main idea across and I believe i proved to myself i can do this. Once again the pine tree, i just didn't finish. The next sketch will show you kind of why i don't. =)
Maybe this one should be first. Pine tree with a bunch of leaves...a little too much i think. I think that's what the guy is thinking too. Well, another sketch.
So, there's a proportion issue here, but I was just slaping stuff together. And I semi-perfected the horse a little bit later. Just a sketch
Dude in his thoughts and a bird. There was suppose to be flock of them but the sketch didn't scan correctly. Oh well, just a sketch.
So i started getting into animals and color. A lot hard and every stroke counts. Take for example the bird. It's literally 3 strokes for the entire bird (minus the black lines that defines the beak, eyes and wings). So this was a successful sketch.
Another bird and tree photo. Tree leaves were surprising easy to draw and the grapes too. I had a lot of side marks on this one so, sketch again =)
I'd say this one was the milestone and segway into more elaborate and larger artworks. Little chicks and big daddy rooster with some veggies. Garden Scene.
Still on the small side, but it's the first full color scene i did. Still got areas to work on but was good enough for the family wall =)
First major full scale artwork. 9 fishes (kois) and 3 lotuses. I is a great number for kois. the number 9 is a homophone of the word for "longlasting" and such is often used in weddings. The number 3 sounds similar to the character for "birth". Thus together, it's a great picture with a subtle meaning of "the birth of something wonderful and long lasting".
This was my first major accomplishment in the sense that i won silver at a national chinese brush painting competition. I was 17.
The following year I submitted this photo in an international competition and received a bronze medal for this painting.
The camera flash kind of ruined this picture. The bright spots aren't actually bright spots. This painting was a finalist in the same competition as the 4 horses. Different year though.
Another Full scale artwork. My first artwork dealing with tigers. I'd say it turned out okay.
A gift for a family friend of ours. Still working on perfecting the peony. I'm not sure how i arrived at 4 peonies as 4 isn't a great number in the chinese culture. But it fitted the composition in my mind at the moment.
