Enjoy the moment ...

Simply Flowers

There is Simply Orange, a drink we first tried recently that turned out to be nice. Then there are Simply Flowers, patterned after those found in Elaborated Style of Flower and Bird Paintings by Yu-shia Liou (2001).

Fun in the sun

Birds in Twosome

Birds are popular as symbols as in mascots (The Arizona Cardinals, a professional football team), and names of entities (Garuda, a mythical bird used as the symbol of the Indonesian airline), and even of cities (Phoenix, AZ, another mythical bird). But they appear singly in these instances. As for my paintings for today, they are twosome, as in couples, a binary system.

Bird and Leave painting in tribute to Earth Day

Yesterday (April 22) was Earth Day. Therefore, I would like to dedicate these simple paintings of cheery birds and crimson leaves to mark this momentous day of celebrating the only Earth that we know, the blue planet that nourishes all lives.

The Two Bs in Sync

The two Bs are the bamboo and the birds, juxtaposing the graceful lightness of perched birds and the resilience of the pliant bamboo.

Animal Expressions

Aiming high ...

The best feeling for me is to be on top of the rock.

The Painting Buddies Reunited

After a lapse of two weeks, the buddies were reunited yesterday to present the latest offerings from their painting pursuits: the first four by Mrs. Kim, who did these at home during the intervening period, and I backed up with the last two, continuing my theme of birds and flowers. As usual, the session ended with a snack fare comprising tea (Georgia Peach), munchkins (mini-donuts), and granola bark (named so because of its shape and texture) from Publix.

Peach Blossom

Peach as a fruit appears in several popular Chinese phrases such as the peach and the plum vying for beauty (left) symbolizing the setting of myriad flower blooming in spring, and the peach and the plum populating the world meaning a teacher's students are numerous, literally spread through out to serve humanity (right), both being salutary in connotation. Peach Blossom has also appeared in Chinese poems such as the one below that contrasts the human emotion of mutual admiration at first encounter with the magnificence of flower blooming.


However, here the Peach Blossom is paired with birds to portray a similar wondrous content.

Bird Chirping Amidst the Fragrance of Flowers

It's often said that a picture is worth a thousand words, as the image conjures up a myrid description of verbalized messages in the mind, tempered by the vast store of accumulated memory therein. For most, this may be the case as we are visual animals, easily relating to a graphic display as the mind works its magic through pattern recognition, igniting a flare of cognition as it flashes through the mindscape. However, I suspect that most people would derive the same mental experience as well by merely reading a string of words, especially pithy phrases like idiom, proverbs and the like. Here I have picked a Chinese phrase (shown to the right, and its English translation appearing as the title) that to me, best encapsulates the message and the sense embedded in my chinese brush painting of birds and flowers shown below.

It's the avian world today

A sight of a bird usually conjures up a sense of graceful flight, elegant pirouetting, playful frolicking, and, rather paradoxically, dynamic stillness, poised to pounce while staying motionless, not unlike the lull before the storm. Let's see whether these bird paintings below could evoke such mental images in you.

The Pandas are at it again

Being themselves.

Snuggling the young to sleep.

Family meal time.

Catching a nap or pondering?

Disco pandas.

I'm testing how pliant this bamboo is.

1001, 1002, 10 ... Shucks, you made me lose count again.

Good morning, teacher!

Care-free Pandas

Hubby downloaded more pictures of pandas from the Internet for me to paint, mixed in with my own selection of background features.

Ha! I finished ahead of you.

Now, you put yourself on top of the logs like so ...

Man, this is heavy work.

Here comes the lumbering me.

You're getting too big for me to hug. Sigh!

Hey! We are the Curious Georges' of the Pandas, except that we don't swing.

OK, I declare you flea-free.

Gold-propped Pandas

Gold color that is, delineating the trees, the grass, the bamboo, the log, the ball, and the timber wall that surround the frolicking pandas.

Hey, Good Mama.

Come on, talk to me.

This is yummy.

This is the panda pose for bowling, doing it in the seated position.

Panda at ease. Do not disturb!

From Birds to Pandas

The buddy painting session could not be convened yesterday because Mrs. Kim would like to be with her son, Mark, during the high school spring break. But she did not slacken, completing two paintings at her home while I did a Gong Pi painting of birds.

Then today I revisited panda painting based on the series of panda photographs received from Janet via email. These photographs portray pandas in various hilarious poses as they enjoy their natural habitat, doing fun things as innocent children would. I only changed the setting to suit my own sense of their surroundings.

Painting Contrast

In style (Gong Pi vs One-Brush), in form (flowers as static vs fish as dynamic), and in motion (swimming vs perching).

Fusion painting of Birds and Flowers

Fusion is a popular term used to describe a mixture of things normally applied to food preparation, as in different ethnic food items, or to movies, as in portraying different eras with their distintive costumes. Here I use fusion to mean mixing birds patterned after close-up photos of live birds and flowers/plants patterned after other painted works, to come out with my own renderings.

Bamboo for Resilience

The evolving details of Bamboo painting

From a lone bamboo tree, to a bamboo cluster, to the company of a single bird, then a couple of birds, covering the spectrum of dynamism from stillness to flight. That's the versatility of painting in varying details, limited only by the imagination of the one wielding the mighty brush.

Bamboo with New Brush

We converged on Linda's house yesteday morning for our monthly Chinese brush painting class, one by one streaming into her home with bagfuls of arts supply in one hand, and prepared food in another. We painted bamboo for the class. And I added a couple more at home, using some of the new Chinese brushes bought by Brother Yang on our behalf on his recent trip back to Taiwan.

Mandarin Ducks Frolicking in Water

Mandarin ducks (yuan yang), the proverbial symbol of lovebirds in the Chinese language, a model of marital fidelity and connubial bliss, are the subject of a popular Chinese idiom as titled and as portrayed below.

I will follow you ...

This is a partial lyric from an old song (I will Follow You), sort of repopularized by Whoopi Goldberg in the movie, Sister Act (1992), which has been characterized as a hilariously divine comedy, with a slight change of lyric (I will follow him) and tempo, as personified by the sparrow couple gliding in unison over the lotus.

The Twin Bird and Lotus Trilogy

Today's painting is the third of the trilogy of the twin-bird-and-lotus theme drawn ala Gong Pi style, the other two being here and here, from eyeing each other, to swooping down together, to seeking refuge in unison, all centered around the Lotus, the symbol of purity.

There is a Yellow Rose in ...

But here in Tampa we have two in our room, pinned up against the wall.

Swooping swallows over lotus