Birds and Flowers in Springtime

Today's paintings are a combination of hand-painted birds from photographs shown in a WWF 2009 calendar (Song Birds) and my own rendition of flowers that adds gaiety to the spring-like atmosphere projected therein.

Flower Painting Par Elegance

The buddies met again today, thanks to the Spring Break, and continued to churn out flower paintings par elegance. As before, Mrs. Kim has focused on flowers alone, which makes the distinction between our works easy.

Birds and Leaves

This time is bird in the company of leaves, and colorful leaves at that.

Flower Galore During Spring Break

Last week, WT had the Spring Break. This week is CE's turn, as well as Mrs. Kim's. So she came by today for the buddy painting session, interspersed by a one-and-a-half-hour break where she invited me to watch a Van Gogh documentary at MOSI's IMAX Theatre. The first painting is hers while the rest (orchids) are mine.

Bamboo Galore By Accident

There is a reason for the Bamboo galore today. I was transferring the black ink from a big bottle that we bought recently at Pearl Fine Art Supplies introduced to us by Mrs. Kim, to a smaller bottle that I have bought from Michaels (black Sumi ink) and have been using when it spilled onto the table because I have underestimated its capacity. It seems a waste to just wipe the stains off the table. So instead, I dipped the Chinese brush into the shallow pool of black ink and the outcome is before you.

The Dream Team of flower paintings

It's Friday, that means the self-proclaimed dream team of two is at it again: painting flowers on a day before the weekend. The first one is by Mrs. Kim, patterned after a flower painting by Georgia O'Keefe seen on a flyer (later on I found the same painting in the book, One Hundred Flowers by Georgia O'Keefe (edited by Nicholas Callaway, Barnes & Noble, NY, 1998, pg. 57) that I bought some time ago), followed by the other three by me of the other dream team, this time, the objects of painting: flowers and birds.

Gong Pi by any other name ...

There are several English translations of the Gong Pi style of Chinese brush painting, one of which is the title of a painting book Harriet Lin bought for me when she visited Taiwan recently, Elaborated Style of Flower and Bird Paintings by Yu-shia Liou (published in Taiwan, 2001). I learned several techniques from the book and here are the results.