Today, at the insistence of a friend, I took an afternoon with Bob Ross and learned how to paint ‘happy little trees, rocks, and mountains.’ My finished project isn’t a masterpiece, but it only took an hour which is pretty cool. Also, as I’m considering opening a studio, this kind of easy landscape is a [...]

I’ve decided it’s ok to swear because I don’t think many people visit my blog anyway; I’ve been using facebook a lot and it’s way better for letting people see what I’m working on. Today, as I sometimes do when I’ve been painting and I cross from “this looks terrible, I’m not sure I can [...]

How to paint portraits with oils.
Tip: Oil paintings rarely look smooth and natural up close. Frequently take 4 or 5 big steps back, to see what your piece really looks like.
1) Select a great picture with deep shadows. Painting a person will be so much easier if there are clear blocks of light and shadow. [...]

I finished “Mao” and “Orange Juice” and I’m close to finishing “Rubix girl”. They look great – and yesterday I started “Horny”: it’s a picture of a pair of very standard Taiwanese temple door gods, getting a rise out of a hot Asian girl. I know it looks pretty busy now, but it’ll come out [...]

Amazing what you can do with a bit of raw umber: deep shadows on Mao and the fruit bowl give an already 3D look – and it’s just the underpainting. That’s my first ever fruit bowl, folks. I was going to call it ’still life’; because every artist starts out doing still lifes of fruit [...]

I am SO on my game this week. OK – I don’t know what the butterflies one is all about. It’s beautiful but too ‘nice’ and cute for my usual style… makes me feel like a teenage girl. And I don’t know what to do about her stomach yet. “Duck Soup” is super large, one [...]

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Why is the ascetic Buddha so fat and happy? He must have stopped at McDonalds.

Finishing up some more. “Mao” is the sound cats make in Taiwan…therefore the cute hello kitty/Mao painting.
“Banana” is Taiwanese slang for Asian people who want to be white (yellow on the outside, white on the inside). If this “banana” painting looks insane, it is. Go ahead and question my sanity. Just looking at it makes [...]

I’m excited about this new painting…. with the red Taiwan door knockers. The model is my friend Kei. The ‘fortune cookie’ one is also going to be a favorite.
I’m feeling like the other one, with the three girls chasing after the nerdy white guy instead of the cool, handsome Asian, is kind of an inside [...]

Some of the things I’m working on today. The rubix cube girl is going to be amazing… I’m tempted to put a pervert reaching across her chest and ’solving’ her, but it’ll be stronger if she’s alone. The very sad girl with the sign is from Cambodia; there’s something mischievous about using the pity emotion [...]