We took a one-hour boat ride from Lido Island, where we stayed in Venice, to the picturesque Burano Island. Every one of the buildings and houses on this island are painted in the cheerful bright colors. This is an island of fairy-tale. It has canals crossing through streets and beautiful water ways reflecting the colorful buildings. This little fishing village has certainly made a mark in my traveler's journal.
After staying in Taos, New Mexico for a 6-day painting trip we were heading home to Texas. On the way from Taos to Santa Fe we stopped by this beautiful stream flowing down from the Taos Mountain. It was a bright sunny morning. The lights were shinning beatifully on these cottonwood trees.
I painted this yellow rose for my lovely niece, Jinyi. She came to Texas from China when she was 5 years old without knowing much English. Throughout the years she has become an outstanding achiever in academy and music. She was a drum major for the marching band in her high school and also graduated with a high honor of salutatorian. She headed west for her college, graduated from USC in California and returned to Texas in 2008 to continue her study in Bayler Medical School. She is an intelligent lady and a hard worker. I know she will be a great doctor. I gave her this rose to welcome her back home in Texas.
Every winter many people migrate from north to south Texas to spend time in the mild climate. They form a nice friendship and visit the New Braunfels Art Gallery often. People in Texas called them "Snow Birds". Here is a painting for them.
The Denali National Park offers the most beautiful autumn colors in September. The hills were covered by the bright red fireweeds with a backdrop of blue/purple mountain and the green spruces in between. You get the picture. We were so lucky to have a nice weather when we arrived in Denali National Park after a 4-hour train ride from Anchorage. Visiting Alaska opened up my eyes and heart to the nature. Alaska has the most fabulous and beautiful landscape with mountain, rivers, trees, glacier, and wild animals. We experienced the fear of possible encounter with bears and wild animals while walking in the trail. Yes this land is their land too.
Tai Lake is the second largest fresh water lake in China. It is about 2 hours driving from Shanghai. This bridge is called "Long Live Bridge" meaning you live young and healthy forever. We sure hope so. Other than fishing and transportation, the Tai Lake is also a place to raise fresh water pearls. I bought a nice pearl ring from one of the show rooms by Tai Lake.
We were on a boat cruising down the famous Lijiang River in Guilin, China. Guilin is rated one of the most picturesque sites in the world. Lijiang River winds along thousands of picks that have very interesting and unique formations. Cruising down the Lijiang River and seeing the beautiful hills passing by us it gave us a feeling out of this world. It brought me a great deal of serenity and an extreme feeling of "zen" quality. Lijiang River provides daily lives for many people live close by. You would always see fishermen sailing on a bamboo raft using a bamboo stick to move on the river. The sunset on the river presents an amazing picture.
The dark sky and moving clouds are over the beautiful New Mexico landscape. The storm is approaching. We need to find a shelter to wait for the rain passing by. 
When we have good rain in the winter and early spring in Texas, you will see the most beautiful landscape that is covered by blue bonnets in the hill country. This painting of a blue bonnet field is a view in the City Loop by Fredericksburg. City Loop is a famous driving trail for people to enjoy the most scenic pictures of blue bonnets. There are some web sites particularly reporting the blooming status of blue bonnets every year.
In my birthday party a dear friend of mine, Joyce, gave me 5 dozens of red roses. They were so beautiful and were overflowed from the vase. I set some of them up for various compositions for my still live paintings. Here is one rose placed on my son's guitar. What a lovely subject to paint. Does it give you a romantic feeling?
We watched the dance performance in the Plaza of Santa Fe, NM, on Oct 10, 2009 after finishing our lunch in a nice restaurant. Their beautiful dresses and cute dance moves caught my eyes. Here they are - dancing on the stage with the backdrop of autumn colors. I hope you feel the dance moves from these little cuties. This painting is in exhibition in the "Art for the Holidays" show in New Braunfels Art Gallery - Nov 18, 2009 ~ Jan 2, 2010.
I started a tradition last year - I would paint a holiday painting each year and give it away to a dear friend or a family member. Last year I painted 2 cute kittens sitting in 2 red buckets (see this one in my blog posted in Jan 2009). I then sent the painting image along with my greeting messages to my friends to wish them a happy holiday season. I've received many complements last year. My dear friend Joe replied: "A great painting, but do a dog next year!" Well Joe, the dog is here now to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and a fabulous New Year! A lucky someone will receive this painting as a Christmas present from me this year.
We drove to Taos Ski Valley hoping to catch some fall colors as our painting materials. We saw this cute house sitting in the forest by a creek. What a lovely place to enjoy life!. This painting is in exhibition in the "Art for the Holidays (Small Works)" show in New Braunfels Art Gallery - Nov 18, 2009 ~ Jan 2, 2010.
Autumn is my favor season. It reminds me that the end of the year is approaching and the holiday season is around the corner. I love to paint aspens in their autumn colors. It has the most beautiful color values. I painted this one using a photo I took at Jerry Peter's Museum in Senta Fe, NM. I like the warm and cool colors plus the turquoise sky pricking through the aspens.
It was after the rain one morning when we were in Taos, so I decided to paint the big sky of clouds. I painted it by setting up my easel in the garage of the adobe home where we stayed in Arroyo Seco for 6 days. The house, named "Casa Coyote", has 3 bedrooms, one large living room, one big kitchen, and one dinning room, plus big windows that presents us the splendid view of Taos Mountain. It was a lovely place to stay. We had wonderful time in this house and painting trip.
Four of us artists took a painting trip to Taos, New Mexico in mid October, 2009. We painted in the Cous Museum one morning with Ron Rencher, a famous artist. This painting is a side view of the front entrance of the museum. E.J Cous settled in Taos in 1920's moved from New Year. He was one of the "Taos 7" artists in his time. Burney, the husband of Cous's granddaughter gave us a tour of the museum. We got to visit all the rooms including Cous' studio, workshop, etc. It was amazing to see the original studio setup of an old master. Yeap, he did have a big northern window with lots of lights in his studio.
Taroko National Park is located in the northeast of Taiwan. The scenery of this park is breathtaking consisting of tall cliffs, deep valley, rivers, variety of trees and flowers, and water falls. The sea of clouds as painted here is a frequent scene in the mountain tops that you would see while driving through the famous picturesque East-West Cross Mountain Highway. The sun light is just picking out to warm the earth. What a beautiful thing to paint. I am so happy that I took my son and daughter in law to visit this gorgeous place in Spring 2009.
Autumn is an exciting time of the year. I enjoy the vibrant colors of fall and feel needing to catch the beautiful moment before winter arrives. This painting was done last year. I rebrushed it recently to modify some colors and edges as I do from time to time with many of my paintings. The gazibo is a famous landmark in New Braunfels, Texas located in the center of the downtown square. I like it to be around a little charming lake surrounded by fall colors.
A group of us took a land and sea tour to Alaska using Royal Caribbean's tour package in early September 2009. We got to visit the most beautiful Denali National Park that was in the pick of fall colors - red, yellow, purple, blue, and green. We had the breathtaking 360 degree view of the park. My pictures would not do the justice. The park is opened from May through September. I plan to paint a series of Alaska landscapes. Here it is my first one on Denali's fall colors. Yes, the mountain hills were covered by the red fireweeds. They are very red!
Yellow in lilies is not a common color. I found these beauties in Hualian, Taiwan. Under the water reflection of sunset, two kois swimming toward the lilies. This painting was done using several photos I took to compose them into one piece of art. It took me a while to come up with this composition. I sketched the draft in pencil a few different compositions and settled with this result. This painting has been juried and accepted in the Artoberfest Fine Art Show in New Braunfels, Texas. The show runs from Oct 3 through Nov 14, 2009.
Water lilies are one of my favor flowers. Its delicacy, beautiful shapes, and growing in the water always bring me a nice feeling when I see them. This purple lily caught my eyes when we were visiting Hualian in Taiwan in April 2009. It was easy for me to paint the flower, but it took me several revision to come up with the supporting background of leaves and water flow that I am happy with. Here you go the beautiful lilies.
corner of a large water lily pond located in Hualian, Taiwan. The water reflection immediately caught my eyes. I like the prominent dark shadow on the left side and a few dancing darks to support the leaves around the canvas. Your eyes would jump among the lilies and the lights on the leaves. It was fun to paint this one since the composition was well formed by the nature. This painting has been juried and accepted in the Artoberfest Fine Art Show in New Braunfels, Texas. The show runs from Oct 3 through Nov 14, 2009.
This young couple are my favor people in the world - Lindsay & Clifford. They both graduated from University of Texas at Austin and received their MBA degrees while working at an energy company in Texas. I painted this one using one of the photos they took in Taiwan last spring. The strong lights and darks plus the color harmony caught my artist eyes for a protrail painting. Both of them are my art critiques. I often asked Lindsay to comment on my paintings. As you know painting someone you know is very challenging. Yea.. they like this one.
It seems that I had an easy time to paint this one. I came up with the composition very quickly and just got it done. It might be that I had the feeling of art at the moment. I like the posture of the big pink lily and the interesting water flow.
