From China, with Love

 

acrylic on canvas paper, 12" x 12"

Another hollyhock painting, this one of a crimson hollyhock that I planted by the white fence in my front garden.  Hollyhocks originated in China, and I will forever be grateful that they made their way here.  Hollyhocks make me happy, and I just love this particular rich dark red against the various warm and cool greens of leaves and their shadows surrounding it, and all of that offset by the white fence behind.

Can I get a smile?

oil on panel, 24" x 24"

I painted this for a class project called the "Three-headed Portrait."  I used a cropped version of a photo I had taken in China of a class of school kids on a field trip to the famous Three Pagodas near the town of Dali in the Yunnan Province.  Only when I zoomed in did I notice the face on the baseball cap that looked like it was floating in space.  I thought it could serve as the third portrait in my composition and an amusing counterpoint to the serious expressions of the two kids.  

In the Pink Boat

oil on canvas, 12" x 12"

This is a painting that I'd been wanting to do for about three years but never got around to . . . until now.  Ever since rafting down the Yulong River in China, I've been in love with the jagged karsts that rise up like monoliths in the distance.  This scene was painted from a photo of a woman boating along the Mekong Delta in Vietnam, and I just loved the pink interior of the boat set against the cool greens and blues around it, not to mention the repeating "cone" theme sparked by her hat.

Chinese Acrobats

acrylic on canvas, 12" x 36"

This started out as a still life of a stalk of yellow gladiolas in a green vase.  I wasn't happy with it, so I took the bottle out of the picture and gave it an abstract background.  As I looked at it, I started to see these little figures like the Chinese acrobats I'd see on the Ed Sullivan Show back in the '60s.  I'll admit, I was in a peculiar mood when I painted this today.

Halong Bay

oil on hardboard panel, 5" x 7"

For this little palette knife painting, I used a photo reference.  Although Ha Long Bay is in Vietnam, this scene reminds me of my time in China in 2013, floating down the Yulong River on a bamboo raft, surrounded by these monolithic karsts.  The haunting echo of birdsong off the karsts lends a dreamy, otherworldly feeling to the scene.  This will be my 22nd painting as a result of that trip, and I feel I have at least 4 more Asian paintings in me yet to come.

Yunnan Rice Field

iPad painting, 10" x 14"

Guilin

acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"

Yet another painting in my China series.  I used a very limited palette of only 4 colors for this one, trying to create atmosphere and depth in the background.

Bougainvillea Pond at Haidao Island

acrylic on canvas, 16" x 20"

Another in my China series, this painting no longer exists, except for the rock formations in the foreground.  I worked on this a few months ago and was not happy with it but vowed to rework it.  I thought I would post it just for the record.

Shanghai Shimmer

acrylic on canvas, 20" x 20"

Another painting in my China series, and I feel yet another one coming on.  A work in progress, I'm not quite done with this one. 

Yangshuo Grain Field

oil on zinc plate, 6" x 9"

Another in what is becoming my China series.

Dreaming of China

acrylic on board, 8" x 8"

NFS

This painting is not for sale because it no longer exists.  The image I've posted is the washout of a failed effort, which, when I viewed it the next morning with fresh eyes, found it had an appeal all its own.  Sadly, I wasn't content with that and now the painting is irrevocably altered, and not for the better.  Roy would be ashamed!