Guitar practice progress

Recently I practised playing two nursery rhymes on classical guitar, "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" and "Row Row Row Your Boat". 

Yesterday I filmed a performance of playing "Greensleeves", which sounds much better than the previous recordings of the same piece of music. Practising really helps. I think I need to build up my confidence as an adult learning to play guitar.

The following days, I want to stick to Jerry Willard's Fifty Each Classical Guitar Solos. I've finished practising the first six. I like the seventh piece, which is Carulli's Waltz. 

A guitarist on the Beach

The recent finished watercolour painting, "The Guitarist on the Beach", is beautiful but still not stunning. I think there are two points I haven't done well.

The first is the foams on the waves. I still could not successfully paint the forms. Next time when I try to paint ocean, I think I need to rethink of it. Maybe I should use a drier brush with deep colour (using the light colour making the contrast not obvious), or I may try to use something to cover spots on the painting paper and remove those covers later.

The second is the lawn. How to make a lawn looks like a lawn in reality? How to let people easily distinguish the far away patches and those close to the view.

Nevertheless, many people expressed their appreciations to it. My mother asked me to give her to decorate her bedroom. I of course am very glad to do that.

Draw from life

 These days I gradually switched from drawing from photos to drawing from life. As the scene id dynamic, I expect it will be much more challenging. But surprised to me, it seems to be even easier. Maybe that is because the target object is bigger and the details are easier to view. As the objects are moving, I have to sketch very fast, but sketching fast normally results in a better picture -- more accurate. I think the hesitation will block the brains flow to function.

It is interesting to note that I've developed my own technique to sketch. I use a fountain pen with solute ink, and a brush that can be filled with clean water.  When I use the brush with clean water to wipe the lines, shadings are generated.

Boys painting

 I woke up early in the morning while everybody else was still asleep. As I didn't want to be just lying on bed boringly waiting the baby to get up. I started painting again. This time I tried to paint the two sons doing arts and crafts at home, as I don't want to just paint one of them, guessing the other won't be happy in that case.

I haven't really finished the details but I had to give up and left it as it was when both kids were awake.

It is still a very nice picture as I can tell. The postures and the skeletons of the children are very vivid. But the colours do not look real. Despite my target is not to make a picture identical to the reality, I still hope I can control the saturates and colours better so that the picture would look more natural. From this perspective, it exposed my limitations of applying colours, which I should enhance in future.

I don't have time to play music these days.

Painting in an A3 paper

 I woke up early in the morning as I didn't want to boringly stay in bed. I got up and painted the picture "A sleeping boy on the seashore" with watercolour. This is the first time I painted a picture on an A3 paper, which is bigger than those I used before. Painting on a larger paper is a great fun, and the result is unexpectedly good. This is by no doubt my best painting in this year.

After finishing reading Elton John's autobiography, I began to read  Sushi's article collection.

I haven't played guitar that much these days as painting has got more and more of my attention.

About realistic paintings

 I drew a picture about the mailbox that could be seen from the window in the early morning. Different pen and paper characteristics require different levels of saturation. To be safe, we can always safe to start with less water.

Since the invention of cameras, many people lost the confidence of the future for realistic paintings, as they thought those paintings would be easily defeated by photographs. But I think the feeling that a painting can give to the people is still very different from a photo. Through examining the scratches and traces left during the creation of the painted picture, you can feel the time and efforts the painter spent to finish it, as well as the learning process and the talent. In addition, you can feel the culture heritage about the techniques that are passed by generations from an ancient time. No two paintings can be exactly the same despite they may reflect the same scene. We can always understand the styles and interpretations of the painters.

Of course, some people love abstract painting more as different people have different tastes. 

Beach Play

 I finally received my fountain pen ordered online. It is really hard to buy one. To be safe, I chose the brand of Heros, which I had been used for a long time in the past. 

Yesterday I repainted the "Beach Play" picture in the early morning. I want to say that it is a much more pleasant experience. Yeah, for something you can't do it well, it is fine to just try it again. I painted the background before applying the pen for drawing objects. For fine objects such as human beings, I used a ball pen rather than a fountain pen so that the lines would not be mixed with watercolours.

I played a bamboo six holes xiao flute, which is a birthday present I got from high school, in the evening. The temperament is different to that used in today's western music. The feeling is great to play an instrument you've owned for more than 20 years.