I woke up in the early morning, and opened the window of the bedroom. The sun had started to rise. This was the most precious time of a day for me. Everyone else of the family was still asleep, and  It was still too early to be busy to prepare for work. It was  the only moment that I could have a full degree of freedom. I brought my watercolour painting set and started to paint a picture about the two boys playing piano in the lounge. I used a dip pen with very light brown colour to draft the layout, as I thought the using of a dip pen with light watercolour watercolours was better using a pencil or a black pen. I was keen to draw with a partly loose style, as the partly loose style means that some parts will be painted with much details while some other parts will only be filled with light colourful patches. I view painting as just a visual way of communication. Just like when we are telling a story, not every part will be talked with the same level of completeness. I had to be fast so that I could finish it before anyone woke up. While I finished the last stroke and thought they were still sleeping, I found my toddler had been sitting on the bed and quietly watching me painting.

After a few hours work in the garden, I am grateful that my wife had successfully soothed the little brother to sleep. She asked me to be along with him after I had dinner. As usual, I brought my watercolor painting tool set to the bedroom and painted a picture about the elder brother learning to brush teeth. Accidently I drew the leg and feet a bit too large, making the ratio among different parts of the body not looked as real. I don't mind that much. I just enjoyed the process of using my painting brush to draw the persons and objects that I liked, the landscapes that I admired, and the places that I had memories on, with sentiments flowing along the pigments on the paper.

These days I have given up playing my plastic flutes and my metal made concert flute. Instead, I dig out my old bamboo flutes from the cabinet. I felt the tones and timbres from bamboo flutes were much natural and pleasant. Yeah I agree that from the perspective of tone accuracy, the plastic or metal made flutes are more advanced, whereas from aesthetics perspective, the bamboo flutes carry more individual characterises as each piece of bamboo is unique, and so is its player.

A Diary of Watercolour and Bamboo flute

On the day of New Year of Horse, I attempted to paint a horse based on a few photos of a horse race I took during last year's EKKA. The first picture I created was beautiful, but the horse was ridden by a woman, which was the same as the photos'. But then I quickly realised that a horse controlled by a human being was not what I wanted.  I repainted another one with only the horse so that it had its freedom to determine its destination. I slightly drew the legs to be longer than the real, so that it could run faster, while this also made the horse looked thin. I don't mind it to be thin as a horse in the wild should not be as fat as those raised in stables.

The following few weeks, I painted some pictures about flowers and landscapes, as I had been a bit weary for drawing human beings. I tried different techniques. Not all successful, but I gained some experience. The mistake I frequently made is to use too strong colours at the beginning. Though in reality the colours of the object may be heavy, but in watercolour paintings, it is hard to show the skeletons of the objects clearly if we use the same heavy colours as real. To some extent I need to adjust the layers of the colours, as I don't have to make it identical to the real, but have to make it beautiful and understandable. I felt I was a better landscape painter than flower painter.

I re-picked up my transversal bamboo flute (the bass dizi flute) in these days. I tried not to blow the notes for a too long duration. Instead, it is easier to break the musical sentence into small parts. As long as it is separated in the correct locations, it does not really damage the flow of the music. In addition, it sounds even better as the performer is more relaxed.

Not Every Attempt Can be Successful

 I finished a painting about two boys playing piano yesterday. I was not satisfied with it immediately after finishing it, but I still shared it online. Mum said, if you were not so happy with it, why did you still upload it online. I thought a little while, and decided to leave it as it was online.

Painting is just like many other activities in life -- not every attempt you've made will achieve a positive result. As uncertainty is the nature of attempts, failures and sufferings are almost always accompanying with successes and joys. I chose to leave the unsuccessful painting online, so that I can record the full journey of this art adventure. 

Practising in the new year

From the beginning of 2026, the painting activities have been a bit slow down. The summer school holiday has given too big a challenge to a parent of two young kids. Thinking of ideas to prevent them feeling boring, I've suffered from some knee injuries and sleeplessnesses. But I still have drawn a few pictures. The most recent one is a watercolour painting about two boys playing water tap in a seaside park. This is the first time I haven't used a pen to draw before applying colours. Instead, I directly painted the picture with watercolour pigments.

I think my progress of classical guitar playing is well this month. But it is still too boring for me to practice the classical exercises. I am more keen to play songs that I've been familiar with. Nevertheless, I've begun to practise Spanish Romance, which is one of my favourite music.

But after paying too much attention to guitar study for a time, I feel I miss the sounds of xiao flute. I began to re-pick the xiao flute as my major instrument recently. I've found that I sometimes feel xiao flute to be more attractive but sometimes the classical guitar. I'm pity that my time is limited as an amateur musician and also I like to spend some time to painting as I am also an amateur painter.

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.