Keagan S. Lai Fang's Creations

"Dreamories" original watercolour painting on 9"x 12" watercolour paper.

"No time for tea" original watercolour painting on 9"x12" watercolour paper.

"Grounded" an original oil painting 18"x 12" on canvas.

The sky is the limit. What does that really mean? In today's world man has conquered the sky in more ways than one. Still there is something about staring at the sky and dreaming about flight that goes hand in hand with hoping for a brighter future (at least for me). My last two pieces seem to reflect my frame of mind these days. Overall I believe I am at the end of this surge; waiting to be inspired again. Perhaps it is fitting my thoughts dwell on hopes and dreams.

"Get-away farmhouse" Original oil painting 12"x18" on canvas.

Thanks to some kind folk on couchsurfers (travel app) I knew I had to paint this scene of their beautiful farmhouse all the way in canada. I worked on this painting bit by bit in-between other paintings. Painted fairly loosly as usual with some generous colour here and there. This is my second oil painting since I began this blog and it is almost as good as the first one! This one lifts my spirit a little as I have been struggling lately with self esteem after seeing so many beautiful works of art from other amazing artists.

I've come to paint with you again...

"Forest" original watercolour painting on 9"x12" watercolour paper.

After a grueling week of anticipation, research and planning I have finally re-attempted my swamp-forest piece in fauve according to my original strategy. I am very happy with the result and have confirmed that my strategy works. I had to hold back abit in the beginning being careful to craft the scene properly but it paid off in the end. There is more I could do with this painting but I think I will leave that for a new project and savor another victory...

So lately I have been exploring fauve painting techniques and I stumbled upon a very expensive lesson. I have always understood the difference between transparency and opacity of paints. One couldn't make good use of watercolours without this distinction. Yet here it comes again charging at me out of nowhere somewhat unexpectedly with acrylic paints. I've always considered acrylics to be opaque compared to watercolours and there my appreciation for this interesting quality of paint ended.

I decided that I would try a fauve version of the swamp forest painting I did before (see previous post) on my samsung tablet and it appeared to have so much potential that I wanted to make a large painting using acrylic. So I set up my canvas, took out my paints and began painting yet halfway through I began to notice an unintentional effect growing and effectively working against my scene. Unfortunately the transparency of paint ruined my initial attempt and the painting had to be redone with the correct paint.

Most likely I will have to attempt this painting again in future since it seems that I still have some ground to cover with this technique. I had a plan to approach the painting in a certain way but that went out the door when the paint transparency messed everything up and I had to do damage control. As a result I still have no idea how effective my strategy is and will need to attempt it again without any surprises to reach a conclusion...

Fauve. A french painting technique with potential for colour expression unlike the mundane appearance of representational works. For a long time I have deliberated on its usefulness as well as its practicality. A practical creature like myself also embraces certain contradictions; I sought to exploit fauve to tackle a seemingly boring scene below in order to give it new life.

While the photo (in my opinion) lacks compositional interest (which I didn't realise until I started painting) the main source of boredom from this scene is all that green. Green is everywhere. This made the perfect oppertunity for me to study the technique with the goal to give the scene more interest. An idea in a set of ideas I have been ruminating over for the past month or so. What was interesting about this scene were the different leaf shapes and I tried to preserve these in the painting.

Original photo

"Variegated" an original acrylic painting on canvas 18" x 24"

I had to work large. 18 x 24 is for me larger than normal. I needed the space to spread things out so the scene would breathe. The first part of the process didn't appear to go very well and I was very dispondent. Everything went from being green to being orange! I avoided using green because I didn't want to portray leaves in their usual colour but I found it difficult to achieve then look I wanted without it. Blue had an unexpected effect in the painting. It might not look like it is there but there are tons of blue in the painting. Purple was hard to use, but now that I study the piece I think it could have been used in the shadowy areas in the lightest parts.

It wasn't until I added the florescent looking colours that the painting started to come together. I was very cautious not to get carried away and overwork these areas. From the photo I didn't have much room to explore this. They were only needed to help establish space in the painting; the main concern of any of my paintings. I tend to like to work with "clean" colour sections but the more messy a section got the more interesting it looked. Take the heart shaped leaf in the dead centre of the painting as an example. It has a nice harmonious almost water colour look. While colour use and appreciation are largely subjective value is universal. This is what really satisfies me about this painting although it's hard to see without this...

The first time I made a successful digital painting the result was truely remarkable considering I did it on a 4.25 inch screen on a smart phone. Now that I have a 9.75 inch screen tablet at my disposal I decided to rework the painting I originally did since it was lost when my smart phone died. It has overall come out better than the original as one would expect.

As much as I enjoyed painting the chess match piece in oils with brushes, carefully blending in colour and controlling my colours I decided to explore the subject using some more... spontaneity. I wondered how the piece would do if painted it in an impasto (with knives rather than brushes) fashion. While about 20% of the painting was still done with brushes the majority of the work was done with a palette knife. The composition was changed more or less also so I could focus on the technique.

The piece was done in acrylics as oil colour would take forever to dry using this technique and I wanted to paint wet into dry. I did paint wet into wet a little so I learnt some things from both approaches. Overall I am glad I chose acrylic to do this it only took me two days of painting to complete it. One thing about this method is the amount of paint it uses up. Granted that I used highly saturated colours this method ate paint like I eat sushi, neither of which are gentle on my wallet.

I can't wait to see how this looks when I apply varnish to it the colours are already so intense. The knife marks look really prominent in person but its a little harder to see in the photograph even after several attempts to photograph it just right. There's only so much I know about taking photographs and on a smart phone I'm sure its capabilities are limited. Well it certainly does look more spontaneous, although I imagined it would turn out differently in my mind. I have been considering the use of certain visual contradictions to create interest in my work. I had hoped I could accomplish this with impasto but it seems that alone is not enough...