First Blog

Today I finished my magnolias. And I thought it was time to start the blog here. And I would like to thank everyone for their wonderful comments and the warm welcome from Alive not Dead.

prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" / 

I started the painting of the magnolias about 3 weeks ago. It is a huge painting. Well, it is huge for me because I am not that big. It is 5 by 5 ft. And I am just 5ft4. So I am slightly taller. But when the painting is on an easel I have to stand on a stool and I really dislike painting while standing on a stool. It is the first big painting since about 10 years. It is definitely a lot wider than me. It is a big tree with hundreds of magnolia that I have painted individually with detail. I also dislike painting precisely and with detail. I often paint things I dislike, through the process you find out why you dislike it and the result is often more interesting than doing the things you like and are good at.  

I saw ‘the Blossoms’ from Van Gogh in prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" /Amsterdam when I was 10 years old. It was the first time that I saw a piece of art that I recognized as such and I have been in love with it since, art and ‘the Blossoms’.

It was not the beauty that attracted me. The atmosphere and the yellowish colour of the sky are so intense that it seems impossible to breath with a sky like that. It made me able to imagine how the world suffocated him with its existence.

A tutor of mine in art college said that in art you can see how someone else sees the world. I never thought that Van Gogh is mad. He was so sensitive that life was too intense for him.

Last week people here seem to be more edgy. I live in Causeway Bay and I can hear it when there are arguments and fights on the street late at night. And there were quite a few last week. The economy might have something to do with it. Or maybe just coincidence. Anyway the first beautiful Sunday we had (in Hong Kong) since ages. I hope that it makes people happier. The sun has nothing to do with finances and it makes the world so beautiful.