Merrily, Merrily

Hello hello guys! How are you all doing? Finally, I'm writing my blog entry here. My lovely sweet friendly client Anne was so excited about the three commissioned paintings so she planned to surprise her hubby with my paintings for their 25th wedding anniversary! Aww, sweet! She explained to me about the travel theme, they love traveling. she requested me to capture their traveling experiences into the painting. Here are the details / elements:

- Anne riding on gondola & her hubby (gondolier) biting a long stemmed rose

- Royal Hawaiian (where they got married), Paris (Eiffel tower), Japan (cherry blossom), Venice (gondola), Italy (Roman Colosseum), England (red telephone booth)

- sculpture of David

- surreal melting clock (so symbolic of their time together gone by so quickly, seeming in the blink of an eye)

- butterflies, fishes & bees, flowers

- cottage-type buildings with their hint of stonework & steepled roofs

- outdoor cafe with a cup of espresso on one side & an old-fashioned fountain glass ice cream sundae with parasol on the other)

- a man sitting on top of a nearby building.

- green trees

So I replaced coconut trees with green trees. I tried to improve the perspective of the building, haha! I'm not good at doing perspective drawings. During my past college years, I learned from my former art professor Sir Darnay Demetillo, who taught us about perspective drawings. His complex lesson made me frustrated & crazy so he said to me "May Ann, you have many mistakes. Try again." At least, now I tried to improve my crappy perspective drawings, hehe! Hopefully, my perspective drawing skills will get better when I keep practicing.

Merrily, Merrily

11" x 12"

Acrylic + Colored Pencil on Paper

Anne requested me: she & her hubby can be riding on their shiba dog named Soba's back... then standing in a field of dandelions with her hubby hugging her. She really loved my previous commissioned piece, " The Dandelion Dream " so she liked green color scheme.

Hang on Tight to What You Love

8.75" x 11.5"

Acrylic + Colored Pencil on Wood

Finally for the third commissioned piece, Anne also requested me to make a Babu & Abu painting. I was surprised! She said it's up to myself about my idea / concept. I remember that Anne replied to me that she loved fish balloons. Then I also added statues of Maneki Neko. Surprisingly, I didn't know that Anne & her hubby collect old and modern Maneki Nekos so the idea really appealed to her from the very beginning. It's an awesome connection between me & her, haha!

Babu's Night Flight

7.5" x 8.5"

Acrylic + Colored Pencil on Wood

Thank you so much for everything, Anne! I really enjoyed working with you. When Anne received my package, she surprised her hubby with my paintings. He was so touched by the "Merrily, Merrily" painting & he kept staring at it for the longest time... until there was so much to see, & he recognized all places, awww! I'm so happy that they love them! Hooray, my mission accomplished! *dances*

Apart from that, whew, I have finished my two paintings for the upcoming group show, "Breath of Embers: Art of Dragons @ Gallery Nucleus. I'll post them in October. I really enjoyed doing my new color scheme: subtle, pastel & dreamy colors.

And also, this is my sneak peek of my original graphite piece "Chloe" for donating to the charity art auction show in States. The charity show got quite the roster: Brandi Milne, Craola Simkins, Shepard Fairey, Liz McGrath and others. I'll keep you guys updated about this in the late week of September.

That's all folks! I think this blog entry is long, haha! Hope you guys enjoy reading this. Soon, I'll continue working on my recent art commissions since I haven't gotten any future shows yet. Ciao!