Koi

And now the end is near so I face the final curtain. Wow, This is it, the end of year 2010. Do you know that next year is Rabbit year by Chinese calender?  So, let's hop,hop and jump toward our dream.

Memory of Japanese Summer

I use to study a sumie painting (Japanese Ink painting). I painted this purple flower with the sumie technique.

Sunrise

I couldn't believe it. Black out? I don't remember when I had it last time. I have to admit I was a little excited about it because I can play with a candle light. Since I was kid I always like to play with the fire. LOL . The black out ended about an hour.

June lake

Wow, It's such a heavy rain in Southern California. The storm will be with us until next week. I hope it get better before Christmas. Meanwhile, I went to Little Tokyo to join our breakfast meeting early in the morning, and it was more than enough driving in the rain for today. I stayed home rest of the day and painting.
 Subject of the painting was Yosemite scene which one of my students brought me last watercolor class. It was against my rule to use a someone else's photograph. But it was just fun.
 My imac rebelled against me last night. Suddenly, it lost the control of everything and blacked out. I frantically looked for the manual and tried to find the solutions.  It said check the batteries push three keys on same time and all kind of things not working. And the end it said "pull the power plug off and reconnect and push the power button. Hey, why didn't you say so at the first time. But thank you, my imac is working now.

Hydrangea

I went to Torrance library to pick up my painting. It had been exhibited there for last two months. It was easy thing to do but weather was awful, We had the unbelievably heavy rain in the morning. I had to drive in the middle of it. Fortunately, I survived the storm.

Lily of the Nile

I have finished the painting I started yesterday. It was a portrait of my friend, or should I say figure of my friend. Because I painted it very loose style. I have been try to break my tightness, and just recently,  I feel that I am doing more loose style than before.

Cabin in the Wood

I teach watercolor for a week in Yosemite National Park every year. Every time I go up there I take a lot of photographs because I paint watercolor from photograph most of the time. This painting I did by same way. There are a lot of cabins like this in the wood. They are the facilities for park workers stay during the season. Surprisingly, many young workers in the park come from another country. Sometimes I become a good friend of some of them but I don't see them a year after.

Hotel Room

One of my watercolor class students made me a tool box. I noticed that he asked me a lot of questions about my old tool box, but I didn't know he was making a new one. One day at the class, he showed up with the new box and he said that this is for you. It was a such surprise, I didn't know what to say. However, I was accepted it happily. LOL. My students are such nice people I am lucky to have them. So, I put a photograph of my old and new toolbox side by side. I believe you can tell which is old and which is new.

Spotlight in the Back Yard

Finally, some of the tree leaves are changing color to red and yellow. Even though there are not bright color as my home town, I still enjoy the autumn leaves. In the early morning during the morning walk I saw red and yellow leaves against the sunlight.

Yellow Flower Pot

Friend of mine and I went to a Japanese restaurant. I haven't been this restaurant for a log time. I like their lunch special. They change a menu for the lunch special every day of the week, such as Monday is a tempura, Tuesday is sukiyaki and so on. Today's special was a combination of tempura-soba and mazegohan. We both had the lunch special.  My friend likes soba,  so I believe he enjoyed it. soba is vary healthy food, it's buckwheat noodles.

El Capitan

During my morning work, I do Tai-Chi exercise three times in a little park on the way. However, I had to stop it middle of the first session this morning because the rain started dropping. I rushed to back home.

Cleaning Man

 I took a photograph of I am painting. This is for a local paper where I am going to a watercolor demonstration next year.  I set up lights and camera and took photograph of myself. Now, I have all the materials I suppose to send out. Oh, I almost forgot that I have to tell them what kind of subject I will paint. I need more time to think about it.