A couple years back I did a painting for an art show at Nick, the theme was Chinese New Year and I did a watercolor painting of a baby boy riding a pig, since it was the year of the pig at the time. One of my colleagues bought the piece because he was having a baby boy and him and his wife both loved the painting. Well, two years later they had a baby girl and asked if I could paint one for her and the final result is what you see above. I'm much happier with the way the above painting looks than I am with the previous one, which you can see below. I'm sure I thought the Pig was great at the time but It's nice to see that I have grown as an artist. Who knows, in a couple more years I may look at the Ox painting and think the same thing. I guess as an artist you never really stop learning or at least you shouldn't stop, there's always things to learn and room to improve, but for now I'm really happy with the way this piece turned out.
I tried to do an aged look with this piece by tearing the edges and then setting it on fire. I wanted it to look like it had been found in some chinese relic or something. I wouldn't recommend setting your work on fire but if you do, make sure you do it outside and not in the kitchen, not that I did that or anything, I'm just saying.
It's funny, but I like the first one you did a lot better. But what do I know?
Posted by: Patrick | 12/12/2009 at 10:54 PM