Concept development paintings III

I just give my blog a huge make-over. This is the first time in 5 years!! Can't believe so many years have passed, since the day my best friend, Amy introduced me to "Blog." In these 5 years, I have the pleasure meeting many amazing artists and wonderful new friends around the world via the blogging community. It has been a wonderful experience.

New book and new paintings!!

Acquerello - my watercolor arts book is out in paper format and E-book format!! It's now available in my on-line book store - Ice-Cream Monster Book Store. The E-book is iPad READY!! Below are more concept paintings.

Concept development paintings

Year of Tiger

This is a piece for my own show at Hive in March. I will be the March small wall feature artist at the Hive Gallery. The art style of this painting is inspired by chinese folk arts and traditional chinese architecture design. All the decorative patterns in the paintings are chinese writings, which represent blessing, prosperity and fraternity. They are also the traditional Chinese New Year blessing.

My artwork is feature in the International Museum of Women - Economica web-site. Please come by and check it out!!

BTW, Girls Drawin Girls has helped organize a charity art auction to benefit the American Red Cross in helping send relief efforts to Haiti in the wake of last week's devastating earthquake. If you are interested to contribute as an artist or purchase the artwork for donation, please visit their Charity Sale web-site at Art of Haiti.

Have a wonderful weekends everyone!!

All my new paintings are now added in the painting section of my web-site.

Alice's inspiration and Unicorn sketches

Top left is an on-location sketch at Descanso garden. It's also the sketch that inspired "Pawn" - the last Alice painting. I hit a creative block, after I finish 3 Alice paintings. I have plenty of ideas for the last one, but none of the ideas seem to excite me ... no enough that I want to make it into a painting. So I take a break and go to Descanso garden for a walk ... while sitting at the little stream over seeing the little bridge, an idea slowly forms in my head ... I sketch the scenery very quickly, as I am doing the sketch, I can see how the same scene could translate into Alice's world. Soo ... in a way, the last Alice painting is actually Descanso garden.

Below are the early conceptual drawing for the Ugly Unicorn. The very top drawing is the drawing that would eventually scan into the computer for painting.

Ugly Unicorn artwork are copyrighted by the studios.

Art for Haiti - Girls Drawin Girls is raising money to donate to the American Red Cross to help send relief efforts to Haiti. All proceeds from the sale of the artwork will be donated to the American Red Cross.

Checkmate! or Pawn?!

I have a bit trouble titling this painting. This the last of the Alice in Wonderland series. The story of this painting is actually from the second book - Through the Looking Glass, where Alice is a Pawn in a chess game. Long story short, she eventually capture the Red Queen and becomes a Queen. In many popular adaptation of Alice in Wonderland, the story often combines the two Lewis Carroll's books together, because of the mix and match in lots of popular adaptation, after a while all the characters get a bit confuse. For example The Queen of Hearts is commonly mistaken for the Red Queen who appears in the second book.

I start the first of my Alice painting with the "card" world, and I want to end the series with the "Chess" world, where Alice has to get to the eighth rank. Two of my Alice paintings - "Through the rabbit hole" and "EAT ME!" are inspired by the first book, and the other two - "Have you ever see an Alice?" and "Check Mate!" (Final titled "Pawn") are inspired by the second book. Initially I titled this last painting "Check mate!" ... but then I change my mind and re-titled it "Pawn," which better represent Alice's role in the chess game and the story moment in this painting. She is getting to eight rank in the painting, so not quite the "Check Mate" moment yet ...

My iPhone Book is out!!

My iphone Artist Sketchbook just released. The title of this book is Acquerello. It's available at ArtistsSketchbooks.com. Acquerello is a digital artbook with collection of high resolution beautiful watercolor paintings and drawings by Alina Chau. This book included many of the gallery favorite pieces, which have been exhibited in Los Angeles, Orange Country, San Francisco, and Sapporo, Japan

You can also find the book at iTune store. Thank you the cool folks at Imaginism Studios for the wicked app!!

Here are promotion code, which you can use at the iTune store for purchasing an phone Artist Sketchbook.
To use the promo code the user must have a US account on iTunes.
Go to the App Store --> Featured --> scroll to the bottom and click on "Redeem" --> enter code.

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Special promotion code only last for 4 weeks. Use them while it last!! An early invitation to an up-coming Nucleus Gallery Group show.

CURIOUS AND CURIOUSER: INSPIRED BY 'ALICE IN WONDERLAND'
February 27, 2010 - March 29, 2010
Opening Reception / Feb 27, 7:00PM - 11:00PM

Last but not least, Minty would like to say "Hi!" to everyone. We have been busy with gallery shows and other stuffs ... haven't had much time to make silly Minty comic. Hopefully as soon as I get more work done, I could get back to making comic.

Ugly Unicorn

A concept painting for an animated feature film, The Ugly Unicorn. Painted in Photoshop. Artwork copyrighted by the studios.

I updated the Illustration section in my web-site, please come by and check it out!!

"Eat ME!"

"Did you ever see an Alice?"

Orchid: Come to think of it, did you ever see an alice?
Orchid: [sniffing Alice's hair] And no fragrance.

The top is the final version. The photo with the matte frame is the final original painting decorated with glass crystals.

BTW, I have been making some major up-dated to the Artwork section in my web-site. Please come and check it out!!

A little bit left over ...

I was hoping to make a new little painting for New Year, just for fun ... but so far, things have been really busy, didn't get the chance to doodle. Top is a little illo from last year, this is a gift for a friend. Below are some Battlestar Galactica stuffs I did for Technicolor, when they were doing some marketing stuffs for the show. These are some rough wall paper concept arts, which I do quickly in Photoshop. Battlestar Galactica artwork are copyrighted by the studios.