Green Anole In The Sun

 

Wonderful news! My beer can featuring my Green Anole Painting is hitting the shelves next week (June, 2019) courtesy of Collective Arts Brewing! You’ll be able to find them in Wegmans and Wholefoods Stores in Connecticut, Massachusetts and Chicago, Illinois USA! Here is the link to my feature on the Collective Arts Brewing website: https://collectiveartsbrewing.com/art-submission/green-anole/

ALSO the original painting will be featured at a group art show in Santa Monica, California USA along with 2 others shown below:

Spectrum Art Show

Opening Reception: June 15, 6-8pm

Closing Reception: July 6, 6-8pm

3009 Ocean Park Blvd, Santa Monica CA USA 90405

Om Navon Bleicherom@bgartdealings.com

bG Gallery

bgArtGalleries.com

 

The Spooky Astronauts Drawing Club

The Maze 2019

Did I mention? I'm also part of a drawing collective, our band is called The Spooky Astronauts Drawing Club. Founded in Spring 2010, originating from my hometown, Hamilton, ON. I like to think of these collective drawings as performative happenings within themselves because there’s no real goal in mind but to make something interesting and anything goes. A documentation of a collection of different minds that interacted with each other at one moment in time.

A group of us get together and do drawings in pencil and eraser. Sometimes we add to each other's work, sometimes we alter. A real collective conscious in the spirit of creation. There's an inker and a digital colourist and voila! Follow us on our Facebook page for more of our wacky adventures into space: https://www.facebook.com/spookyastronauts/

Click on each picture to see all the teeny tiny details. Inquire within for art posters. Enjoy!

The New House 2019 by The Spooky Astronauts Drawing Club

Pretty sure Jeff started the background here. I think all I did in this one was the worm and maybe a mouse, but I can't remember. I love the cute little snake on the left peeking out, who did that Jim Fitzgerald Jr.? I bet Jim did the furry ladder too. I like the holes on the ground bottom right. and of course the guy in his underpants on the roof with his head wiped away. How did that happen? Was he drawn that way or did someone else come along and do some erasing?! lol

Butt Lamp 2019 by The Spooky Astronauts Drawing Club

I’m pretty happy with the way I nuked this 1 with pink. The pink line on the back wall was a colouring mistake but I kept it because I thought it added to the composition quite well. I’m not sure how this came about as different people added to it at different times. It started out as an empty room with some furniture and slowly the creatures started to filter in bringing with them some curiosities. 

Hi Speed Transit 2019 by The Spooky Astronauts Drawing Club

Um this started with an empty subway, I think by Greg. I didn't feel like drawing anyone inside the subway so I drew everyone on the outside. I know Keegan did the subway ads and I have a feeling Jim did the lone hotdog but who knows. Don't know who slipped in the man on the floor and I can't remember if he came early or after but I guess it doesn't really matter.

Busy As A Beaver

Spent this week's paint binge working away on my beaver here. There just aren't enough hours in a day when you have ideas, and so many of them! They breed and multiply at an alarming rate, often flooding my brain in the day and popping up in my sleep. Honestly, it's quite hard for my physical self to keep up. I thus just have to prioritize. I try to live a balanced life so I don't go insane. I've probably been painting about 2 to 3 hours a day on the days I'm working at my day job and maybe 5 to 8 when I'm not. I take painting breaks, go for walks, check on people in the community, reply to messages, watch an episode of this and that here and there, cook food, pay my bills, brush my teeth, brush my hair, and try to stay human mostly!

Anyway, I just realized maybe you'd enjoy some progress shots of my painting rather than just the aftermath. Right now I'm working on a nocturnal swimmer, a beaver! I should warn you I've already finished all the first coats as of a couple days ago so the painting has progressed and looks quite different already. I'll post some more up to date photos as I go along but this seemed like a pivotal moment in its development. Here I map out the darker tones of the beaver and the facial expression just before I fill it all in. Installing an indoor pool in my animal dream home, this beaver can't help but being his adaptable self and is in the middle of building a dam in the swimming pool! He's thrown all the pool furniture in the water already (oh no!) and cleverly tangling up those water noodles. A thing of pink had to be added, naturally a blow up flamingo. Well I'm excited, are you? Ack! I gotta go to bed now but there's a busy beaver rummaging around in my head that's been keeping me up at night!

Tiger Queen Garners A Following (I Sold Another Print)!

Tiger Queen acrylic on canvas 36 x 48 x 1.5 inches 2017

I sold a print of my painting here of my Tiger Mom as a Tiger Queen, a little more flattering picture than the one posted previous. The original is NOT AVAILABLE, my family made sure of it. It was on the market for about a month until my brother and sister in law demanded they buy it for my parents, dad really likes it and he is not easy to please. Currently, it hangs in my childhood home, in the dreaded "piano room." Anyway you can find prints of it on my 

Society6 page, LISA NG ART or search for "Tiger Queen" Link posted here: https://society6.com/product/tiger-queen988459_print?sku=s6-8417859p4a1v46

Sales for this print are slowly picking up from this page in the last year and a bit. This website's not bad although the profit margins for the artist could be better but it is quite hassle free. Regardless, it's nice to know she is mysteriously ruling somewhere. Unfortunately, the site doesn't tell me where in the world the prints end up, although the website is based in the UK. I just have to imagine she's slowly popping up around the globe, sitting in her throne, in households scattered about. Who are her followers and what are they like?!?? I wonder. Details of the painting below. Everybody wants to know, "What's the story?" behind a painting and I never like to spill my guts but I'll try to hint and elaborate a little below.

I have her in an old fashioned, Chinese dynasty crown-hat, forgive me I can't pin point the era off the top of my head (haha). I remember the look of these from watching old timer Chinese dramas with my late grandma who raised me, (see painting, "The After Life.")

I'm most proud about the all the layered patterns and gradients on her throne and on her robe, the details took a long time and I mixed all the colours by hand. The sleeves have dragons on them, I've always loved drawing dragons. I used to rummage through my brother's Dungeons and Dragons game cards, but only the ones of all the different dragons. Somewhere in a drawer somewhere or maybe under a bed in my parent's house is a pile of dragon drawings.

Fancy strange nail accessories. I did not make these up but referenced her costume from other photos. They remind me of Bugles, "America's favourite finger food!" Below is the dreaded metronome that sits atop a cubical sky, symbolizing my freedom. I was never great at piano although I love music, I could never keep good time! Bottom right of the throne is my signature in Chinese. "Mmm Sui Lai" Which translates into Ng (my last name) and Little Beauty, which was a name I wasn't sure I'm suited for but the things I paint are beautiful!

Below is a snake cleverly hidden and disguised as a bowl holding oranges. Oranges are a symbol of prosperity in Chinese culture and my mom's a snake in the Chinese zodiac. I'm a mouse though so you can see how we can be at odds with one another.

Sharp, well manicured toe nails that dig at your feelings make this painting complete. Took me awhile to get the golden sandals just right.

Happy Mother's Day!

Tiger Mom acrylic on canvas 16 x 20 x 1.5 inches 2014

Happy Mother's Day to my own Tiger Mommy (depicted below), see the resemblance!? ; ) Childhood was mostly a whirlwind of piano lessons, Chinese lessons, swimming laps, extra math homework, copying out the dictionary by the time I was 5, the stressful list goes on and on. Regardless, it all did give me more reason to paint and express myself and and her high expectations did make me who I am today. I sold this piece a few months ago, it went to another proud mommy, very fitting indeed.

I also received this little heart warming message a few weeks ago. I've never been to Bangladesh but rest assured I've got a lovely growing following over there. One messaged a few years ago then more and more from his community, since then I've watched them grow up, graduate school, off to university, etc. etc. whilst keeping up with my new paintings online. What an interested little community!

 Anyway, the Bengali Tiger is their national animal so I've produced and sent out a set of postcards for the occasion, should arrive in a couple weeks. I'm not sure they know what is exactly coming to them yet so it should be a fun surprise!

Comes stamped with my signature mouse seal, of course.

Pyjama Paint Daze

Spent the last 3 glorious days painting in my pyjamas, life has been kind. Here is my progress to date. The first coats of the background are in. A swimming pool but can you guess the animal and what it's doing yet?

This is me painting with the flat brush, filling in those large surface areas.

Me taking a dive in the deep end, I love how pools of water have all the different shades of blue. This is just the very beginning. What I'm most excited about is the watery shadows water makes, but I still got a long way to go before I can paint those in.

On a side note, now that I'm working with a lot with the colour blue, I've been randomly thinking a lot about Harmoniums. People seem to always want to know what I'm thinking about when I paint, what I get inspired from, and to be honest, it's hard to pin point and kinda random. A conglomerate of experiences both past and present. Today it was Harmoniums, because they are blue in colour and 2 dimensional, like a painting, and they feed on music. I'm always listening to music and consider myself a bit of a Harmonium. 

In case you don't know, Harmoniums are 2 dimensional blue creatures from the late great American science fiction writer, Kurt Vonnegut from his hit book, "The Sirens of Titan." They have no organs, no face, no eyes, no ears nor mouth and feed off the vibrations of their planet called, "Mercury's Song." They communicate with touch and telepathy and reproduce by flaking off bits of themselves that turn into adult beings. Communication is limited and they only know 2 phrases being, "Here I am." And the automatic response to that which is, "So glad you are." When they die they shrivel up like dried fruit. I'm paraphrasing here from this website: https://aliens.fandom.com/wiki/Harmonium

How wonderful though if you were feeling alive, but alone, you only need to go, "Here I am!" and if there were another Harmonium in the room, it would be automatically reciprocated with a, "So glad you are." How lovely (beautifully exquisite) an existence that must be. 

So today I got my headphones in and my music playing and with my shades of blue I'm sending out my, "Here I am!" and await for that reciprocal response.