Painting Gallery Art!

Salut 9 - Nucleus Portland now LIVE!!

The Gallery Nucleus Portland's Salut 9 group show is now live! This is one of my favorite art exhibitions! The Nucleus Portland's Salut show happens every year around this time, and the coolest part is that the paintings are all painted on paper coasters. Since each piece is small, I like to try out new ideas and painting techniques when I create my pieces for the show. This year, I'm experimenting with a new art style that could potentially be used for a future book project.

For this year's collection, I am experimenting with a color palette and design patterns inspired by traditional Chinese pleasant folk arts. I love colors, but putting two highly saturated contrast colors next to each other is outside my usual comfort zone. Sometimes, when I am putting down two unlikely color combinations, I can't help but cringe a little and hope the colors will go well together. It's slightly nerve-racking since traditional painting has no undo button. Also, these paper coasters are highly absorbed, and it's impossible to lift the color and make any corrections if I mess up. 

I usually paint with Winsor Newton's professional watercolors, but I got a new palette from Temu to try out. It's got some cool Chinese painting and Anime colors. Quality-wise, it's like Winsor Newton's student-grade color set, Cotman. And it's super affordable. Like most student-grade palettes, some color pigments aren't the best quality, but the essential colors are decent.

Here is my video of how I painted the Rabbit coaster! I'm doing a Chinese Zodiac theme for this year series. Each animal comes with a special blessing to bring you good luck and fortune. I couldn't do Sheep and Snake because we're only allowed to submit ten coasters. Looks like I'll have to save those for next year. LOL!

Check out available past coasters collection!

PS. If you wanna check out all the coasters' process videos, you can find them on my Instagram reels.