01 / 17
Painted from a real-life photo I found on Pinterest. I had just watched a color-mixing video and tried to compare my mixed paint with the colors in the photo. I abandoned that effort after ten minutes: first, I didn’t have the glass surface they used; second, I’m lazy; third, it was no fun. In the end, I’m very glad I followed my intuition instead of trying to color-match everything exactly.
02 / 17
Painted during a two-hour painting event while I talked the entire time. The talking was more fun.
03 / 17
A painting of a dear friend, based on a photo I took during our trip together to Huế, Vietnam.
04 / 17
A master study after Van Gogh’s shoes.
05 / 17
Painted from whatever fruit happened to be in my kitchen. The selection process was rigorous.
06 / 17
Personally, my least favorite painting so far. Every archive needs an enemy.
07 / 17
08 / 17
09 / 17
Inspired by a photo I took of my friend getting her tongue pierced on a train in Paris. Watching the piercing was horrendous, so naturally I wanted to preserve the moment forever.
10 / 17
Aliens, dancing. No further explanation was requested.
11 / 17
Painted from a real apple I was actively eating. Still life, but with a countdown.
12 / 17
I kept messing around with this one. The moon stayed; several other decisions did not.
13 / 17
Made for class. It was fun. Sometimes the review really is that short.
14 / 17
The first painting I made from one of my own photos. My brother was visiting me in New York, and I took this picture of him at the Met Cloisters knowing I wanted to paint it. It took sooooo long: I kept getting the trees, shadows, and walls wrong. Looking back, it still isn’t perfect. But hey—it’s my brother.
A gift to my little brother.
15 / 17
The fastest painting I had made so far: three hours. By then I felt a tiny, teeny bit more confident, although I still absolutely did not trust the process.
A gift to my mom.
16 / 17
Mostly an exercise in brushwork and color mixing. It isn’t as pretty as the original, but God, I tried.
A gift to my maternal grandparents.
17 / 17
My first-ever oil painting—and, before this, I had no painting or drawing experience whatsoever. My instructor was a middle-aged Taiwanese man who spoke Mandarin with a very heavy Taiwanese accent, so I understood approximately nothing. The upside: complete freedom to experiment with the canvas, the paint, and myself. I didn’t trust that I could do this, which made it especially fun to debunk that internalized belief. A pretty good start to painting, I think.
A gift to my paternal grandparents.