Tea Farm Family

MUNGYO Artist OP, Cray-Pas Expressionist OP, 12' x 8' white paper.

This is not the first time I study on Pang Jiun's oil painting, to learn how he express his oriental feel on oil. Here is the first painting of Pang Jiun I study.

By blending the variety of grey on buildings and dark brown and black on the roof is the important parts to express the feel of oriental.

willow trees under the waning moon

OP: MUNGYO 72 color
Paper's color: White
Size: 8.5 inch x 11 inch


Its been awhile I rest from painting, until the art show album of Pang Jiun I ordered from Taiwan arrived. His art urge me to sketch again, the color and the oriental feel of his oil paintings impress me a lots.

Therefore I picked one of my favourite painting out from his art show album, and try to come out the oil pastel version. This is what I usually do for practice, trying to gain some oriental sense in art.

There are so much different between oil paint and oil pastel, it is no way for me to imitate the expression of oil painting by using oil pastel. But I do not give up, instead I put my feeling towards the scenery while painting it.

Khoo Kongsi in oil pastel

Khoo Kongsi is located at Penang Georgetown, Malaysia. It is one of the famous heritage site in Penang. The outlook of this building looks like Chinese temple, it is mainly made of wood. You will find the clay statue on the top roof and Chinese lantern in the building.

I have discovered a photo at penangart.com, which is stunning! Therefore I took that photo as my reference and started a fast sketch!



I applied the paint with Faber-Castell OP, and blend it with a little bit of cray-pas expressionist OP as well. The paper I used is coarse texture light purple A4 size card.

This is the 3rd painting about Penang building I have done.

An old auberge in Penang

This is an old auberge located at Georgetown of Penang, Malaysia. Georgetown is the capital of Penang, has been added to the UNESCO World Heritage List recently. Although this tiny little auberge is not as famous as Khoo Kongsi, but this simple aging building is beautiful for me.

This is the first time I use Faber-Castell creative studio oil pastel into painting. I am using coarse surface orange card, as well as faber-castell color pencil for the initial sketching.

First, I am sketching this building in brown.


My first impression on Faber-Castell oil pastel is the price, it is expensive compared to cray-pas expressionist. Both of them provides 36 colors, Faber-Castell gives quite interesting range of colors for me, they have many light tone which is close to white, and it gives me two gray color. Well, they do not provide gold and silver.



I realized that Faber-Castell Oil pastel is quite dusty, and I prefer cray-pas white color compare to Faber-Castel one.



I am using cray-pas silver color for the gate, as well as some dark brown for the darker area of the wood window.



And finally, It is done. This is the second painting dedicated to Penang, my home neighborhood.



I have tried applying Faber-Castell white to cover the light yellow (102 cream), but it failed to cover, it seems opaque to me. Therefore, at last I choose cray-pas white.

Well, it is still too early to tell whether Faber-Castell oil pastel suits me or not. I will do more painting using Faber-Castell OP.

Chinese Brush Styles Oil Pastel Landscape

I have done another oriental painting, this time I use Chinese Brush painting as my reference. Check out original painting is HERE.


一叶轻舟万重山

I painted this on a smooth and opaque surface. Yes, it is tracing paper. I discovered more about oil pastel on tracing paper. My tracing paper is very thin, therefore when I place it on a coarse surface such as wood table, it does help me work out the texture. Nature of tracing paper allows me to erase my mistakes by using eraser. In contrast, finished work have to be taken serious care to prevent scratches.

I am quite happy with the outcome I had achieved, it does express the "artistic conception" (意境).

Penang Cheah Kong Si

Penang island is a beautiful island in Malaysia, also known as 檳榔嶼 in mandarin. The name "檳榔嶼" is in the navigational drawings used by Admiral Zheng He of Ming-dynasty China in his expeditions to the South Seas in the 15th century.

Penang Island is full of Chinese traditional old buildings. It is now part of UNESCO's World Heritage Cities Program. I am painting one of the heritage, Cheah Kong Si (谢氏宗祠)。

This is the initial sketch.


And this is the final painting.


This is the view of the front gate, it is made of wood and painted in red. This is the first Penang oriental building I have paint, I wish to do more in the future.

Pang Jiun's art

Pang Jiun's art amazed me a lots! This is where I get the idea of doing oriental oil pastel paintings from. His oil painting have a very strong feel of Chinese brush drawing (水墨画). With post-impressionism and Fauvism from oil paintings, he blends the oriental style into his art.

He likes grey, he produce a lots of greyish painting on oriental buildings, bridges as well as landscape. A very important element of oriental painting ~ "remains white" (留白). It leaves certain portion of paintings blank without fill in any colors at all (not even white color). As we draw a bird on a white paper, blank white color becomes sky; if we draw living things, white becomes land; draw a boat, white becomes water.

Lets look at one of his painting "Galaxy in the world", you will observed the greyish as well as "remains white" elements.



This is the first painting of Pang Jiun that I had discovered. I love it so much and feel no hesitate to paint it in oil pastel to experience the oriental's mood.



The size of my painting is 16 x 25 cm. I paint it on white drawing block uses cray-pas expressionist as well as a little bit of buncho OP.

Water Lily Oriental Style

清水出芙蓉，天然去雕饰。

This is Oil Pastel Monthly Challenge for October 2008 at Wetcanvas forum. I am trying to express oriental feel into this painting. I am using cray-pas expressionist, paint on A4 size drawing paper. The actual size of this painting is 16 x 21 cm.

First, I sketch the drawings using color pencil, I choose perl because it is not obvious and can be easily covered by OP. I paint a few scratches of blue to the water lily, and paint it with white to blend the blue and leave it just like that. I use my favorite green (green gray) on lower leaves, and yellow, a little bit of light green and again blends them with green gray for leaves at center.

Water surface is the most challenging part, because it consist of different colors. I start from bottom, fill them with dark blue, dark green and grey. Further up where I work on the reflection of trees, I paint them in dark green, dark brown and at final stage I apply black shades to express the movements of the water. The reflection of the cloud must be in light blue, grey and white, I apply dark blue lightly and blends them with white too. The upper side of water is in light blue, which that is the reflection of blue sky.

The shadows are mainly started with either dark blue or dark green. And applied another layer of dark brown and at last shaded with black.

I like this painting, I think I am going to try more oriental styles.