Baguio City again!

I went back and searched through my old photos of the Philippines trip, and found a few photos of Baguio city that i took. I compared it with the art I painted yesterday, and found a big difference! It wasn't as bright and there were more interesting cloud formations behind the mountains. There were also some trees at the foreground in the photos.
So, to do justice the the art, I decided to refer to the photo and add in all the elements that were missing.
It's a whole lot better , and I wonder why is my imagination poorer than the photo I took in the first place? Lousy art skills, I guess. Here's the new art:


Here's the photo btw:

Super Baguio City

Not too long ago, I visited the Philippines, and went to a city called Baguio. It's located high up in the mountains, and it's a really big city! It has a bus terminal and is a start point to explore other smaller towns around the mountains like Batad and Sagada. On my way back from Baguio in the evening, I caught a fleeting glimpse of the numerous houses/squatters all over the mountains, and it was an amazing view with the fog slowly coming in and obscuring some of the houses. It looked absolutely magical! Below is an attempt to recapture what I felt and saw that day:

Probably there are not actually so many houses but at the time, it really seemed as if the whole mountain was covered with them :)

Mammoth Sacred Tree

Annie (my fiancee) and I went to Taiwan recently. It was a wonderful trip as I managed to see the famous Alishan Forest and Taroko Gorge. I was awe-struck when I saw those giant Red-cypress trees, especially the huge Sacred Tree and the tall towering cliffs of Taroko with it's clear turquoise colored waters. It's one of those moments when I wonder how beautiful our earth is and thank God for creating it for us to live in.
It inspired me to paint out the two color sketches below:




The Giant fish below is not inspired by anything in Taiwan but just my fixation in drawing things gigantic and out of size. Arrgghh - giant fish eats up seagulls! hehehe...I like it ;)

I also saw some very old Chinese watercolor paintings in the National Palace Museum in Taipei, it's a really cool place to hang out if you're into Chinese culture. I decided to get in touch with my chinese roots and came up with my own digital watercolor painting below. Peonies for good luck, what can I say? :)



By the way, the mandarin words are just gibberish placeholders - until i get my fiancee to pen up a few profound words. I don't know how to write or read mandarin, such a sorry excuse for a Chinese.