2026.2.20-21. Color pencil with Sarah Bixler

2/20-21 Fri-Saturday 1-4pm. I went to yet another art class. Day one, first we pick 4 color panels, and 3 color pencils to recreate the 4 colors. See the right side of the photo. Next, we picked a photo or a picture in one of Sarah's books, and using only 3 color pencils. She did a demo: shapes, put down the main colors, then adjust the values. I settled on one painting in Robh Ruppel Graphic L.A. book: a large rock on the beach. I settled on the same 3 colors: orange, yellow and blue. The left top is my target, and left bottom is the sketch at the end of first day.

2nd day, we started on a color wheel, before going back to our drawing. Sarah walked around, answer questions and making suggestions. She just draw on a different piece of paper to illustrate her point. This is at the end of my 2nd day, and the 4 pencils I used: had to add a 4th, brown.

Last, we put all our drawings together, and Sarah did a review. Most of my classmates use smaller paper sizes, many did 2 drawings.

I like these classes. Drawing/painting is quite meditative. The instructors all play some soothing music in the background. This is my 2nd class with Sarah. According to her, she's signed up to do one class per month here.

2026.2.20. Lunar New Year community concert at Seattle Steinway Gallery

2/20, Friday. A Lunar New Year Concert. Every piece is played by different musicians.

彩雲追月 Silver Clouds Chase the Moon  -- Victoria
Li Huanzhi, Spring Festival Overture -- Piano: Melody, Violin: John Shieh
Cecile Chaminade, Caprice Impromptu Op153 - Jiayi

George Gershwin, Rhapsody in Blue   -- Oliver
Philip Glass: Etudes: No. 6         -- Jess
越人歌 The song of Yue Boatman       -- Finnie and Aimee
Butterfly lovers concerto 1st mvt : Adagio cantabile -- Annie and Justin

Unfortunately I had to leave at intermission. I quite enjoyed the first half.

2026.2.15. Twin Falls

2/15, Sunday, cloudy. Went for a short hike at Twin Falls. Quite a lot of people. But we know a secret spot above the upper falls, which we always visit. This time, we also followed a faint trail going up to the top of the hill. Too many trees to get a good view below. Saw a fixed rope on a tree. Very tempting to hang on it. But I have no experience to tell how secure this rope is, so gave up.

Today, we also stopped at the lower falls. The recent rain made it very pretty. It's also possible to scramble over onto rocks in the middle of the river. Fun.

2026.2.14. Iris Unveiled - Seattle Symphony

2/14, Saturday. Xian introduces Iris Unveiled. It's an interesting, not a new composition.

Qigang Chen          Iris Dévoilée (Iris Unveiled)
Dmitri Shostakovich  Symphony No. 5

I like big orchestra. This is it. 5 people on percussion! 10 cellos, 8 basses. For Iris Unveiled, other than the Peking Opera singer Meng Meng, 2 supranos (Mei Gui Zhang and Tess Altiveros), Yang Jin on pipa, Cathy Yang on Erhu and banhu, Lucina Yue on guzheng. It's interesting to hear the difference between Peking Opera's voice and classical suprano's voice. Big sound. Glad to watch and listen. However, neither these 2 works I'd revisit.

The preconcert lecture today was advertised at 90 minutes before curtain. But the auditorium was closed and had to wait for the usual lecture 60 min prior. What a screw-up. In the lobby, there was a screen playing videos on Peking Opera. Today's lecture is on female characters in Peking Opera, by Jeremy Jolley of the education side of the symphony and Shuang-Chiu Wang, of Hwa Sheng Chinese Opera Club (華聲社）. She's also a professor at Bellevue College. She articulates and explains well. I enjoyed it.

While we were inside the auditorium for the lecture, Seattle Chinese Orchestra ensemble played in the lobby. Not sure what we missed. It was a nice performance using traditional Chinese instruments, I especially liked the lady on Er Hu. She's so good.

2026.2.13-14 Oil Painting with Riley Doyle + Christal Baschet

2/13-14, 1-3:30pm. Another salon studio: 2 sessions of oil painting with Riley Doyle, and my result at the end. Everyone has these colors: red, blue, yellow, black and white. We started with sketching blocks of color. Let the painting dry overnight. Then adjust the colors and add details. I painted Riley's cat. My lesson is that I should have sketched all the components, including the cat.

On Wednesday this week, during the salon social, bassist Keith Lowe and brother Bryan Lowe played downstairs. Bryan brought a rare and remarkable instrument: Cristal Baschet, a sculptural French instrument of glass rods and resonant metal. He was proud and kind enough to let me (and others) slide my fingers with water on some rods. I could feel the vibration. He said just the shipping costed him $5000.