Janice M. Chau

Sometimes we get creatively stuck, kind of like writers block.  It's always good to take a blank canvas, an opportunity, and friends get away from the work/studio environment and just do something therapeutic. I was given the opportunity this past May to be a featured artist for the Urban Ocean Festival at the Aquarium of the Pacific down in Long Beach.  I had just the right amount of time to plan and do something well thought out and prepared.  BUT...life happens on the in between and several family emergencies occurred.  I took one day in May just to process it all, I had no plan, and I had no ideas.  I just wanted to face a blank canvas and see where my imagination, a different world would take me.  With the community surrounding, kids painting, other artist indulging, and aquarium volunteers/staff helping.  It was a good run.  That place of tranquility was found in an array of colors, and the thought of snorkeling/diving by the pier. ...

First Art Class at Elephant Sanctuary Art House. Students and Coaches! On another adventure. A friend of a friend of mine invited me to come and create with the little tikes that were going to attend the first ever art class at Elephant Sanctuary Art House. (ESAH).  This was one of the funnest Saturday mornings I've had in a while.  It's because kids say the darnest things. It's funny how their imaginations run wild.  AND it is so awesome to see how their imagination comes to life in 2D or 3D form when they are given the opportunity to.  Here are my students being silly, focused, energetic and creative. Robert seriously was very mechanical about his elephant.  He built his piece by piece focusing on shape and proportions.   I could tell by the statements and the way he laid out the shapes before gluing it all down.   He used scissors a lot for the limbs, but tore the body. Christian had a lot of fun with the tissue paper....

For the past 3 years I have been able to participate the the Urban Ocean Festival @ the Aquarium of the Pacific in Long Beach.  The festival invites the community to learn and be educated about the conservation of our ocean.  Many non-profit organizations come out to create awareness of how we can keep our ocean clean through sustainability, and others teach us about the ocean, fishing, and pollution.   I was working as a master artist in partnership with the Aquarium of the Pacific and Art Mile Mural Project.Art Mile promotes global peace and harmony through mural painting.  Each time I volunteer with these two organization, I'm continually inspired..  It's also been an awesome experience to share with my fellow art friends, and to just be able to collaborate together.  The funniest thing I've seen and never get tired of  is that each time I volunteer I get to I see children break free of their fear to paint and get messy.  I lov...

Unrestrained, graphite on velum, 5.5" by 8"' July 11, 2011 Just so happens today I was feeling kind of tied down, controlled by several situations in life, I've been having these visions of flying paper cranes, so I thought I'd sketch it out.   I was listening to this song Unrestrained , and this is what I was feeling and always hope for: to fly freely. Story behind the piece Listen-Unrestrained, We Cry Out Jeremy Camp

Grace like a Whale, 8" by 5.5", watercolor I needed a warm-up before I start doing final drawings for a picture book that I'm working on. (coming soon)  So, I sketched out and painted what I've been experiencing these past couple of weeks.  This piece is expressing how I've been experiencing grace ,  what I think it looks like, and how it moves in my life.  This dawned on me when I did some volunteer mural painting at the Aquarium of the Pacific this past Sunday. I realized how big the gift of  grace  is, and how it steadily moves gracefully like whales as they dance and cruise through the ocean blue.