Here is my artwork "Curiosity" which won the Tesshin Sasaki Award at the 49th Sumi-e Society of America Annual Juried Exhibition in Bloomington, Minnesota.  I painted the black mouse and the white mouse fairly quickly but it took me a long while to decide what to do next.  I wanted to give them something interesting to look at, but did not want that item to overwhelm the mice in the overall composition.  I eventually decided on a spider building a web. The title of the artwork coincidentally was the same as NASA's Mars robotic rover which was news headlines during the exhibition.   

I will be teaching an introduction to sumi-e workshop for the Baltimore Watercolor Society on March 16 -17, 2014 in Olney, Maryland.  Please register online with BWS here http://bws.onefireplace.com/BWSEvents?eventId=609023&EventViewMode=EventDetails.  The class is designed for watercolorists interested to widen the horizon with the art of sumi-e to improve brushwork and explore new way of looking at art.  Class is expected to fill up quickly so please register early.  Note the late start on Saturday because there is an exercise class at the center in the morning.  Call or e-mail me if you have any questions.  Hope to see you there.  Joan Lok