My name is Charlotte Lee and I am a Toronto-based porcelain painting artist, a Sumi-e brush painting painter and a crafter. 
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Since my childhood, I love making crafts, painting and all kinds of DIY home decorating projects. Presently I make my porcelain painting projects in my basement while I work as a full-time office lady.  Although this lifestyle is busy and demanding, there comes a lot of unexpected fun and fulfillment.  Every time when my customers receive the artworks from my hands, I am amazed with their satisfying smiles. My diligence is really paid off.  
 
 Thinking back to my childhood in my origin [Hong Kong], my hobbies were typical, like sketching, water-color painting and making some simple crafts. My skills wandered around the intermediate level.  Nothing is serious. Until I studied an intensive program called Metal Art Clay, I was so surprised and deeply interested in making SERIOUS crafts.  During my apprenticeship, I had a chance to approach Porcelain Painting/China Painting skill.  In one of the techniques in making Metal Art Clay, I was required to paint simple graphics onto porcelain pendants and then I placed them into a kiln for firing.  In order to polish this skill, I went to Ms. Amy Chan for two basic porcelain painting lessons in 2002.  [Amy is currently a certified porcelain artist and teaches students in Hong Kong and was invited to do demonstration in Europe.]  Since then, I fell for this painting skill a lot, I would say she inspired me a lot.    In 2002, after I married to my husband in Toronto, I found myself bored to the housewife's chores. Then, I decided to pick up my porcelain painting skills again.  I kept browsing in the internet for any porcelain painting classes in Toronto. Luckily, I had a chance to acquaint with my teacher, Ms. Betty Gray.  She was an ex-President of Ontario Porcelain Artists Guild.  In the same year, I became so active in the Guild, for instance, attending all the members’ meetings, doing demonstrations at Canadian National Exhibition (CNE) annually. 
  
Through Betty’s teachings, my skills were getting better and better.  As time went by, I did a lot of research on porcelain painting and I even flew to Paris for a trip to Louvre.  At Louvre, I saw a Decorative Arts collection of Napoleon III’s (Charles-Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte).  They were masterpieces! The trip made my eyes wide opened and became my motivation to continue my learning.  However, all these experience didn’t satisfy me enough.  I started thinking a way to apply the techniques I learnt in the past onto porcelain pieces. Last year, I started learning Sumi-e a.k.a. Ki painting from Ms. Roslyn Levin. Sumi-e and Ki painting are similar to Chinese brush painting.  This painitng technique evaluated me more imagination room and skills for my creations. 


In the past years, I have painted immensely and my artworks were rapidly accumulated in my basement.  Even though I sold some to friends and gave some out, I still had a lot. Then, I decided to sell them…  


With my friends and colleagues’ encouragement, I established my first web shop named as Charlotte L Design in Etsy.com in November of 2007. The year after, I set up a blog and a facebook page,...