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Ready to Pass Them On

11 May

Last year,  M2 had shown an interest in art. I have bought a few mini canvases for her and she has done an excellent job with some creations, using pen and ink on the canvas. Although she lamented they are copied pieces, I feel it’s a good start to hone her interest and develop her skills.

I think at this point, I am ready to pass her my set of Faber Castell technical pens, heirlooms of sort if you can call them that. These pens have served me well during my college years but sadly, have not since any action for the last two decades.

Maybe it’s time for them to be of use again. I bought a new bottle of Rotring ink and cleaned out the pens again for her. Looking forward to new art pieces by M2.

 

My prized possession

  

This 3″x4″ hangs in the living room proudly

 

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Moms Do Not Mince Words

8 May

Just when you think life is good with all these gastronomic adventures, long weekends for painting and living a sedentary lifestyle due to a sports injury, reality kicks in.

A few days ago, Mom commented casually that my behind is looking, err… wider than usual. While she did not specifically said that I was fat, she merely said that part of the anatomy was looking wider than normal, it was enough. Ouch and cringe.

Normally when such a comment is made by hubby, wrath will incur followed by a lengthy silent treatment. But one just cannot do the same with mothers who do not mince words. Reality kicks in.

Guess I better do something about this ‘wider than usual’ situation if I cannot play golf yet to burn all those calories gained.

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Memory Fail

5 May

I have been sharing my painting efforts on Facebook and some of my friends on that platform have been following the progress. Out of the blue, my American housemate from my college days mentioned that she still has a piece of my work hanging on her wall!

Initially she shared the picture on my wall and I complimented her that the picture was pretty and asked was it her effort? To my surprise, she wrote that I painted it for her in college. Oh my goodness.

Memory fail here because I don’t recall. This must be the pre-Monet days where I still used the brush because the strokes on the painting didn’t look like a palette knife effort.

And what’s even more amazing was that apparently I did another piece of a cabin subject and sold it to the owner of the cabin! Super memory fail here again.

How can I have forgotten such significant moments?

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New Colors, New Paintings

4 May

For two weeks in a row, we had two three-day weekends. From the work perspective, it’s not good because the work week has been shortened to four days but from the personal perspective, it’s really nice.

The weekend before, we drove up to Taiping and had a really waist-expanding gastronomic trip. But this week, we stayed put which turned out to be a really good thing too.

I bought new colors, 10 tubes to be exact, got an easel as a birthday gift (from hubby, no golf-related stuff this year) and more canvases.

The will to paint was strong and I whipped up three pieces on Sunday, doing another two pieces of the Penang Bridge in two different sizes and started a new subject matter: Uluwatu sunset. And on Monday, we were just chilling at home, I painted another Uluwatu sunset, this time fine-tuned the blending and another experimental color blend piece.

Such bliss.

   
   

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Of SuperPig and SuperOwl

27 Apr

Lately I have this urge to create – draw, paint, carve or anything, just something to do to keep busy. There’s so much creative energy in me waiting to be unleashed. Must be the result of too much rest due to the tennis elbow.

Last week my golf buddies treated me to an early birthday lunch at Naughty Nuri’s and the restaurant gifted me with a souvenir, a wood carving of a piggy superhero. In fact, we were such good guests, the staff gave every one of us a figurine each! How nice.

This morning I looked at SuperPig with fond memories of last week’s good time with the ladies and made me wonder if I can carve the same. Hmm…

My last foray into carving owls stalled because the activity made the dining area messy. But with all this energy, maybe I should give this carving business another go. Perhaps a replica of the Naughty Nuri mascot or an owl with a cape? SuperOwl? Who knows?

There should be some spare balsa wood lying around and since I have to rest from golf, I will attempt this on top of the paintings, which are still ongoing with two canvases in queue.

  

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Expectation vs Reality

21 Apr

I recently saw this idea of a bird shower on boredpanda.com and it seemed like a brilliant one. So naturally, I cannot resist anything that looks brilliant so I replicated it! I made a bird shower from a plastic bottle and hung it in the garden. But something doesn’t seem to gel. Expectation versus reality kicked in.

How do I control the water to have a constant flow like in the video? I can’t be standing in the garden and holding a hose to supply the water, can I now? Even if I was discreet, the birds that have been coming to eat all those bird seeds we put out don’t seem interested to have a bath. Can’t be putting a sign to direct them either, birds don’t read…

Or is this bird shower attraction only for a pet bird? Hmm… I will leave the home-made effort out for a bit longer and monitor. Only time can tell…

  

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The Ride, Part 2

20 Apr

The lady motorbike rider I wrote about recently reminded me of my encounter with this mode of transportation dinosaur years ago. It was during an interim period and I was working while waiting to go off to college. I was an artist for a publishing house that produced educational books for children.

In the mornings, Dad would send me to work as my office was close by his office. Days when I finished early I would go home with Dad. But there were nights that I had to work late and I didn’t want Dad to wait nor did I want to take the bus home. Luckily, I had a co-worker who lived in the same town and I would go home with him. On his motorbike.

So there I was on a couple of occasions, sitting at the back of his motorbike, clinging on to my dear life as he hurtled along the highway in the night to send me home.

It was downright scary whether it was the first time or second time because being hit by the wind on the face constantly was foreign and rather terrifying. Then there was that firm death grip on the bar behind my seat throughout the ride to ensure I remain on the bike. And the awkwardness to stay balanced, tilting along and not against when he tilted the bike to turn…

Quite an experience. After those couple of rides, never again I rode on a motorbike.

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The Prettiest Grocery List

14 Apr

Whenever I do groceries, I have to have a list. It’s a habit of mine that I prefer the old fashion paper and a pencil to check things off over a list keyed into my iPhone.

Sometimes I even add little doodles next to the items to make the list easier to see than read. After all, I am an artsy person, why not apply my skills to make the mundane more interesting?

When M2 was younger, I used to make her do my grocery list. There was once after she was done, she said excitedly, “Mummy! Here… You now have the prettiest grocery list!”

“See the flowers? They are growing!”

Indeed, my grocery list had very neat cursive hand-writing peppered with some decorations and a short sequence of the growing flower, from pod to bloom.

Pretty. I should make her do my grocery list more often these days.

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The Monet in Me, Part 2

23 Mar

Thoughts of Monet gave me a push to paint for two consecutive Sunday afternoons. The first piece at 8”x24” the weekend prior took two hours only. The second time, I did two pieces – a 10″x14” and a 10”x10” which didn’t take long to complete either. It was rather therapeutic on both occasions.

I must have lost my touch painting for I made a mess not on the marble floor (thank goodness) but on myself. There was paint on my fingers, thigh, ankle and even my eyelids! Goodness.

On top of the mess, I didn’t realize I nicked my thumb with the palette knife on both occasions and even went one step further by accidentally slicing my palm whilst cleaning the knife after I was done painting the first time. Ouch.

But all these efforts was worth it. Am pretty proud of my finished pieces.

 

This tool can slice you effortlessly if not careful!

  

Mood evoking pieces

 

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The Monet in Me

21 Mar

I love Claude Monet the Impressionist artist. Whenever I travel abroad, I always make the effort to visit art museums to view the Impressionist collection and especially to stand in front of a Monet or two to be inspired. I must say Musée d’Orsay ranks up there for me over the Louvre.

This love for Claude Monet started in college. I was very taken with the Impressionist style. One of my early Illustration classes, I did a portrait of Mr Monet. And it was during my summer Painting class that I did further studies on him. I remember one assignment called for us to emulate our choice of artist.

Obviously I chose Claude Monet. And the particular piece I chose was ‘Poplars on the Banks of the River Epte, Seen from The Marsh’ (1892). My two feet by two feet effort still hangs at home in the TV room today.

I loved the Poplar series so much that I recreated the ‘Seen from the Marsh’ piece at a smaller scale of eight by ten inches. The Monet in me then did a little series of my own with two additional interpretations of the poplars. But unlike Monet, I used the palette knife, my choice of tool to paint.

 

The paper may have faded but he’s still looking good!

  

My version of the Poplars

  

My Poplar series

 

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