Girl with small eyes

Just returned from Shanghai, bought a magazine with a cover of a Asian girl with very small eyes. Curiously very attractive, even though small eyes are never really typically considered to be pretty in Asian context. Coloured pencils, pencil on brown paper, adjusted in Photoshop.

Yellow orchids

Water soluble colured pencils, touched up in Photoshop. Reference for woman from a painting by David Jagger "Lady with a fan", reference for orchids from a photo taken at the Singapore Botanic Gardens.

This little bird found a ring

Watercolour. 7" x 5".

For the Birdhouse installation organised by OIC, 2 Nov 2012.

Colour lines

In colour pencil - the type with multiple colours in one lead. There's a randomness and freedom that comes when you build the picture. Unexpected results - some good, some so-so, but all good fun :)

Origami Yoda

May the force be with you!

While I do love Star Wars, my friend April loves it even more :) She's been working on making an origami Yoda. I surfed the web only to find quite a few complex versions. So I thought I'd try my hand at creating a less complex one, just for the fun of it. After 20 failed prototypes, this is the version that was 'repeatable' and 'instructable' if you know what I mean :P

It's my first attempt at creating a new origami object, and first time drawing instructions for it. Hope you like it and find it enjoyable to make. May the force be with you!

My brown paper portraits...from 2008

Thanks to OIC, I had the opportunity to practice my portrait drawing for several years. For almost a year and a half, I was at Red Dot one Sunday a month drawing people who posed for us. I drew and sold the portraits, or left the unsold ones in a drawer, never really looking out for them :P

So it came as such a wonderful surprise when a lady contacted me by email last month, and sent me a photo of a portrait I had drawn of her and her husband, back in 2008! Today the picture has travelled to Germany and they have kept it! That really made my day and week and month :)

She wrote: "We met once at RedDot Design Museum, Singapore, because the best portray of my hubby and myself was yours! So, we happened to buy it and put it as a decoration in our bedroom... And since we came back to Berlin, we still have it with us."

Thank you! What a wonderful gift, and wonderful reminder to keep on drawing!!!! :)

Hungry Caterpillar pin (with tutorial)

I love pins and brooches! Here's one I just made, plus instructions on how to make one yourself! :)

Instructions:
1. You'll need some POM-POMs - about 6 GREEN and ONE RED. I chose to use the length of the BROOCH BACKING backing so as to simplify the process. It fits about 6 green poms for the body. Any shorter and the body might not look crawly, if too long, it starts to look like a string, unless you make some curves into it. You'll also need a short length of BROWN YARN for the feelers, and some CARD or PLASTIC for the eyes. I found a shiny SEQUIN laying around, so I trimmed it into the eyes. It worked out quite nicely cos it's a little reflective. I let the eye shapes be odd shaped as I thought it made the caterpillar look cute.  Also since it was so small, it was really tough to get the shape round!

TOOLS: Hot glue gun, white glue, scissors (for the eyes and feelers) and a permanent black or brown marker pen.

2. Get a dab of glue on one end of the brooch, and place the yarn in a U or V shape.
3. Another dab of glue for the head.
4. Add dabs of glue and add one green pom-pom at a time. Arrange them in a slight curve.
5. When done with the body, let it cool for a little while. Add white glue to the feelers and dab the positions for the eyes. I added glue to the feelers because I wanted to prevent fraying of the ends, and also to add some stiffness to the feelers.
6. Stick on the eyes.
7. Draw in the eyes. It's better to wait till the glue has dried.

Ta-da! There you go, your very own hungry caterpillar brooch! :)

Flowers and a tin can

The oil painting's completed. You can see the two progressive below. I can't say it's my best work, but I learnt a lot during the stages of the painting. 

I like this part of the painting the most - here's a close up of the flowers near the top. The way the orange and pink hues blend - I like! Orange (and vermillion) is still my favorite colour, it seems to be in most of what I paint.

When these kids grow up...

This was a fun project :) A few illustrators from the Organisation of Illustrators Council, or OIC for short were asked to draw some children from photos taken of them, but not as they were now. We were to draw them in their dream job :) I took on two portraits. The first one, was of a little lady wanted to be a policewoman.

 And this little lady wanted to be a baker.

Both were done in pencil and poster colours.

Featured - Mural in Kenneth's home

The mural I painted for Kenneth's home has been featured in a magazine! Check out this month's FORM (Volume 2, 2012) to see more of Kenneth's fabulous home. So proud to have my work in a home with a collection of such wonderful art! Thanks, Kenneth for giving me a wall to paint on! :)


See more pictures of the mural HERE.

April flowers

This evening I learnt a valuable lesson from my oil painting teacher.

This month the still life set up was a pitcher with flowers (pink and yellow forget-me-nots), a metal tin and some vases. He helped me choose a focus on flowers with a partial view of the rusty metal tin.

By the second lesson, my painting in progress was the one on the left. Today, after the third lesson, my painting was the one on the right. Though I think it was visibly more detailed after the class, the painting didn't seem to feel better for me, in fact the feel of it diminished for some reason. I preferred what it felt like at the second lesson, the painting on the left.

My teacher and I stood to look at it for a while, and he told me that when he painted flowers, he would have a few intentions in mind. He would paint the flowers to be spirited/lively, more colourful than the real blossom, and give the impression that it was blooming. Sounds logical? Guess it's easier said than done. And what had I done to my painting?

He said that I was quite skilled to get so much detail into the painting, but I had drawn too many stalks in detail and that had taken the focus off the flowers. I realised that I had painted a thing, and not flowers. My teacher had looked beyond the object, and added what the object embodied, and lent a quality to it. Flowers to him represent blossoming and life and should have that quality in the drawing - blurred strokes, colour, expansion beyond the canvas. Impression of petals, singular blossoms and implied blossoms. Interplay that with detail and colour of the other objects in the painting, and you get an automatic stage for the flowers.

It was a wonderful moment to understand that through my own experience. When I paint something, say flowers, after I establish the proportions, I can focus just on one part of the flower, one stalk, one petal, one part at a time, and then the next, and zoom out to see how it fits into the entire picture. I paint as realistically as I can, cos for some reason, I think that is the objective of still life. Well, I don't think painting realistically is wrong, just as I don't consider abstraction to be wrong either. But oh how wonderful to have a mindset changed! For me, this will affect all my paintings from now because now I have another path open to me!

My teacher shared with me his personal perspective. He did not say my work was poor, and I am not beating myself up for it either. I paint efficiently. I paint to take my mind off words. I paint to connect my eyes to colour, my eyes to my brush, my eyes to shapes and lines without calling them names, without painting stereotypes or preconceived ideas. I paint to free myself from old rules I gave myself along the way when I was learning how to paint. And today I broke another rule. Thank you, Mr Wee!

A new sewing machine, hooray!!

Say hello to Octo and Singer! I have a new sewing machine, and that's the first project I sewed with it! I still love my old pedal Butterfly sewing machine, even though this Singer has more fancy stitches....

What have I been up to?...A mural for a home

What have I been up to?...Sewing even more toys!

There were three little pigs....

One became a pirate and lost a leg to a shark.

One became a very hip photographer.

One became an extraordinary chef.

The pigs are available for sale at Woods in the Books, at Millenia Walk, Singapore.

What have I been up to?...Sewing toys

Say hello to Mister Lemon. Hand-stitched from cotton. Yes, the jacket is removable.

Say hello to two happy friends. Also hand-stitched from cotton.

What have I been up to? ...Making bags

Transform a plain bag into one with a statement. Use a little bit of fabric ink. These are $2 canvas bags from Daiso. Daiso is a lovely place!


This is a bandanna bag, sewn from two bandanna scarves. Guess where the two scarves were from..... Yep, Daiso!

On a full moon night, 15 July

Acrylic on canvas. 32" x 24".

Sewing sewing

A friend bought me some really nice fabric, and that starting me sewing some things at a go. I use an old manual pedal sewing machine - it's a little finnicky, but I love using it. I also found some nice fabrics from Ikea - here are some of things I made :)

Sashes for waist, neck or bag.

Foldable bird bag.

Flamingo pyjama shorts!

My first attempt at making a purse with a metal frame. It was rather difficult :( and I overcrimped the metal frame, leaving a gap when it closes. Not great for coins. I shall try to make the next purse better! :)

Here's another bag - in the same print as the purse and shorts!

Taking flight

Acrylic on canvas. 20"x25"
Inspired by the Hermes scarf.

On exhibition at Curious TeePee at *scape as part of the "Idolism" show from 5 to 22 May 2011, together with wonderful artists and illustrators from OIC! :)

Dreaming

Acrylic on canvas, 36" x 48"

Here's a close up.

Progressives that went all over the place :P