Time fillers - Gloriosa Superba

It is always too troublesome to do a set up for painting on canvas. It takes too much concentration and effort and so I took the easy way out using children's makers, oil pastels and ink to have some fun with the Gloriosa Superba flowers.

Tried out the fabric pen I bought on a free shopping bag. Will try out the fabric paints I bought some time ago when I next feel the inclination to draw or paint.

Experiment

White on black and see the effect. I bought a pen that is oil-based, waterproof and opaque and most important can be used for drawing on hard surfaces like glass, wood, plastic and ceramics. I found a notebook with a thick cardboard cover and decorated it with three flowers - the Glory Lily (Gloriosa superba), the sunflower and the passion flower.

Reflection

I nearly stepped on a tree
I halted for a moment
to consider what it might be
to have an existence
that becomes apparent
only when you choose to see
the details around
the ups, the downs
the inside out and the outside in
A reflection of a tree.

Gone fishing

Playing around with the contrast and brightness of the shots of carps swimming in a pond. I like the reflection of the sky above and the sprig of water plant dangling overhead like a fishing rod.

Time for flowers

How do you pass time that contains no schedules, no appointments, no events, no need to do anything except use it in any way you like? I do that by drawing. I let the ink flow from my pen as I connect with the lines and forms of my subjects. Time is wonderful when you have nothing important to spend it on. Time is a heavenly creation when you just spend it happily doing what engages your senses and nothing else intrudes into your consciousness to make you aware of it.

Bougainvillea

I started out trying to write some Chinese characters using a chinese brush. The first time I was taught to use a Chinese brush for writing was when I was six years old and I have never forgotten how to hold the brush since. Some things for some reason you never forget. Writing is another matter because I have to get used to a new medium. I realised that the brush was too thick for writing and being distracted I decided to draw my bougainvillea shrub. The first attempt(1st photo) was rather controlled as if I was still using a pen to draw. Later, I became more relaxed in applying the strokes and did a second drawing on rice paper. Then I thought I should write some words there to describe what I felt at that moment when I completed the drawing. The writing may not be 'grammatically correct' . What I wanted to say was that having the bougainvillea flower I wish for happiness and good fortune for my family. Actually, I should have started writing from right to left and not the other way round .

Now looking at the drawing, I am just satisfied I have tried something new in art. Artistically, it is so-so for a first attempt, maybe even way below par. If I want to do better than this, I shall have to find out more about calligraphy and Chinese brush painting and find ways to pick up the necessary skills. The shrub has grown wild in all directions. It will be a massive job to prune this shrub and the job has to be done this weekend.

Inside Out

I gazed out of the window longing for home. What was happening inside was nothing great compared with nature's flourish outside. I chose to record the humble work of nature while trying hard to pay attention to the happenings inside. At least the result was pleasant and the moments well spent.

Those moments...

Living the moments, savour the coffee and the muffin...
and leaves in a foreign land.

Drawing flowers

My son asked me yesterday why it was that people in general find it difficult to draw? I told him that his ability to draw effortlessly is a gift that not many possess. I cherish this gift too for it has given me a way of appreciating nature more intensely.

Princesses

When I was a kid, my favourite subject for drawing has always been girls. Girls in mini skirts, bell bottoms, high heels, hot pants. I just loved drawing girls. That was the art of my childhood. Recently, I met a little girl who has a large collection of stickers and her favourites were those of Disney princesses, Hello Kitty and Barbie dolls.

To entertain her, I drew some of her stickers for her to colour because she loved colouring. She liked it very much and when her mum remarked that my drawings were good, I just said that it was nothing much really because it is just copy drawing. I said that I would gladly draw on the request of her little girl because it made me happy to know that even though my drawings were not commercial successes, they were at least admired and I promised that I would continue to draw for her.

These drawings below are original. They come from my imagination and from a rekindling of my childhood love for drawing pretty girls. They were motivated by my promise to draw for the little girl who so admired my drawings. The backgrounds were filled in later to make each picture more interesting to colour and that was even more challenging than drawing the girls.

Time

These drawings should not have been done at that particular time and place. But if I had not done them, passing that duration of time would have been a torture. On looking back, I am glad had not wasted precious time.

Rickshaw pullers

Drawing of rickshaw pullers resting under the shade of a tree - a scene from an old postcard featured in the book 'Singapore - 500 Early Postcards' by Cheah Jin Seng.

Drawing using an ink pen is something I do best. Not painting - that I have to labour over. Not using pencils because I am not good at shading. But ink drawings! Now that's what I like because there is no second chance if I make a mistake. It's like living on the edge. You cannot afford to let up on your concentration and you cannot afford to be careless. Glaring mistakes cannot be erased away. They can, at best, be covered up or camouflaged and if that is not possible, the drawing is useless. That is why when I do these ink drawings, the rest of the world does not exist. It is great to just live such moments at times.

Black and White and shades of both

For a change, I made use of the black and white setting of my camera just for fun and then realised as I looked at each picture snapped that I was actually looking at pictures of the same subjects in a totally different way.

First I noticed the patterns.

The shades...

The lines...

The contrast between light and dark, the texture...

The uniqueness of what I see...

Black and white is just another way of looking at the world to appreciate that there are other ways that we should not lose sight of.

Upper Peirce Reservoir

My daughter said to me while she was doing a painting of undersea creatures, "It's not important how the picture turns out, what matters is that you enjoyed the painting process."

I never really completed this painting. After two on-site painting sessions, I never went back to finish the painting. I was happy to leave it as it is to remind me that I was for those hours just totally connected with nature enjoying every moment.

Painting mood

A clean slate waiting to be filled.
A struggle and then scraping away mistakes. Waiting for another flood of inspiration to resume, maybe never, maybe soon.

A morning in paradise

It has been ages since I last visited a library. We have fantastic libraries in Singapore where you can find expensive books that ordinary people like us would not think of buying on a regular basis. At the Jurong East Regional library I chanced upon a big and heavy book in the Photography section. It was a book titled 'Desert Eves: an indian paradise' and it documented the work of Hans Silvester in the Thar Desert in the state of Rajasthan in India. His photographs were just overwhelmingly beautiful. So beautiful that I could not help but want to take it home to look at the photos at leisure. The photos of the women in colourful costumes living out their lives in poverty amidst the harshness of the desert filled my senses so much so that I had to do something with them.