Passiflora edulis - a fascinating flower to paint. It does not matter to me that the colours are not accurate. I just felt that I had to follow a certain feel I have about this flower having taken so many photos of it.

Shell

I just love holding the Chinese brush, dipping it into water, loading it with black ink and just feel the fluidity that comes naturally whenever I hold this kind of brush. Today I bought some inexpensive colour paints. Soon, there will be more colours...

My thoughts as I took these shots

I wanted to take pictures of West Coast Park that I had never taken before. This playground with a sea of white sand seemed like a lot of promised fun for kids except that it was not a weekend and the kids were at home studying for exams.
As I was framing this picture I could not help but think of Paris and I tried to imagine this being I.M Pei's glass pyramid at the Lourve Museum.
An invitation to jump, walk, dance - I wanted this photo to have that kind of appeal.

This shot was taken as I was walking around looking for something else to photograph. I thought that the patches of grass on the white sand plus the sprinklings of small leaves made the ground I walked on a visual treat.

I was attracted by the texture and patterns of the ropes. How best should I photograph them ? How could I present them as playthings calling out for attention instead of being content as mere props?
I was apprehensive about taking this picture when I realised how worn-out this particular rope looked from this angle. In the end, I decided that there is no perfection without imperfection and things or people are imperfect only because they are perceived that way by people who choose to do so.

Without children hanging around this structure, it could be an art installation.
I went around this pyramid structure taking a few shots and finally found the angle I liked best. This was it!
Then I thought that since I was in a park, I should include some of nature's construction.
This root of a tree looked to me like a small crocodile.

I like these two pictures very much because they show that the end-product of the pursuit of excellence in education is a kid who is so overstressed he wishes he could lie in a playground forever...

...or perhaps try to run away from the prison that his school has become.
I took this shot purely because of the lines and angles and how the structure appeared as a silhoutte.
Kudos to the designer of this station - it looked like a work of art and made me think of Picasso or Paul Klee.
I thought what fun it would be if two people could come all dressed up and have a drink at this make-believe bar counter.

When I took this shot I was trying to remember the good and bad of taking photos. Hmm, not too bad - something about how to use lines to lead the eye towards the point of interest. In this picture the point of interest are the flowers in the foreground. I think I got it in the wrong direction!

For this picture I wanted to show off the gracefulness of this tree. I had to re-compose the frame few times to get the effect I liked. I think I got distracted by the rocks.
Tree on fire on green grass - what a lovely contrast. Taken with just a flick of the wrist, without thinking.

See, I thought this wasn't really a great composition. When I looked at the picture after downloading it, I realised that it was pretty cool because you can see the 3 primary colours - blue, red and yellow laid out in a triangle.

I thought I should just take an impressive shot of the general scenery and took pains to compose this following picture and with some cropping at home, it is an accurate depiction of the look and feel of the scene when I was standing there.

I saw 3 Malay ladies fishing for fun to pass time. I chatted with one of them and found out that they did indeed catch some small fish. I just wanted to capture all the three women with their colourful headscarves looking towards the sea oblivious to the intruding contraptions around them.

For this shot, I just turned my camera skywards at waist level, took a peek at the LCD panel and shot on intuition.
I took this shot because of the unusual cloud that looked like the profile of a space ship or the top of a mountain in the distance visible above a layer of mist.
These reminded me of lego toys, so colourful against the darkening sky.
I knew this was not going to be even a good picture. It was taken anyway because I thought I should have a memory of what the sea looked like when I was there.
Finally, I waited for this lady to cast her line. I felt raindrops on my arms and it was time to leave.

Wasp photos

Living the moments with the Canon IXUS 860.

Copying Japanese Prints

Copying drawings from books is an educational experience. I have many art books and today I chose to look more closely at the pictures in the one on 'Japanese Prints' by Gabriele Fahr-Becker. I am interested in Japanese drawings and paintings because they have neat, fluid lines that I like. I like drawing with ink pens because I find it challenging to draw with the knowledge that mistakes are not good because they cannot be covered up or corrected as you can do with oil painting or pencil drawing. There is always the thrill of getting the drawing right the first time be it copying the work of artists or drawing on the spot.

In copying the three ladies enjoying "The Evening Star Festival" by Torii Kiyonaga I was able to appreciate the meticulous attention that the artist has paid to very fine details. - from the hairstyles to the prints on the kimonos, to the delicate shape of the fingers and especially the prints on the kimonos where the folds and drapes were made to look so fluid and natural because the prints have been placed there as if photographs were taken and the artist referred to them.