Marking time

What is time? Is it just a convenient invention to trap us into believing that we do not live forever? Or is it the belief that we do not live forever in whatever form that time is demarcated by stages in our lives from birth to teenage to middle age to old age? Whatever the reason we are tied to time for life and we have no choice but to let time unfurl the events in our lives. This sketch is about how I mark my time with an ink pen whenever I am in this kind of mood and whenever time does not unload anything else that demands my immediate attention and devotion. There are too many things that I want to do and 24 hours is a miserly portion discounting the time needed for sleep and rest.

Palm tree

I have seen countless palm trees like this one with drooping leaves amidst thick growth of new ones. Sometimes I noticed flowers and sometimes the fruits stopping by to take photos of them. It is only when I take the time to get to know this tree in greater detail that I see ferns growing on them as well.

Tiong Bahru charm

Four sketches in a day - it has been ages since I was able to devote an afternoon entirely to sketching outdoors.

Two artists sketching away while I made do with whatever was before me having secured a comfortable place to sit down. Luckily the day was not hot or humid because of the rain in the morning. In fact, it was an ideal day to be outdoors. I was enjoying this sketch until I realised that I had made a glaring mistake in the placement of the Singapore flag. I could have kicked myself real hard for this stupid error. As I had used an ink pen to do this drawing there was no way I could eliminate the flaw.

This second drawing was made at the corner of a small park facing a road that runs between these two buildings. The strokes were freer and faster because I was standing in the open with nothing to protect me from the UV rays.

Next I walked around and found this space between two sets of flats with the signature rounded balconies of Tiong Bahru. Under the lowest of these balconies were bicycles and push carts. A clump of MacArthur Palms rose a few storeys high and a rusty disused oil-drum that probaby served as an incense paper burner completed this interesting scene.

My last drawing turned out to be my best effort for the day. It shows the artist doing a painting sitting on a low stool with people watching her from behind. In the background is a 7-Eleven outlet and a sign that tells you that the row of shops belong to block 58. I guess I am better at drawing people than buildings even though I had enjoyed drawing both.

Just for laughs

This year's UOB Painting of the year was won by a young girl who did a photographic representation of herself in acrylic, as a frustrated artist holding a blank canvas in front of her. In the last two years, the top prize was given to submissions that were photographs instead of paintings. So this year the best part of the pie went to a real painting of what could have been a photograph. What would the critics say this time I wonder for they had been infuriated when a photograph was chosen as a Painting of the Year. This time it's not a photograph but a painting that was so realistically executed that it could have passed off as a photograph. I wonder if this painting could have taken away the top prize in a major photographic competition.

My entry - if I had thought about it carefully - would have been one of these photos of my hat on the Hortpark bag that I had painted on using fabric paints. This submission shows that while I really want to paint like an artist, I do not have the courage to start always ending up walking the parks and taking pictures of the flowers that I would like to paint and dabbling in small-scale and not totally original productions.

Presents

Two of my friends have birthdays this month and I bought two ceramic pieces from the shop at the Singapore Botanic Garden that came with plain white pouches. I wanted to give my friends a surprise that instead of just gifts that were purchased, I put in my time and effort to paint these frangipani flowers using Pelikan fabric paints.

With the leftover paints I decided to paint this last piece on paper.

I've decided to use colour pencils more often for it is the easiest medium to use. This means that I will be more inclined to draw and colour instead of always giving myself the excuse that it is too much of a problem to paint using oil or acrylic. Colour pencils are easy to carry around and I shall seriously explore this medium from now on.

What I like about drawing and painting is that I can eliminate ugly contraptions and things that do not fit into my idea of what is beautiful by simply not including them in my picture. Compare my drawing with the photo of the scene at West Coast Park.

At home, I used the 6-colour pencil to capture what I think my plant should look like. The picture looks nothing like the real plant but this is how I feel about art - that it should not be what you see or think it to be sometimes.