Chalky

                                                              
I bought chalk pastels by mistake when what I'd wanted was to experiment with oil pastels. This needs more filling in..

Light-drawn

Acrylic, 6 x 8 inches

I’d like to believe it was the Zeuxis effect...

No show

The joint painting exhibition I had taken weeks months to prepare for was abruptly called off. :(

Singapore Shophouse

Sketch

The problem with taking nice reference shots of houses is the unpredictable sunshine factor. Masses of clouds invariably get in the way of crisp shadows.

Painting Pomfret

Oils on stretched canvas

Mr Wee Shoo Leong @ Waterloo Street had a surprise for our still life class - a fish!

Pomfret is good for steaming when it's fresh (though it need not be shashimi-fresh). You can tell if a fish is fresh if, among other things, its eyes are bright and not sunken, its flesh firm to the touch, and it does not smell fishy.

This Pomfret passed muster under our nose scrutiny ;=>

Contained

I'm glad the dust at the blue bottle's neck wasn't wiped off for the set-up.

Pink

 



The metal funnel at the back was a joy to paint; but not so the one in front. I couldn't capture the metallic (or was it plastic?) feel.

The appearance of the '3-pronged invasion' - fragrant cinnamon sticks that were part of a clutch I was using as home decor when I took the picture - was unintentional.

Oil on stretched canvas.

Lupins

NFS

In Tasmania, there's beauty everywhere you look. Driving around, I got out of the car several times to take pictures of idyllic scenes like this.

2013 update: I've come a long way from 'needlepoint painting' :)

Out damn spots!

 Close-up view of mould, top left.

Sometime ago I found a mouldy streak on one of my old oil paintings left in a closet. :( And that portion happened to be my favourite bit of the 50x60 cm work. That made my heart ache, and it made me sit up.

I’ve been wary of mildew, mould, fungus, call them what you will, ever since that discovery, and especially after I moved from playing on canvass boards to more serious painting pursuits on stretched canvases and good-quality panels. 

After that mouldy encounter, I spoke to art shop and gallery owners and workers, art teachers and artists, curators, and I've trawled the Internet. There are all sorts of advice about the best ways to store paintings at home if you live in the Tropics.

It seems there must be good air circulation. But not in the direct path of breezes that's bound to carry dust and spores and moisture. Some say to wrap each painting in tracing paper or brown paper. Others advocate plastic wrap – which means the painting can hardly 'breathe'.

A hermetically sealed space, the sort that sensitive equipment are kept, is best, one would've thought. But one artist strongly disagreed, to my utter surprise. One person offered me detailed instructions on installation of tubing that draws moisture out; but it sounded too complicating. A closet with a moisture-gulping device, a thirsty-hippo or something, was also suggested.

All agreed that air-conditioning in this climate is best for paintings. Still, in the end, it's largely trial-and-error. And however your paintings are stored, they MUST be examined periodically, for horror painting stories abound.

I trawled the web again on the best way to get rid of the whitish invasion. One person said he carefully sprayed the surface down with a water hose before drying it quickly! He gets paid for the job and must know what he's talking about. But I shan’t be trying that out for sure.

In the end, I played safe and used turps to lift off the insult before re-varnishing the area. 

Since then I've ensured my works are exposed and aired out, away from windy gusts. And in that and the clear sense, I'm no longer a 'closet painter' :)

Hush now...

Empty still

Not available

Among the first few oil-paintings I did, at Lasalle College of the Arts. The set up comprised over a dozen interesting items but instructor Ernest Chen allowed us to pick just a few for our composition. I chose this segment of the spread of objects for their forms and colours.

Ah, the promises that empty vessels hold....


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My 2009 and 2010 posts have been imported from my earlier (since-deleted) non-painting-dedicated blogs.