Corn tease

 

Not available

I painted several aspects of this.

Adults who frown on kids making blue apples and green carrots have something to chew on --

Check out these little gems here.

Tropical senses in Hua Hin

Evason Hua Hin resort and Six Senses hideaway.

Acrylic sketch

Hua Hin in Thailand, the land of natural beauty and warm and gracious people, is one delightful place to recharge from the hustle and bustle of city living. Being less accessible than some other Southeast-Asian getaways the resorts here are far less crowded, far more restful.


With the sun, sand and sea, invigorating Thai cuisine and massages, head-to-toe spa treatments, a private courtyard to soak up more vitamin D, or bathe in aromatic botanicals while counting the stars above... you'll be sorry to leave.

But as a Thai would gently say, MaiPenrai -- never mind... 'cos you'll be back.

Papa's Serenity

NFS

Shimmer

I had this restful scene -- the result of a painting exercise from an artist's instruction book a decade ago -- framed and propped up on a bookshelf in Pa's bedroom some years ago.

I wanted him to enjoy gazing past the shadows to follow the river's shimmery meander. He was drawn to water -- had been a strong swimmer and certified a lifesaver by the Royal Lifesaving Society UK when he was a youth.

Although wheelchair-bound, he hankered to go swimming and I wish I had thought of organising gone ahead to organise a trip to one of Singapore's many swimming pools. He wasn't incontinent and I believe it would have been feasible.

He taught me to swim when I was little and I have the happiest memories of sunny Sundays spent with him in the pool. What could be more fitting than to take him swimming in his end days, the way he had taken me swimming in my beginning days?


Pa was a positive thinker and a doer, a self-made man. He changed the things he could, triumphing over his childhood adversities and forging his course through life's vicissitudes. He loved life, loved a good beer, enjoyed his work as a chartered quantity surveyor, and was anticipating a new project when he was felled by the stroke at 80. 

He also knew how to accept the unchangeables, facing them with cool detachment and no regrets. "Que sera sera, whatever will be, will be" was his attitude, and this was among the earliest song lyrics I heard as he played the record of Doris Day numbers over and over.

Initially, I had some reservations about leaving the sunset scene in his room; it seemed a tad too close for comfort. He had suffered a series of strokes and was obviously in the last stretch of his life. Then I pictured the vista as daybreak. So the painting stayed put.

I had also brightened his room with another painting -- a 24-inch square canvas of sunflowers.

The floral theme echoed his benign nature. The sunflowers reflected his unwavering grace towards me despite my many flaws as a daughter; and the joie de vivre  he exuded despite his debilitation, until he left us four months ago in July.

Cheers, Papa, till we meet again.

A Spot of Sunshine (Creeper daisy)

Oil on stretched canvas
61 x 76 cm
(24 x 30 inches)

Macro view -- this flower is about the size of my finger nail. I planted these creepers to add lushness to the spaces between the tall plants. Soon, they spilled outwards to form an unruly yellow polka-dotted border.

Back to basics

Lipstick & bed.
Oil on wood
71x33 inches (180 x 84 cm)

 <sorry, can't get it to portrait view..>

Cyrtostachys renda are also known as sealing wax or lipstick palms.

 An artist friend and self-taught carpenter created a seven-foot panel made from the wooden strips of my bed that broke.

Applying paint with broad house-painting brushes on a wide wooden surface was an exhilarating change from dabbing on yielding canvas.

The bed broke five years ago and I'm still sleeping on a floor mattress. Nothing beats the floor as mattress support. A sunken floor is good too. This was how an architect I knew slept.

The surface of her futon was flush the surrounding floor. The room, as with most of the areas in her translucent home, was a series of spaces that melt into each other. The house had very few solid walls. It wasn't particularly big but the seamless connection of interior with plants-filled exterior -- which at certain stretches reached the house proper -- made it a spatially rich home.

Another remarkable modern tropical home is that of potter Iskandar Jalil. The Cultural Medallion recipient's home used to be a back-to-basics single-storey terrace that was part traditional Japanese, part Southeast-Asian, with timber floors on which he slept at night and floors that creaked underfoot.

When he renovated the house and added two more storeys, he felt no necessity for a bed still. After a day of creative flow in his ground level work space that was filled with pottery, a painting or two in progress, and a longkang (drain) of fishes diverted from the garden, he would retreat to the living and family space upstairs.

At bedtime he would unfurl his sleeping mat by a glass partition fronting an indoor courtyard, sleeping within inches of the moonlit plants.

Holey petal of Ixora

Thru 'n Thru
Oil on stretched canvas
40 x 50 cm

Close-up of a small cluster of Ixora, a year-round flowering shrub that's a common sight in tropical Asia. It's sometimes called West Indian jasmine, among many other names.

Blue Swing & Fishies Under Star palm

Stars Below
Oil on stretched canvas
61 x 75 cm /  24" x 29"
Currently unavailable

What drew me..... The beauty of the star palm--whether you're looking at it from above, or from that garden swing below, its fronds silhouetted against the sky.
 

Painted out..... My cat, basking in the sun on the tabletop, so he wouldn't steal whatever little attention the fishies were getting.

Oh...I liked throwing balls of paper on him. He'd look everywhere but UP :>D