Chinese Ink Painting Class Lesson 9: Lotus

After missing two lessons, I was happy about this lotus painting class. Very minimal brushwork as the lotus leaves were created using crushed paper dipped in water and black ink and the edges smoothened with a brush.

Chinese Ink Painting Class Lesson 5: Roses, Orchids and Butterflies

Painting roses and orchids this week.

Chinese Ink Painting Class Lesson 4: Roses & Butterflies

We're still painting flowers.
This time it's roses, which is supposed to be easier than chrysanthemums, and I agree.

Roses: Carmine
Leaves: Black ink, a little Phtalocynine blue/ Indigo.

The trick to getting the roses right is to make sure each layer wraps round the previous one in a more or less traiangular pattern.

Chinese Ink Painting Class Lesson 3: Chrysanthemums & Butterflies

Since some of you might want to know more about the place, here's how the building looks like.


A standard classroom.


There are about 10 students per class.

Paper is provided FOC, and although it is a poorer quality paper meant for calligraphy, it works just fine for practice. Watercolors are standard Marie's brand for students.

Today we learnt how to paint a different type of chrysanthemum.
And butterflies too.

Teacher explaining how the composition of the leaves should be like.

Colors used
* Chrysanthemum flowers
Phtalocyanine Blue (tai qing lan) + Carmine Lake (zhu hong)
* Stem and leaves
Black ink
* Big butterfly
Green label three (san lu), Gamboge (teng huang), a little Carmine
* Small butterfly
Gamboge

Chinese Ink Painting Class Lesson 2: Chrysanthemums

Today had us painting chrysanthemums.
I took a few videos but until I figure out how to select frames in order to avoid showing anybody's face, I will just put this up.


Flowers and stem drawn with black ink.
Leaves drawn with a mixture of black ink and Hua Qing.
Flower heads colored with yellow and a hint of Zhu Hong.

Lantern Festival at the Chinese Garden 2008

In 2007, we reached as far as the gate, then decided it was too expensive to enter. This year, the theme was 'Hello Kitty goes to the Races'. Had to go. By the end of the day, I still thought it was overpriced, but I was happy.

Our parking coupon - $3 per car, exchangeable for a lantern :)

The bridge linking the carpark to the garden.

We arrived slightly after 6pm, when it was still bright.
We were told the fireworks would begin at 8.30pm.

There were game stalls, pasar malam stalls, kiddie rides, food stalls.
We wanted to go to Keppel Bay for dinner, so we had some tutu cake (coconut filling) to last us till 9pm.

The koi pond outside the tortoise museum. Someone was feeding the koi and they rushed to get the food, even at the expense of being pushed above the water.



My Melody riding a tricycle.


Cinnamoroll in his yacht.


My Melody in her yacht.





Sanrio Totem pole.



The Moonwalk.



Well, I'm so happy I got to go this year. When I saw the hello kitty promotional poster I insisted. Thanks to the boy, I got my wish.

Chinese Ink Painting Class Lesson 1: Hen and Rooster

I was searching high and low for a place that conducts chinese ink painting classes, especially the community centres, but none fell on a wednesday evening when the boy has golf and I'd be alone. However, last Friday I found a class that is on Sundays, when the boy has golf too. I chose the latter session which was at 1.45pm so that the boy could have lunch with his friends, go home for a shower, then come fetch me for a day out.

It was held in a very old building. I had a hard time finding it and was 10 mins late for class. Fortunately, the teacher arrived even later, which meant that I did not miss anything. His teaching method is to pin a photocopy of a painting on the whiteboard, and demonstrate on a blank piece of paper pinned beside the photocopy.

Today we drew my most hated subject, the hen and rooster :(
I wanna draw flowers!!!

My weakness:
Proportion (Can never get the legs right. They're always too big, or it doesn't look like the hen is standing).

Mushroom Park Steamboat

Have been going for the mushroom steamboat @ Serangoon Gardens quite often, especially when we feel we need something healthier or lighter.

We always order the same 2 sets - the Natural set ($29.90)and the Healthy set ($36.90). It starts off with mushroom floss, mushroom crisps and mushroom sashimi with wasabi!


Accompanied by a healthy cup of 8 treasures tea which supposedly clears toxins and purifies the blood.


The soup stock contains lingzhi, rumoured to prevent cancer. This was our mushroom variety for the day (being seasonal, it changes every few months).

Customer's choice of 4 available types of meat - chicken, beef, pork and mutton. This is the first time we ordered mutton as the boy doesn't mind the smell, whereas I'm not fond of it at all. Comes with the standard plate of green vegetables, tofu and yam pieces.

Boiling for 7 minutes to de-poison the mushrooms.

The rice was very delicious, though I wish it could have been more savoury. Steamed with pieces of mushroom, corn, carrot, pea, and topped with mushroom floss. The natural set doesn't come with mushroom rice but plain rice. It can be added on at $3 per bowl.

The meal ends with dessert - either green tea or milk pudding. I didn't feel like having green tea again and decided to try the milk pudding topped with strawberry sauce. Both came straight from the refrigerator and were refreshingly cold!

Singapore Garden Festival 2008

We went for the Singapore Garden Festival. Our tickets cost $5 each after the $1 passion card discount, and entry to the 6th level, was recorded with a stamp marking on our hands.

Here are some of my favourite exhibits of the day.

Tortoise covered with moss. I love moss. Can't wait to have lots of it in my fishtank.

An English Garden, and Fuschias, one of my favourite flowers.

And the lilies were HUGE and had a wonderfully lovely, albeit strong scent.

Orchids from Papua New Guinea arranged into headgear atop masks.


Anybody knows what are these? Reminds me of a field of lavender.

A common roadside tree in Singapore, the plumeria. The Balinese like to call it the Bali flower.

And the first time I've seen how the dragon fruit looks like unpicked and growing on its stem.

Singapore Toy & Comic Convention 2008

We reached Suntec at 11.30am, and there was already an extremely long queue all the way to the other end. I told the boy, there goes my door gift of a bear brick. I wasn't too happy.

In fact, I was rather upset. The challenge and satisfaction of actually getting there early and getting the free gift is not something everyone knows how to appreciate. You should have seen the number of people queuing for it. I even overheard a group of guys saying they were going back tomorrow to get the other version.

Anyway, the other half too quickly promised me 20 dolls as a makeup and half regretted it later. I'm holding you to it.

These are the blythe dolls that everyone's crazy about. I own just 1 DAL.

Lao Fu Zi Comics, which we read when we were young.

Domuya your Doll - these cost around $1000 ;"

Star Wars over the years.

Something new I found interesting - GLOOMY the naughty grizzly. "Cute" characters as a platform for the artist to deliver his social commentary on world issues.