Emerald Sunset

"Emerald Sunset"
12"x36"
$1,500 (SGD $1,850)
Email Me to Purchase

This is honestly one of my favorite pieces that I have completed. I love Emerald Hill. It has been gentrified yes, but it just looks so beautiful when the shophouses are lit up at night. It is currently hanging up in my dining room, and I'll only release it to a very good home, I've been enjoying it too much! Having a rotating collection of artwork is kind of one of the perks of being an artist.

I'm sorry about not posting more sooner - I've been working on some bigger projects, and they've really been a total time suck. Also, this week whenever I sit down at the easel, I keep on striking out and just wiping off the painting. They can't all be winners, can they?

Emerald Sunset Study II

"Emerald Sunset Study II"
6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard
$120 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

This is another study of my larger piece, Emerald Sunset. I love that little strip of shophouses up on Emerald Hill. They are so beautiful at night.

Carnivale

"Carnivale"
6x16 Oil on Gessoboard
$395 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

I love, love, love this one. It really just reminds me of a circus or carnival. I'm especially happy with how the yellows turned out. This shophouse is in Chinatown, although in real life, the colors on the house have faded significantly in the two years since I took the original reference photo. In any case, until this one finds a good home, I'm really enjoying it on my drying shelf in the studio.

Speaking of my studio, I've been working on really making it my own, "feathering my nest" as Dreama Tolle Perry puts it. One of my biggest struggles has been lighting. I have a full wall of giant windows that face mostly East South East, so I get fantastic morning light, but they're tinted. Also, by the time the afternoon comes around, I have indirect light from outside (which is not enough) and a warm (very warm) flourescent overhead light. So, by the time the afternoon rolls around, I've really been struggling to see, which has been heightened by the fact I'm now seeing colors so much more clearly. 

Well, today I finally got fed up. I've been looking for a decent lighting solution since we moved here, but so much is flourescent, which I can't stand. Too cold or too orange. Ideally, I would like to find a 3 bulb halogen floor lamp like the one I had in the US, but so far I've had no luck. As per usual when I'm in doubt and don't know where to go, I wound up at Ikea. Ikea winds up being like the closest thing to Walmart or Target here, when you don't know the exact widget store for what you need at home. 

In any case, all I did was take one of their track lights and sit it upside down on top of my book case. Viola! With three halogen lights, I can almost work at night (not quite, but almost). With another track of 3 lights, I could totally take over the world. In case you want to use this solution, make sure you get the wall plug-in attachment. It is ugly, but makes the whole thing totally transportable to the next apartment/studio situation. Yay!

Behind Club Street

"Behind Club Street"
6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard
$120 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

This little guy is on the street just behind Club Street, Gemmill Lane. I'm really starting to see colors in shadows, which is really exciting. Right now it is really only when looking at photos, but I've been going out to get photo references and sketching more right now than I have been, so hopefully I'll start seeing in person soon too. It feels like a paradigm shift. At the edge of a lot of shadows there is either an acidy yellow-brown color, or like a crazy pthalo blue. This seems to happen mostly with white (or light colored) buildings and super strong sunlight, when the shadow takes on almost a blue hue.

A great example of an artist that over-exaggerates those colors is Wayne Thiebaud.

Here's another great example of how he exaggerates the shadows. 

Emerald Sunset Study

"Emerald Sunset Study"
6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard
$120 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

I had a really tough time with this one. The shophouse is pretty much silhouetted, but I didn't want it to be flat. I really wanted to get the correct shadow colors. In the end I really feel like I did a good job with it, and I love how realistic it looks. One of the toughest parts of it was getting the dark red color correct. Until I used the Photoshop color dropper to make a swatch, I kept making it a dirty dark red. In fact it was a really beautiful fuschia. All by itself it was a crazy pink purple, but in the context of the whole painting it reads as a dark red, which is just fascinating. 

The other color that was giving me a run for my money was the reflection of the sky. Initially it seemed like since the sun was setting, the window should reflect a yellow color as well. But since the sun is coming from behind, the window is reflecting the sky in the opposite direction of the views, which is the blue you find towards the top of the sky during a sunset. Even that blue kept on coming out more muddy - until I used the color picker again. This is a fantastic tool to have in the arsenal! I like to use it to get a truer idea of the color, and then I push or pull it in the way that I whichever way I want to empasize it. In the meantime, it gives me a great jumping off point.

Jade Dreams

"Jade Dreams"
5"x7" Oil on Gessoboard
$95 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

Here is another shophouse, this one is from the backside of Little India, close to the Lavendar MRT station. There are a couple streets of some really cool ornately decorate and painted shophouses back there. I've been experimenting a bit with the 5x7 format. It is totally different and a bit of a challenge. Stephen Masgsig, who does Postcards From Detroit, works quite a bit in the 5x7 format, so I've been looking to his work for some composition ideas.

Yesterday was National Day here in Singapore, so we had a few people over to grill and watch the fireworks. It is especially cool because all of the aircraft pretty much buzz right over our apartment. I think one of the coolest parts of the whole show is when the choppers come in with a giant Singapore flag. It passes almost literally over our heads. I've found a video someone uploaded that shows you the choppers and flag bits...

Spottiswood Coral

"Spottiswod Coral"
5"x7" Oil on Gessoboard
$95 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

This lovely house is down in the Spottiswood Park area, which is just south of Chinatown. There is a neat little enclave of shophouses in this area, about two streets spread over two or three blocks. And this coral guy is one of the ones that faces the main road and is in a strip of bars and restaurants.

I'm looking forward to tomorrow, which is National Day here in Singapore. It is similar to our 4th of July. We're having a few people over to watch the F-16s do fly-bys of the down town area. They literally weave in and out of the skyscrapers. It is pretty wild. 

As an aside, one of our acquaintances was on the team that did this Mentos ad, which does double duty in addressing Singapore's low birth rate. Quite the creative way of addressing a national health issue...

Tanjong Pagar Palms

"Tanjong Pagar Palms I"
12"x24"
$995 Framed
Click Here to Purchase

Happy Monday! I'm so glad I get to be back in the studio tomorrow morning. This past week has been very productive - just not in the studio. I now have at least a year's supply of art supplies. Paint, panels, and even rags. So exciting! We finally have some of our things that have been in storage for over three years. A lot of the things were our wedding gifts. It was kind of like Christmas all over again! For the first time in three years, our apartment feels like a home, not a temporary residence. Nevertheless, time to get back to the studio!

Club Street Arches

"Club Street Arches"
6"x6" Oil on Gessoboard
$120 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

This is a lovely little house right up on Club Street, close to Chinatown. I was finally able to get there during a time of day that had a lot of the houses in this beautiful light. Turns out that time of day is first thing in the morning!


Right now I am finding more growth and development in my art from trial and error and seeing what works than I could learn from somebody telling me how to do it at this point. Mostly this is because I am working on developing my style - that involves quite a bit of inner reflection and study of others that you simply have to do on your own. Your style has to do a lot with three things - your color palette, your brushstrokes, and your subject matter. 


My subject matter is slowly growing and evolving, but I'm really trying to define my style more through my colors and brush strokes. To do this, I'm especially enjoying studying other artist's paintings - how they crop them, how they frame a subject, the lighting. Then I look at the color and brushstrokes and figure out what I like, what I don't like. I have especially started looking at other artists for their color handling. For example, I have been struggling and struggling with yellows. How to have them go to shadow without having them look muddy. For the painting above, I took a look at Karin Jurick's painting, "Hot Seat." (Click Here to view/purchase)

Since I was having a rough time with the shadow side of yellow, this was a perfect painting to use for study. She has one small spot that is pretty much black, and another that is a very warm black/brown. But then for the rest of the medium shadows, it is much warmer than I initially tought. I was taught that shadows make colors cooler, which initially you are taught to mix compliments - so that would mean to add blue/violet. And yes, they do, but if you go too cool, too quickly, the color winds up looking muddy and dead. 

Karin's shadow is ALIVE. She doesn't define too much, and she doesn't make the shadow just one flat plane, but it the shadow stays nice and warm. It is basically a burnt sienna, and in some places a really lovely red orange. When you use these warmer darks, it still gives the impression of shadows, but the shadows become much richer. Shadows aren't always blue. In any case, since my shophouse was a yummy buttery yellow, I didn't have the shadows go too warm, as I didn't want the shadow to be warmer than the sun-drenched portion. This was a great exercise, and I learned quite a bit.

Light Urple

"Light Urple"
6"x6" Oil on Panel
$120 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

Yes, yes, the title for this one comes from one of the great 90's SNL skits: Celebrity Jeopardy. If you haven't seen the skit before, here is a link, I hope it makes you smile today!

http://www.funnyordie.com/videos/c2c5b0b7a3/snl-celebrity-jeopardy-4-15-00

If this shophouse looks vaguely familiar, well, I've done this one a couple of times. It has sort of been my baseline since it was the first shophouse I ever attempted to paint.

Yeah, so looking back on the last one is kind of a bit embarassing, not going to lie. I kind of miss that point when I thought everything was a wonder and that art supply stores held lots of mystery. Nevertheless, it really helps reinforce that as you get to a certain point in your work, "brush miles" are what really count.

Chinatown MRT

"Chinatown MRT"
6x6 Oil on Gessobord
$120 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

Back to the shophouses! This one is right by the entrance to the Chinatown MRT. If you come up from the MRT, and look up to your right, this house is right there. As for painting the shophouses, it feels good to be back. I really enjoy coming back to them and trying new ideas on them. On this one I really wanted to try and work on painting the details in the architecture. I've done it a little bit, but not in quite as much detail as this one. Man, it was fun.

96 Amoy

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"96 Amoy Street"
6x16 Oil on Gessoboard
$300 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

This is a lovely pale yellow shophouse on Amoy Street, which is right near Chinatown. I loved the colors, as well as the reflections of the trees in the windows. The details in the crown molding were definitely tough, but I think I'm getting a lot better at doing them.

On a side note, my husband and I decided that this week is going to be a great week. No reason, we just decided it. So far KU won their game and are moving on in March Madness, so everything is looking good, right? Happy Monday!

Club St. Chic

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"Club St. Chic"
6"x16" Oil on Panel
$395 Unframed
Click Here to Purchase

This painting is from Club St. in the Chinatown area. I thought the architecture as well as the colors were just something that I couldn't pass up!

Telok Ayer Street

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"Telok Ayer"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

This shophouse is on Telok Ayer Street, which is an area I have only recently found. There are all kinds of awesome restaurants in this area, many of them much higher end. It is kind of behind Club Street, while parallel(ish) to it. So unless you know to go down into this area off of Club Street, it is pretty easy to never really know it is there. I recommend going exploring.

One thing that is kind of neat/frustrating over here about life is that there is no big box store. If you want a widget, then you can get that widget (maybe not brand specific), you just have to find the specific widget store. There is some guy, somewhere, that sells that widget. You just have to find him. In some instances, it leads to things like an entire 7 story shopping mall that sells various electronic doodads and such. Sometimes I think Best Buy and Radio Shack are more efficient, but when you walk into the little tiny cubby-hole where they can custom build you a rocketship (well, if rockets weren't illegal here), you walk out with a story. Just musing today...

Emerald Hill

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"Emerald Hill Study"
8x10 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

This is still one of my favorite paintings. This little guy was a study that I did for the larger commission, and the lovely ladies here at the American Women's Association asked me if they could use it for the cover of their magazine this month. So exciting! I can now have a press tab on my website, ha!

It has been a bit of a rollercoaster of  week, I must say. I really can't believe it is Friday.We said goodbye to one of our closest friends this week. She is repatriating back to the US. Very bittersweet, but I know that we will see each other again, so I refused to say goodbye. You make friends so quickly when you get over here, and we made so many wonderful friends. But then what happens if you are the people that stay past your two year contract period after all your friends move back? I don't know, we're entering uncharted territory here.

In any case, Happy Friday! I hope your week was as good as mine!

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 30

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 30"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

Another fantastic shop in Chinatown. There are so many wonderful shophouses in this area, in really beautiful shades of cherry red. 

Life is crazy right now. The AWA luncheon is next week, which will be showcasing 10 local AWA artists. It is exciting, but definitely made life pretty wild. The program for the luncheon itself looks spectacular, I know all the ladies involved have put in tons of effort to have it be an amazing experience.

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 17

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 17"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

Happy Monday! This is another re-work. It's been brightened and tightened. Kind of sounds like a bad advertisement for plastic surgery, doesn't it? Ha. In any case, this was the original version...

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 24

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 24"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

Well, it has been one hell of a week. TGIF, right? Have you ever had one of those weeks where everything just seems to not go right? Well, rather than act like Eeyore (I really have felt like I keep losing my dang tail this week), I'm going to count 5 good things that I can think of that happened this week:

1. It is Friday

2. It is 5 o'clock somwhere HERE! (I have a margarite in front of me as I type....)

3. I met a new artist this week! He's another DPW artist - Tilen Tin

4. I found out that I've been mailing things wrong. There is a MUCH cheaper way to do it. That means exciting news I'll announce in another couple of weeks.

5. I sold my first print this week! Go check out my Etsy store!

6. I got two days in the studio this week.

Okay, so I found 6 good things. Normally, I'd be frustrated I only got two days in the studio. But, I get to paint full time. How lucky am I? And being in the studio for a full day today really put me in a much better place. So, I'm not going to dwell on the time I didn't get t spend in the studio, I'm just going to be thankful for the time I did get.

Life. Is. Good. HAPPY FRIDAY!

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 26

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"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 26"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

This was another re-work of one of my older pieces from the spring show. I think the colors are much brighter now. I had a lot of fun with these blues. Happy ceruleans and cobalts mixed with lovely warm tones. Happy Shelby.

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 100

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"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 100"
6x16 Oil on Panel
SOLD
Click Here to see other available artwork

Ahhh... the end feels so sweet. This, my friends, is the last of my 100 shophouses. Like I mentioned earlier, one of my favorite collectors has already purchased this guy. She got the first one and the last one, which makes me super happy. I've had so much fun with this series, and I will continue, but not quite the same way. Firstly, I'm still re-working some of my favorites from earlier in the series. Not all of them could be saved, but some of them are coming out really awesome, which makes me very excited. As for completely new shophouses - I still want to keep pushing the cropping and perspective angles that I've been working with. But as for the title - well, it's a little cumbersome. Can I just mention how tired I am of typing "Singapore Heritage Shophouse?" :)

Plus, one of my other collector's had a fantastic request. He wanted to know where the shophouses were, so from now on, the title will more or less be the address of the house. Maybe if I really know the right address I can even tag it in PaintMap or Blogger Location settings. It'll be a nice little chronicle of Singapore and how things change over time.