Santa Monica Tower

"Santa Monica Tower"
6x6 Oil on Gessoboard
$95
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This was from my last morning in Southern California. I had just endured an awful week of the June Gloom (it was April). Not exactly inspiring, and pretty impossible to paint when you can't see across the street. But I woke up the last morning at my cousin's house, and the sky was a beautiful California blue. So I walked down to the beach and just enjoyed the solitude. There is something about the ocean that just renews my soul.

Spottiswood Coral

"Spottiswod Coral"
5"x7" Oil on Gessoboard
$95 Unframed
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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...

Aqua and Palms

"Aqua and Palms"
12"x12" Oil on Gessoboard
$475 Unframed
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Since yesterday's blog post was quite the epistle, I figured I'd leave today's short and sweet. This is a view from lower Tanjong Pagar looking towards Chinatown. I just loved the turquoise shophouse and the palm trees lining the street next to it. Made me so happy to paint it!

Light Urple

"Light Urple"
6"x6" Oil on Panel
$120 Unframed
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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
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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.