Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 57 - SOLD

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 57
6x6 Oil on Panel
SOLD

This was one of my favorites - a scene from Chinatown at night.  I was super happy that it sold at the show, and went to such great homes.  

On a painting note, I'm not going to lie - I'm in a bit of a rut.  Life is getting in the way.  Last week was fantastic, don't get me wrong.  At one point we found a private beach that had a pony, and a three dog welcoming party that included the most beautiful yellow lab that wanted to play fetch.  It was amazing.  A beach with a pony.  A beach with no people, and stray (well, communal is a better term I guess) dogs.  

Paradise.  Beautiful, but not helping me paint.  We're having a huge 4th of July get together this weekend, so I'm trying to get things together for that, and then it takes a solid 2-3 days to get packed to be out of town for 3+ weeks.  So, painting has been pushed to the side for the moment, unfortunately.  Duty calls.  I'll still keep posting the work from the show, and hopefully I'll get to squeeze a day or two in here and there.  I hope everyone's summer is going well!    

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 56

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 56
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to purchase

Another shot of how everyone air dries their clothing here.  Plus, this one is also appropriate because I'm doing a mad laundry dash before leaving for Koh Samui.  A week of fun and sun with the hubby and another couple in Thailand.  I'm really looking forward to it, to be honest.  Hopefully we can get some diving in as well!  This happens to coincide with our third wedding anniversary, so I think it will be just awesome. Happy Father's Day to all the dads out there, and I'll continue blogging from the beach!

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 55

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 55"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

I'm finally getting back into the swing of things, and it's just about time to check out again for a week.  Sigh.  The summers are always super hectic here.  People are gone a lot visiting family, new people are moving in, others are getting transferred out, and  usually we are traveling ourselves; things just seem to be busy.  Speaking of which, I had a lovely lunch and foray to the art store with someone who is new to Singapore.  I love getting new people into the city; it is such a breath of fresh air.  New friendships new experiences, new stories.  Plus I would be lying if I didn't say I wasn't kind of worried with most of our friends repatriating (moving back to the US) at the end of December.  The future was starting to look a bit lonely. 

In any case, I was also waxing about how efficient yet completely inefficient Singapore can be.  Library, car tolls and parking violations are the most scarily efficient process I have ever seen.  There are no people involved and it is totally automated.  Notifications of fines and fees are sent via mail.  Other things, not so much.  Like any kind of internet payment.  With a lot of the payment vendors online, you have to enter your debit card info on the website, then it sends you a text message to verify that the transaction was authorized (even on small transactions - like $20 for movie tickets), then you have to type in the verification code from your text message back onto a special website within three minutes or your transaction resets. It's a total nightmare.

So today I was trying to register my business with Singapore (online, super efficient, right?).  It's about a three step process, once you go through the eight step process of getting a special PIN that requires you to sign over your first born child while getting a text message and hopping on your left foot (and I digress... I really don't get these extra special PINs and passwords that can only be obtained through superhuman means).  In any case, after this short, three step process, I accidentally clicked on the wrong form of payment.  Any other website in the west, it would be no big deal, just click back, or exit out, or whatever.  Nope, instead, I get this crazy screen of doom:

"Please try again after 27 minutes" SERIOUSLY?  27?  I'll rate you!

So now its an hour later and I still can't get the website to acknowledge the fact that I exist.  Le sigh.  I was just ONE STEP AWAY from a perfect efficient easy experience.  Welcome to Asia.

Arab Street View

Arab Street View
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

This is my first attempt post-workshop in NYC.  Of course it was a doozy!  Why in the world would I ever attempt something easy.  Pshaw.  It would be a complete lie to say that it has been easy to get back on the wagon since returning from the US.  I've been going through all of my pictures and I just can't seem to get inspired.  Luckily, this one is a photo that I have been dying to paint for almost two years now.  I just didn't feel like my skill set was up to snuff enough to tackle it.  Now, thanks to the boost I got from Karin Jurick's workshop, I really feel like I was able to do this scene justice.  

Karin's workshop was great, it really reminded me about why I started this journey in the first place.  Being in school and working on my MFA has been phenomenal, and I really think I have leapfrogged in my learning much more so that if I was trying to teach myself or taking workshops.  Nevertheless, I've been starting to feel a bit pigeonholed at school, and Karin was a breath of fresh air to remember to be myself.  For example, when I was in college (and we were all dirt poor) - two of my guy friends (one was my future husband, actually!) gave me a fan deck from Sherwin Williams because they knew how much color made me happy.  I'm not going to digress about how this should have been a resounding alarm bell about pursuing a finance degree... oh wait I just digressed.  In any case, I've been feeling like just the 10 or so colors we are "allowed" on class haven't been enough.  Karin forced me to buy 50 or 60 (I currently have 64 on my palette) colors.  All of a sudden, I feel like my work is much more vibrant, and I love it.  

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 54

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 54"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

This is another one in Chinatown, just down the street from where I have my studio.  I spent the weekend literally taking inventory of all of my new supplies.  Since moving my studio back into the house for the summer, it has been a little cluttered.  And by cluttered, I mean, "hurricane hit" is an apt descriptor.  By the time I got back from the US with at least 100 new tubes of paint, I had no clue what I had, much less what it looks like or how it works.  So I eased back into the painting mindset by exploring one of my favorite things in the world - color.  

Look at all the pretty colors!  My palette will probably never be that pretty again :)

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 53

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 53"
6x6 Oil on Panel
$110 Available Here

I really loved this little shophouse.  It was on an overcast day, so all of the local color was close to the actual colors you saw, such a rare occurrence in life.  This made such an interesting abstracted little composition.

Pardon my not posting for almost three weeks.  I was in NYC for Karin Jurick's workshop (which was awesome, and I'll go into later).  I had full intentions to continue posting through the workshop and the week after when I was home with family, but it was just crazy.  I'm finally back in Singapore and unpacked, and trying to wrap my head around everything I learned and experienced.  Just trying to (literally) take inventory of everything and get organized enough to continue on.  This is going to be a super-hectic summer.  Phew!

One Price - SOLD

"One Price"
24x36 Oil on Canvas
SOLD

Whew!  I finished this just in time for my trip.  This was a commission that for someone here in Singapore.  Kind of my first commission, really, and a total dream, if I do say so myself.  The patron just said he wanted a painting of "something having to do with Emerald Hill, but no pressure.  Please paint however or whatever you want within XX budget."  Seriously.  Who could ask for anything better?  In any case, I actually had a really tough time getting to this place.  Initially I tried a couple other compositions, and they just fell totally flat.  Then I saw this building.  At night time it is closed while all around it local bars are hopping.  But because of the lights hitting the bright colors at night, it kind of steals the show.  I had a ton of fun with this one.

Final-ly Done!

I am finally finished with my semester.  Time to start packing for the US! This was a scene from Florence, right after the sun was setting.  The sky was a phenomenal electric blue, against the orange of the tower.  Just spectacular.

This project was a doozy.  I think I've learned a lot about myself in the past couple of months, especially when doing this project.  This is 24x36 inches, the largest I have worked so far.  I think I much prefer smaller paintings.  I really love being able to knock out one, if not more, paintings in one sitting.  Doing a larger one, maybe 18x24 every now and then is a nice change up, but I don't think I'm going to make any kind of habit out of it.  Plus, it is much more difficult to ship larger paintings from Asia.  :)

Tuscan Hillside and Dumpster Diving

"Tuscan Hillside"
9x12 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

This was a nice little side painting to do for class.  I've been getting a bit weary of the shophouses.  Sometimes you need a break when doing the same subject over and over again.  In any case, this was the view from the villa we visited in Tuscany on our wine and cooking class tour.  My husband learned how to "swirl" wine properly and make a mean ravioli from scratch.  Mmmmm. Yum.

This weekend I had another twilight zone experience.  As I was walking up the back road to the studio, I saw this dumpster:

Only in Singapore is everything so perfectly manicured that even the dumpsters are overflowing with flowers, right?  Ha! Well what happened is that when a new business opens, moves locations, etc, (especially if it is run by important people or is influential), lots of clients and vendors and other business owners will send a professionally arranged bouquet as congratulations.  These bouquets are usually HUGE.  They're usually on these big stands that make the bouquet as tall as a person, and two to three feet wide.  Well, this wedding coordinator had its grand opening, and what you see in the picture is just what they couldn't fit on the sidewalk in front of their front door.

Being my mother's daughter and loving flowers, I decided to go dumpster diving.  Yes, yes I did.  If I do say so myself, the results were pretty fantastic.  It hurt my soul to see such beautiful fresh flowers just thrown away so callously.

Best. Dumpster dive.  Ever. :)  I think my mother would be proud.

Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 52

"Singapore Heritage Shophouse No. 52"
6x6 Oil on Panel
Click Here to Purchase

Like I've said before, I really enjoy these night scenes.  This is one of the signs in Geylang, the "red light" district here in Singapore.  I dragged my husband up there one night to take pictures and somehow lost my memory card.  Somewhere in between taking out the old one and putting in a new one, I managed to drop the old one, in the dark.  We even busted out our handy dandy iPhones with the flashlight apps and walked the 10 ft where it must have dropped out over and over again.  And let me tell you, a little ang mo (white) girl basically crawling up and down on her knees on a side street in the red light district is not something the Bangladesh and Malay day laborers are used to seeing.  It was pretty amusing.  One gentleman was kind enough to ask if we needed help, but I think he was just totally perplexed by the situation and was curious.  In any case, the memory card was lost forever, but luckily I had backed it up.  I bribed the hubby with a big bottle of Tiger (the local beer) and all was forgiven.