The past few weeks have been humbling and overwhelming to say the least. Seeing a lot of posts and feedback from students about the class I did for Everything Art UK’s Wanderlust 2023 was so amazing. So many emotions going through me as I see each and everyone’s art journal pages. So I am dedicating this post to my students’ work. Click on an image for a bigger view and the name of the artist. What is shown here is just a few of the amazing work from students. I’m truly inspired by all these different take on the lessons.
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Indulge me a little with this post as I walk down memory lane… I’m reminiscing about the 6 months I spent in Tianjin, China, as a student. This was back in 1994 when China was not open and as modernized as now. Much to my dad’s anger, I enrolled myself in the Spring semester of Traditional Chinese Painting at the Nankai University’s East China Art College, which had opened under the guidance of the famous contemporary Chinese painter Fan Zeng. I was the first foreign student they had ever accepted and was placed with the senior class because that semester, the curriculum was best suited for a “newbie” like me.…
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What can I say? December turned out so completely different from what I had envisioned to be and what I had hoped it to be. Things that were part of our everyday almost since 2020 like scanning QR codes, PCR testing at least every 72 hrs, checking of green codes in public places and other restrictions, were suddenly lifted. Suddenly, the COVID virus spread like wildfire and once again, Shanghai buckled down from COVID infections, everything (at least almost everything) went upside down fast. I was feeling like another lockdown (like what happened in March/April of 2022) was happening as the city suddenly went silent by mid-December. Schools had already…
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Belated Happy New Year! So, typically, I hardly record my painting process because it always is on the spur of the moment when I paint. This one, I was more intentional, as I was inspired to seeing my process and understand how long it actually took me to “finish”. This below is before I added the birds. So I am sharing the process video of how I painted an abstract landscape for Week 2 lesson of Wanderlust 2023 using chalk pastels (I only have a few) with clear and regular gesso. On top of that, I also used a bit of NeoColors water-soluble pastels and translucent texture paste. This abstract…
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One (1) part calendar + one (1) part inspiration = a whole LOT of collage material. Nineteen (19) talented artists bring you 365 daily collage-able artsy bits of paper, an entire year’s worth! You can tear each day’s calendar page to reveal an artwork from one of 19 artists. Use it in your daily planner as a date indicator or daily inspiration. Each page would also work great as collage material in your art journal. It can’t get any cooler and more awesome than that! The calendar can be used beyond 2023! Checks off a lot of possible uses like: The pure definition of WIN WIN! Check out the other…
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The hustle and bustle of the holidays is here again! How are you documenting this last month of the year? I feel it is even more important at this current point of my family’s life to document our life in Shanghai. So I am doing this via the annual December Daily project by Ali Edwards. I’ve lost count on how many years I have been documenting and every year has been different. Excited to be using a handmade album I made after sensing that my order will not arrive on time. (I will share photos next as these days have been a bit crazy, to say the least.) And in…
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Feeling excited as I mark the 3rd quarter installment of my #the100day project. Last week when I was counting the number of sketches, I thought I still had 20+ to go but then when I recounted yesterday, I actually have about 10+ more to go! Yay! Driven right now to get this project over and done with! The past outings with Drawing Shanghai / Urban Sketchers Shanghai has been quite fun as a lot of these places were quite interesting. We seem to have ventured mostly to the old town more. In this batch of sketches, #52 to #54 were sketched from photos from out company outing and the rest…
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The last time I posted an “Around here…” series was back in May. I cannot believe it has been that long, really! The flurry of activities that came about as we came out of lockdown was just overwhelming. A bit of warning, this post of photo-heavy. June: First order of business after lockdown was doing the round of hospital/doctor visits. Then came the search for apartments since we needed space for a family of 7; that includes our 4 rescue/adopted cats. With the exodus of expats, there is more option but of course I had to ask the neighbours for their experiences during lockdown because I need to be prepared…
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This quarter of the Get Messy season has been a busy one and I don’t think I did as much spreads as before. This was all in between the 2-month lockdown and the flurry of activities after, from making sure we got to make doctors’ appointments, looking for new apartment to actually moving and unpacking. Whew! Looking back, I was glad I took a breather from creating to ease the pressure of needing to show up all the time. So here’s my art journal pages for this second quarter of 2022 starting with the Season of OK. The Season of Mess was an inspiring season. And then finally for June,…
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The final leg of our Europe 2019 adventure was Holland or the Netherlands. Yes, it is indeed 2019 because for so many reasons, this journal took longer to finish. Unlike the other 2 journals of this trip, I actually didn’t get any pages done while on the trip. I had ran out of paste/glue by the time we were almost halfway through our Finland trip. And we did try to find stationery stores but either ran out of time or just couldn’t find any. Lesson learned: Bring more the next time we actually can travel out of China again (yes, it’s been 3 years… and counting… since pandemic hit). For…
