lesson 8: attempting still life , free hand watercoloring

exciting morning indeed….

Ms Shia showed us a quick demo on how to do it , of coz when the sifu does it….it looked darn easy :

We all scratched our heads and paused for several minutes before diving into our imaginations. The initial uncertainties and lamentations soon gave way to enthusiasm and chuckles.

Yup it was definitely more fun composing a bowl of fruits from imagination, definitely more exciting than everybody trying to do same drawings of an actual bowl of fruits!

Our endeavours completed, we then gleefully reorganized Ms Shia's wall of fame, removed past students' works and unabashedly putting ours up in their places…..
Tadaaaa, below is a shot of our works for posterity, what a scream right?
I'm betting that Ms Shia too is having alot of fun with this boisterous group of students!
Hahahahah

Top L (Chris's) Top R (Andrea's), Bottom L (yours truly) Bottom R (Jessica).

We were also reminded to treasure and archive our first completed piece , or for that matter all of our art efforts.

When told to compose a unique signature that identifies all our works, I proceeded to practise onto one of my previous completed pieces that in my opinion was so badly done…..Ms Shia promptly said "Aiyoh, so sayang! nice, like crystalized…keep it"

wow, it is an eye opener indeed ….

one golden rule learnt today, "Artists must above all else value any output from their own efforts".

A very satisfying morning indeed ….

After lessons, the "accomplished artists" went for vegetarian lunch…..aaah

Life is Great

♥ michellechoongkhoo

lesson one: back to basics_michellechoongkhoo

Ms Shia Yih Yiing (link to her website) our art teacher at MIA art centre, Ampang is full of encouragement and quickly puts the new students attending lesson one at rest.

Andrea, Jessica, Chris , Shairin & I were initially put thru our pace of drawing the object in front of us so that Ms Shia could evaluate our efforts…..hee hee, me thought Smita's mineral bottle was my object and proceeded to draw nervously... Gosh its been more than 30 yrs since I last touched a 2B pencil….knuckles tight and full of concentration, I attacked my art block until Ms Shia brought me to earth again with her comments …."mmmmm, I'm curious what is yr profession?"
me: " errr, hee hee….why?"
Shia: " your lines are so precise, are u by chance a draughtswoman?"

And going round to the other students, thats how Ms Shia warmed us up and slowly encouraged us to earnestly put in more efforts~

Gee, its not so easy to put the modest 2B pencil to shades of dark,grey,light tho obviously black and white is easy lo.
Nor was it easy to put textures and shades to basic geometrical shapes….but noticing how my fellow students were so engrossed in their art, I endeavored and plodded along with lots of help from my eraser. LOLz

The 2 hours flew by …..phew, my stiff fingers needed to relax , my right palm was all black from the furious erasing and rubbing.
I looked enviously at the other senior students who were already drawing figures or getting guidance from Ms Shia on their oil paintings ….I just cant wait to be in their shoes~

I can't wait to go home, dig out my long forgotten pocket guide to painting and read up or hee hee to let my imaginations roam ….. gee, how does one make a potato look like one on paper without colors? Nvm, I will tackle that next time, meanwhile let me try to do some copying and see if my sketches can look anywhere near those images in my pocket guide….

That brought chuckles from hubby at 1am as he dropped by to see whatever could be keeping me awake ~
Eddie : "oh lordy, now we are painting is it?"
smile, erm not yet…..but I hope soon….smile
And with that, I went to bed , quietly satisfied.
Oh I did have sweet dreams last night but strangely it was not about art….this morning I awoke from my dream that was about me buying the biggest smokey quartz ring that looked just about my style….aiya~mother's day is coming soon….
I sure hope my dream about the ring will come true….I'm going to Pavilion to check out Tiffany & Co if there's my dream ring in their showcases….
aaaaah the possibilities in a dream, Life is a gift~