3rd Place in Cake Decoration Contest

Just as I am passionate about watercolour painting, my wife Adeline loves cooking and baking. She attends classes regularly and have accumulated one big file of recipes and cooking instructions. Whenever she came home from one of her classes, I'm usually the first person to sample the food and she would often (well less often now due to her pregnancy) cook up a storm in the kitchen and whipped out one delicious meal after another. Although I have to help out with the washing, I'm not complaining when the end-products are usually so very well done and tasty.

She participated in a cake decoration contest yesterday... and to everyone's surprise (except me, of course), she won the 3rd Prize which comes with a large Tefhlon non-stick wok... :) Do I sound like I'm proud of her?

For your information, I have since eaten a quarter slice of that cake.
:-D

Fishing Boats at Seletar

Hi there,Happy Easter Sunday everyone!

I woke up early to find the weather not the best for outdoor activities... dark clouds have gathered in the distance. The fiery orange patch against the largely dark purplish clouds are too beautifully painted by God that I just couldn't resist to take a snapshot of it.

However, it usually rains only in the afternoon for the past few weeks. So, I quickly packed up my plein aire backpack and headed to an Indian coffee shop at Jalan Kayu (literally translated as Wood Road) where I have arranged to meet up with a few artist friends from Singapore Watercolour Society. We had a simple breakfast of teh tarik and roti prata and drove to the seaside via Seletar Camp. This place is very much like Changi Village where I went to paint last month with plenty of fishing boats.



The difference is this place is closer to the sea. I found out from a map later that the distant background is actually neighbouring Johor, Malaysia. That tells you how close physically these two countries really are... and just like most neighbours, they have their good and bad times... but I'm not going into that!






After taking a few photographs, I found a shaded spot and got down to paint... It took me around 2.5 hours to finish it.



Half Sheet of Fabriano Artistico 14" x 21"Mostly W&N and Rembrandt Artist Paints.
Hope you like it. :-D


Well, I'm very happy that I've made good use of the Easter holidays, did two outdoor paintings within three days. That's twice as much as I've done over two months! And to produce such pleasing results on both ocassions is definitely icing on the cake!

Outdoor Painting - North Bridge Road, Singapore

Hi there,Happy Easter to everyone!

Since it's a public holiday here in Singapore today, I went out to paint. Weather wasn't the most ideal for outdoor or plein aire painting with greyish cloud gathered in the sky and it's been raining almost every afternoon for the past few days. But that didn't dampen my spirit. In fact, I'm even more eager to get something painted before it rains.

I walked along North Bridge Road and saw some old buildings in the distant. I reckon these buildings must have been abandoned for years now, but I just love the old-world charms that only such weathered buildings could offer.



I started around 9 am and as usual attracted quite a number of people although it is comparatively less than my previous outing since this place is less crowded.

As I was busy painting, a black Mercedez Benz came out of no where and parked right in front of my nose!! That $@#$% inconsiderate driver must be blind and he was parking at a non-parking zone! So being a civic-minded resident of Singapore, I thought of taking a photo of the car's license plate no. and send it to the Traffic Police ... but I didn't. He should count his lucky stars that I didn't report him!!
Anyway, I'm more or less done with the painting, with just some details and darks to finish off the painting so I didn't even bother...



Well, here's the finished painting after 2.5 hours. Hope you like it! Critiques and comments are welcomed. It's painted on half sheet of Fabriano Artistico (14" x 21") using mostly Winsor & Newton and Rembrandt artist paints. Hope you like it and thanks for viewing! .... and it did rained quite heavily afterwards:-)

Outdoor Painting

Outdoor painting or en plein aire, in my opinion, is the best way to hone an artist's skill regardless of the painting medium he or she prefered, whether it's oil, acrylic, watercolour or mixed media.

There are hundreds and one decisions to be made during the planning stage of an outdoor painting session..ok, may be less than that...but, in the shortest of time available, I need to design the composition, decide what's the subject matters, where is the focal point of the painting, how to simplify things, decide on which colours to use, etc. All of these are important elements of a good painting. The mere thought of doing all these within 10 minutes could drive most people crazy! Why on earth do I want to do such stressful stuff when I'm already living in a hectic city life, you ask?

In fact, it's the total opposite. I'm at my most stress-free self when I paint. You know what? It's actually my de-stress tonic! The best remedy for headache, migrane, stress, tiredness all rolled into one! My mind will automatically shut down and filter-out all my worries and troubles for the time-being whenever I paint.... and it's free, errr not exactly free (you'll find out why later) but definitely cheaper than paying your doctor's bill. :D

I chose watercolour for its smooth-flowing transparent look and its mobility. This is very important to me as I don't own a car. I store everything into my backpack and use the ever-efficient public transport of Singapore. Here are what I need to bring:

1. Watercolour paper taped onto foamboard as backing.
2. Portable, foldable easel to hold up the board and paper. It's actually a modified camera tripod. :-)
3. Holbein aluminium palette. A plastic palette is good enough but I like the sturdy feel of the aluminium palette.
4. Cotton towel to wipe away excess fluid. Tissue papers are good alternatives and I usually have a packet or two in my pocket.
5. Mini water spray bottle to wet dried paints, paper and to do special effects.
6. Foldable chair for my heavy bum.
7. Pencil case, pencils, pens, eraser, etc.
8. Bamboo mat (don't mistaken this for Japanese sushi-making bamboo roll, although they look quite the same!!) to keep my asortments of brushes in place. Believe it or not, a good high quality Kolinsky brush (that's the name of the hair used to make the brush) can cost up to hundreds of dollars!! I'm not telling you which one is the most expensive but I can tell you it's not the largest. ;-)
9. A zipped bag to store all the watercolour paint tubes. I use numerous brands which include Winsor & Newton, Rembrandt, Old Holland and M.Graham. These are professional artists paints which are superior in quality compared to student-grade paints. However, I do recommend student paints to beginners as they are easier on the wallet. You can always upgrade to professional paints when you decide to take your arts to the next level.
10. Cheap plastic container for the water.
11. Water bottle. I usually carry two. One for drinking, the other for painting...who knows how many times I mix them up.
12. Masking tape to tape the paper onto the board.

So, there you have it. The basic stuff that I bring along for my outdoor painting session.

It's Good Friday tomorrow and I've called up a few artist friends from Singapore Watercolour Society for an outdoor painting session! Let's hope it doesn't rain and I'll be back with a new painting. :-)

My First Post

Well, I've decided to have an on-line journal to keep track of my progress as an artist, post my artworks, thoughts and in general, updates of my life adventures whether artistically or otherwise.

(Little India, Singapore - 20" x 29" painted in Feb 2006)

Those who frequent wetcanvas.com will be familiar with my watercolour paintings as I've been a regular there since I started painting seriously in 2002. Well, not to disappoint the folks at wetcanvas, I will still post my works there of course, but I felt I need to keep everything in one place for easy access as I progress as an artist. I do currently maintain a website but it's not as interactive as a blog, is it?

You may want to visit http://www.marvinchew.com to view my other paintings although I haven't updated the gallery for almost a year!

On a more personal note, my wife is now 7-month pregnant with our precious little boy and he's kick'in and getting really active in Mummy's tummy. Oh Gosh! I'm gonna be a dad real soon! So, in between doing things that usually comes with having a new-born like buying baby clothes and stuff, attending gynae check-ups, etc., I'll squeeeeeze in some time to paint, either from my home studio or outdoor....

Watch this space ;-)