Malacca Artist II: Tham Siew Inn

I have been looking forward to go into his gallery. The first time I visited, the door was shut and the board was written that something like painting in progress. So I had to skip it. The second time was a coincident. I happened to spend my time nearby, waiting for my sister and it was opened. So, why not?

(source: http://www.garmin.com.sg/m/sg/g/waypoint_travelroute/travel_011/pic_005.jpg)

I like the casual feeling of his gallery. The wood and stones, and the green behind the house, I should say that it is a good place to relief your stress.

Tham Siew Inn started his artist life about 1970s. He has never given up drawing and sketching before in his life. He has a very determine spirit on what he believed and what he wanted in his life.

He was kind enough to chat with me and he bought me behind the gallery. It was his studio. I was surprised to see his sketchbooks. You will never believe, he has stacks of sketchbooks, near the door, on the shelves and in the cupboards. That's a lot that I can't even finish a small stacks. He would do sketches where ever he went. Each of every sketches was rich with its value, very inspiring.

I was amazed to see a quite complete transition of drawing styles of an artist. His earlier works was watercolour landscape and realistic paintings. However, he kept experimenting on the brush strokes and line and later, he gradually changed his styles into a very expressionist kind of approach.

Free and wild. Lively.

tham's sketches
(Source: http://fineartsynergy.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/2004_perform-ii_30x42.jpg)

His later drawing style (Source:http://fineartsynergy.files.wordpress.com/2008/07/2004_orchestra_21x30.jpg)

I remember that Yusof Gajah said before, you need to practice and experiment a lot to get your own style, just like what he did for his elephant. Same goes to Tham. He has spent nearly his whole life drawing, painting and sketching, from 1970s to 2000s. He finally got his own style.

Therefore, the art style really depends on your experience of drawing and life. Am I only got my own style after I grow up to be an old lady? Haha... kind of hard to think about that. Or rather, I won't want to think about that. Let everything go naturally and now I should just do my own part.

Sketches

Time to post some sketches.

These are the sketches I did in the journey to Singapore. Though not many, I was really having fun.

This is the first time I got into a train at night with my brother. We shared a room with double decker. 

So, yup. I stayed with my cousins. So, this sketch was done in a cafe in Botanical Garden. We were having nice pizzas there. Thank you, Fen Jie Jie and Cherlyn.

A black swan in Botanical Garden.

After came back to college, I attended a talk by Andrew Matthew, or precisely, just a sharing of thought about happiness and motivation in life.

"Life is not a spectator, but participator." (Matthew, 2013)

Some sketches on cats~~~

Imagination~Boy in the garden

Imagination~Tinker flower~~~like fairies

Imagination~The violinist

A fast doodle on Amy~

The Malacca Artist Titi.

Today, I "dived" into my juniors' class. Good to see some of them and yup, I should say they are quite potential.The bad thing is I don't know how to interact with them (generation gap? Find so hard to start a conversation with them.)

Today, Amy is going to talk about abstract artworks. Looking forwards to it.

So, I will like to introduce two artists that influence me and encourage me a lot today.
They are Malacca artists and I happened to meet them in their galleries. we have got a long chat.

I would like to start with Titi.

Titi started his artist life quite late as he found that he loves paintings. It is not easy for an artist to earn a living in Malaysia. Though he have a gallery, he is still working to support his living cost and all the expenses in the gallery.

I met him by chance. That is the time when I felt ashamed on myself as I didn't ever walk into a gallery in my hometown and yet I am going to step into art and design industry. So, I arranged a few days from my semester break and started my little journey. 

It is hard for me to start a conversation with him. Feel kind of weird as in you won't know how to start and you start mumbling and saying weird stuff. Though, it seems better as the chat went on.

He is kind and humble in the way that he never set himself better or higher than me. He treats me like friends.  

Titi's artworks are always calm and simple. I should say, his work is perfectly presented with acrylic on canvas.

From his art work, you will feel the touch of brushes, simple strokes and a bit rough, which give a sense of Chinese feel. The simplicity and the natural feeling give a zen feeling on them. Therefore, I should say that his paintings are the reflection of his background, belief and emotion. He happened to study Buddhism philosophy.

Though he has a website and you can found his replication of artworks are sold in some of the souvenirs' shop, not many people know about him. Maybe we should find out more ways for illustrators and artists to promote themselves.

I hope that I could do something like that too. Make people feel relief and happy while looking at my works. (Though sounds far away from me...XP)

Hope that you all will like his work. I will definitely get one if I got enough money.
http://www.titi-art.com/


<<To be continued with the next artist Tham Siew Inn on the next post. Going to Amy's class. Yeah~~~ The haze turns up to be slightly better than yesterday after the rain late evening.  

Maurice Sendak

So, this is respect given by Google Doodler to Maurice Sendak on his 85th birthday weeks ago.

Today, I am going to look at Maurice Sendak. He was an American illustrator. His famous illustration book was Where the Wild Things are.

His characters are mostly grotesque, weird and distorted. But I like the his imaginative world, pretty much impressive. His drawing is always ink and slightly colour. Kind of desaturated. His ink strokes are very confident and detailed. By using hatching and cross-hatching, it shows the aesthetic and the touch. You can feel how the characters looks like, fluffy, but with rough and tough hair touch, the bull with human's feet.

Maurice Sendak artwork

His sensitivity allowed him to play with strokes and limited colour to show the depth on his illustration. The four monsters walking in one direction shows the unity, but their eyes fall onto a smaller guy which create the attention and lead our eyes to focus on the little guy. Nice arrangement of composition too.

Last but not least, I will like to end this post with a quote from Maurice Sendak, which insisted that he is drawing for everyone, not only the children but the adults.

“I believe there is no part of our lives, our adult as well as child life, when we’re not fantasizing, but we prefer to relegate fantasy to children, as though it were some tomfoolery only fit for the immature minds of the young. Children do live in fantasy and reality; they move back and forth very easily in a way we no longer remember how to do.”                                                                                                                  (Sendak, 1972 )

Read more: http://newsfeed.time.com/2013/06/10/todays-google-doodle-a-tribute-to-maurice-sendak/#ixzz2XCZ3yGx4

Chun Eun Sil

I am going to move on, trying to do what I can do right now.

Flipping over the illustrator blogs and websites that I have collected, it reminds me Amy's advice. "Don't simply say that it look nice, it looks beautiful. Look at how people execute it. Analyse them."

So, today, I would like to start with Chun Eun Sil.

Well, Chun Eun Sil is a Korean artist. My impression, for so long, Korean illustrators are really good. I don't know why. Is it because they are better in the sense of beauty? I suppose that they have a good colour sense.

She is a pro in using soft colour. Her illustrations are always cosy, with simple line but rich. Not only the colour, but the whole composition, for instance, the colour space and the white space.

The balancing between both will sooth our eyes. When the colours are rich and bright, white space plays an important role to keep us relax. Everything is going smooth and natural.

You won't feel that her works are purposely done. It is as natural as breathing. I should say, Chun Eun Sil, the air with the balancing of liveliness and calmness, her way of being poetic grace.

A bit more on her illustration:
http://blog.krisatomic.com/?p=364


Today, I would like to introduce Yanni. This is my favourite song of him. I have started to admire him because of this song, Nightingale. I think it suits Chun Eun Sil's works. At the first glance, you will feel the softness, but it is just a beginning. The longer you look into it, you will notice how lively are her artworks, like this piece of music.

Still that phrase.

Poetic grace

幸运与不幸

今天早上，熬夜赶策划案，看离上课还有些时间，就稍微闭目养神。岂知竟睡了下去，起来时，上课迟了，心也急了。

一路奔到交通灯，好不容易等到了绿灯，过马路时，一股力量往左边来，把我给撞了。那是一辆德士。瞧我被撞，司机也急了，下车问我的伤势。我当时脑袋宛如浆糊，全身酸痛。抬头一看，他伸手把我的眼镜递了过来，白色的镜框在那只黑手中十分刺眼。再看看交通灯，行人的标记，闪着催促的亮绿，心里倒是有些怨念。

接过眼镜，在行人的搀扶下，站起来，看自己似乎没见红，倒是记挂着上课迟到，对他说：“抱歉，我赶着上课。”，拾起两三掉落的书本， 便一拐一拐地走了。

发觉有人叫着我，回头看，是个点头之交。竟没发觉他是刚才的行人，他担心我，看我走得吃力、拿得辛苦，想帮我。我也不好耽误人家的时间，看自己还行，婉拒了他的好意。

刚开始，我也许有些小愤怒，觉得自己好端端的，走啥霉运，但，更多的是，我不得不感谢自己的好运气。真的，我很庆幸，我没受伤流血，只是这阵子得受点皮肉痛。值得高兴的是，我的电脑毫无损伤，我还能做事写功课。我更感受到外来的温暖，多少人爱看热闹而吝于给予援助，而我却收到了他人的关心。我很高兴自己没有破口大骂，毕竟司机的歉意，我也收到了。或许我该感谢他没有踩油门，撞后逃。这次的一场虚惊，我却获得更多。

你说，我是不幸还是幸运呢？