Lingering sadness and lost love

I dreamt of her. I dreamed that she came to look for me. When I woke up, I found that it was but a dream but my sadness lingered, within a dream. I had not awakened and I had wandered through the misty corridors of sleep, finally awakening at dawn.

Idiot from an international marketing company

Some lady idiot with a strong accent called a few minutes ago.

Idiot: 'We are a international marketing company. This is not a sales call and we want to send you information'.

Me: 'No.'

Idiot: 'Why not?'

Me: 'I'm not interested'.

Idiot: 'Okay, thank you, can you give me your email address?'

Me: 'What part of no do you not understand?'

Later...

Idiot: 'Sir, you are getting angry!'

Ad nauseam. It continues. They get unpleasanties from me.

Overcoming a fear

My love for her was great and it was instrumental in overcoming a fear which has plagued me for almost four decades. Despite that she had viewed it as trivial, it was nevertheless real and not trivial for me.

The Singapore-Malaysia Land Swop Deal

From my observation, the Malaysian government has gotten two excellent pieces of prime property in the deal. These parcels are next to future MRT stations and thus, of good value. The Marina Bay parcel is, doubtless, a prime piece of land in what would be a future financial district. The Rochor-Ophir parcel may appear at first glance to be slightly out of the  way, but given its proximity to a future station and the proximity to the existing Bugis MRT station, this development is highly accessible with a lot of potential.

Balloons!

Lunch time doodle.

Flying kites

Lunchtime doodle.

Drawing the shophouses at the junction of Club Street and Ann Siang Hill

Shyam and I were later at the junction of Club Street and Ann Siang Hill.

He chose this vantage point. It was difficult to say the least. I had to do major changes to my finished pencil sketch later.

It was also drizzling that day. Ultimately, I managed to finish my sketch in under an hour. I used watercolours and finished it the next day.

Painting the Thian Hock Keng temple

Drawing the Thian Hock Keng temple

On the morning of Hari Raya Puasa, I ventured down to Chinatown.

There, I joined Madhu, Marvin and Shyam. I had learned that my grandfather had used to write in the pagoda within the temple forty years before.

Madhu and Marvin were utilising watercolours while Shyam was painting digitally.

I did an ink sketch with watercolours. A small one.

See what kind of men they are

"When another blames thee or hates thee, or when men say about thee anything injurious, approach their poor souls, penetrate within, and see what kind of men they are. Thou wilt discover that there is no reason to take any trouble that these men may have this or that opinion about thee. However thou must be well disposed towards them, for by nature they are friends. And the gods too aid them in all ways, by dreams, by signs, towards the attainment of those things on which they set a value."

Marcus Aurelius 'Meditations, Book IX'

Friend

"Don't walk in front of me, I may not follow. Don't walk behind me, I may not lead. Walk beside me and be my friend."

Albert Camus

Happiness

"If mere happiness were the point, we could easily achieve it for everyone by suitably medicating the water supply. But it has often been well said that the surest way to unhappiness is to seek happiness directly. Instead, happiness comes as a sideline of other endeavours that in themselves bring satisfaction and a sense of achievement. It is like the dot of light in a dark room that one cannot see when looking directly at it, but notices out of the corner of one's eye on looking away."


A. C. Grayling

Periclean strategy

"It was Periclean strategy, after all, that defined the new war as battle not between hoplites or even sailors but rather soldiers against the property of everyday folks. This moral quandary also remains with us today, and it has been raised in connection with the controversial careers of William Tecumseh Sherman, Lord Kitchener, Curtis LeMay, who all argued that battle is ultimately powered by civilians and thus only extinguished when they cannot or will not pledge their labour and capital to those on the battlefield.


Was it a more moral and effective strategy to burn the slave estates and ruin the property of the plantation class of Georgia, which had fuelled succession, or to have Ulysses Grant kill thousands of largely young and non-slave-owning youth in northern Virginia in open battle? Far worse still, was Curtis LeMay a war criminal who burnt down the cities of Japan, killing tens of thousands of civilians with his napalm-fed infernos? Or, in effect did he shorten the war and punish those in Tokyo's household factories whose labour produced planes, shells and guns without which the Japanese imperial army could never have murdered thousands of innocent Koreans, Chinese, Filipinos and killed so many American servicemen?"

Quote from 'A War like no other: How the Athenians and Spartans fought the Peloponnesian War' by Victor Davis Hanson

What do you think? What is your opinion?

$9000

I find it ironic that people who says that the $9000 cheapens NS will still happily collect the $9000. Don't take the $9000 as a matter of principle if you don't agree with it. If you think it is cheap and you don't want it, give it to me then. I want it.

Xenophobes

I don't like xenophobes in Singapore who complain incessantly that the new PRCs immigrants here can't speak English when their own grandparents can't speak English after spending a lifetime here. Hypocrites.

Life Drawing Session # 21 - 18th September 2010

Quoting J.S. Neo:

"The next session will be figure drawing. This week's session will be held on the 18th September Saturday, , 630pm - 930pm. The venue will be same as usual. Model will be a female . We are doing short poses this time round, ranging from 2mins to 20 mins. Price will be $24 per person. We will be restricting the number of attendees to 10 because of the limited space."

Address:
StudioV Photography & Design
6A Lim Tua Tow Road
Singapore 547718

To sign up: <<CLICK HERE>> 

Windy Knoll

Mixed media. 150mm x 210mm. Pigment ink, permanent ink and watercolours.

The bridge

Lunch time doodle. 150mm x 210mm. This was drawn in the course of a few days during lunch. Colour pencil and pencil.

Lone Tree

150mm x 210mm. Experimenting with watercolours. Pigment ink, watercolours. Mixed media. This was the result of a sketch done on the train. After the journey, I painted it with watercolours. I will be exploring this theme again and in a far more elaborate means.

Multi-Level Marketing MLM

MLM Watch is a site that monitors Multi-Level Marketing MLM, a most dubious means of doing business, quasi-legal in most senses of the word, often, bordering on illegal.

The site documents dishonest promotions, victim reports, investigative reports, legal issues, government enforcement actions, pyramid schemes, scams and more.

Sadly, there are still people falling for MLM products and more.

I draw

I draw on the bus.
I draw on the train.
I draw when I walk.
I draw when I am in bed.
I draw in the streets.
I draw in cafés.
I draw at my desk at home.

Am I drawing enough?

Singapore 24-Hours Comics Day

Quoting JF, one of the organisers: "The 24 Hour Comics Day is a fun and creative marathon event that has taken place in many countries every year since 2004. Thousands of creators all over the globe have challenged themselves to each create 24 pages of comics in 24 hours."


Here is your chance to join this 24-hour event and let your imagination run wild! Whee!


For more details, << CLICK HERE >>.

Saturday, 2 October 2010

9:30 am	Briefing + Q&A for participants
10:00 am	Start time

Sunday, 3 October 2010

10:00 am	End time
10:05 am	Debriefing + photo taking
11:00 am	Event close

The venue is a classroom sponsored by School Of Thought, located at Queen Street, behind the Singapore Art Museum.

See you there!

Misuse of reason

"Misuse of reason might yet return the world to pre-technological night; plenty of religious zealots hunger for just such a result, and are happy to use the latest technology to effect it."

— A.C. Grayling (The Heart of Things: Applying Philosophy to the 21st Century)

Forthcoming OIC Figure Drawing Session v8

The forthcoming OIC figure sketching session. I was there last month and it was a good session of sketching short poses. 5 minutes, 10 minutes and 15 minutes. Highly worthwhile.

S$12-S$18 per artist for sharing the cost of venue and model.
Limited to 25 artists only (age: 18yrs and above)

>>>Online registration HERE<<<

Date:
Saturday, 19th Sep. 2010, 2:00pm to 5:00pm

Location:
Apsara Asia – 2 Kg Kapor Rd Singapore 208674
(Please bring exact $$ change – no big notes)

Please check the map for the exact location before you set out and come early in case you get lost.

Person in charge-  Shyam +65 83814431

How to get there?

See this  MAP

The Fateful Meeting

150mm x 210mm. Permanent ink, pigment ink 0.8, 0.3, 0.05. Another doodle. Done before bedtime and obviously not drawn lying in bed like the others.

Warriors & Warlords: The Art of Angus McBride

Angus McBride is known for his historical illustrations for volumes published by Osprey Publishing and the Lord of the Rings illustrations for the old Middle-Earth roleplaying game (MERP). 'Warriors and Warlords' is an excellent hardcover volume that collected a lot of his best illustrations. McBride's figures are wondrous concoctions which are created mainly in gouache. 

True ignorance

"Socrates liked to tease his interlocutors by saying that the only thing he knew was that he knew nothing. There is a deep insight in this, for the one thing that is more dangerous than true ignorance is the illusion of knowledge and understanding. Such illusion abounds, and one of the first tasks of philosophy." 

-A. C. (Anthony Clifford) Grayling, On Becoming a Philosopher

Mimi

Mimi

The unconsidered life

"Socrates famously said that the unconsidered life is not worth living. He meant that a life lived without forethought or principle is a life so vulnerable to chance, and so dependent on the choices and actions of others, that it is of little real value to the person living it. He further meant that a life well lived is one which has goals, and integrity, which is chosen and directed by the one who lives it, to the fullest extent possible to a human agent caught in the webs of society and history."

-A. C. (Anthony Clifford) Grayling, The Meaning of Things

Composing with ink

I compose with ink. Yes, I compose with ink very often. This year, I had wanted far more elaborate compositions and I have taken composing in pencils first. A change of practice for the first time in a decade.

Roadside ice-cream

Portraits

OIC Portrait Day: 4th September 2010

The session started at 2:00 pm and ended at 7:00 pm.

The various people posing were diverse and were interesting subjects.

Michael and JF ran much of the proceedings.

OIC Portrait Day: 4th September 2010

Numerous sketches were produced in a huge variety of styles, from the realistic to the abstract.

It was great looking at the various means of rendering the subjects.

Here is a drawing of JF which I managed to do while he had introduced the people posing.

OIC Portrait Day: 4th September 2010

There were about forty participants this time round.

Here, two of the people who posed took photos of the drawings.

The little boy posed. He was hyperactive and couldn't stop moving, weren't we all like that as a child?