Cold as gold!

Red creeper at Oxford

Colour pencil day! Yay!



Drawn from a photograph of this squirrel who followed me around in Hyde Park, hopeful for food.



I really miss my primary school kiddies! I know half of them are brats and a quarter have yet to be potty trained, but as long as I don't have to be the one who mops up the mess (which I haven't, joy joy!) I kind of liked being called Ms. Chair. I remember when the boys primary school finally had their big day on stage I felt so insanely proud of them. How is it possible to feel this proud of something that spends half of its life screaming and the other half kicking people?


Dude, like, just make up your mind already.

first the teddy bears, then the giraffes.

Hempsted Forest

'Tis the month of my birthday! It's surreal that my birthday is so close. Not the "Oh no, I'm gonna be 20!" thing, I'm over that, I've had a year to get over that while everyone else my age turned 20 (except ling! my loyalest friend!). Just the "Oh, it's my birthday!" thing. I'm very excited actually, although I don't know why. I hope I can get back to Singapore before the 31st!

I have been painting for most of today, determined to master watercolors. It's much much harder than I thought, but I am learning, at least, I better be after painting the same picture ten thousand times. I'm trying to follow watercolorpainting.com's glazed wash tutorial which is supposed to look like this,



but ended up looking, sadly, like this,



and then like this,



and finally, (finally!) like this!



I'm going to take a break today and do colour pencils, but I might have another go soon. If you feel brave enough to try the same tutorial, send me pictures!

I miss Candy Chen and all her crazy friends. Perr-FECT!

Now this is Art - Bill Sullivan's More Turns

Bill Sullivan set up his camera at the subway, and took individual commuters at the exact same moment. This is beautiful stuff.



See the rest of his project shots at http://www.3situations.com/BillSullivanWorks/MTmaster.html

Meanwhile, my life as I know it is taking a leap into near-insanity-inducing-busyness. I've been involved with a great group of people called the Musical Theatre Society, and they have very trustingly made me production manager for an original musical being performed at the Esplanade's recital studio in April. This is extremely exciting, and last wednesday when myself, my director, producer and stage manager met with the Esplanade technical people, I had to pretend to be very professional while all these grown-ups discussed lighting plans and stage specifications, but I must tell you that what I really wanted to do was dance around the enormous cargo lift that is the same size as my room, or lie down flat in the aisles of the immaculate backstage passageways and breathe in the backstage air, shimmering with possibilities. I was so happy and excited that I shot the cleaning uncle an absolutely brilliant smile when I accidentally bumped into him while admiring the dressing room door. I had to stop myself from waving and saying "I'M IN THE ESPLANADE!" and winking my best show-biz wink. (Since I can't wink and I'm not really sure how a show-biz person would wink, it would probably look like I was in desperate need of eye drops.)

I am so proud of all these people. I wanted to pat everyone on the back and say "Good job!" and then maybe ask them to take a picture of me standing next to the backstage drinking fountain, so my grandchildren will believe that if a peon can have such opportunities, well then the world is indeed a grand, beautiful place.

Tally ho!

I've just been treated to the delight of watching my dad watch a travel program about London on TV. A travel program with an American commentator. Joy joy!

My father went through being totally disinterested, however retribution was near as he made regular scoffing sounds, began barking out corrections with increasing disbelief (TV: Fish and Chips eateries here are more common than even *dramatic pause* McDonalds! Papa: WHAT? WHERE DID THEY GET THIS PERSON FROM?), and a final culmination of outrage when the "old pal" the commentator called upon to tell her more about London turned out to be an Australian. An American and an Australian sitting in a London pub drinking pimms (TV "old pal" guy: Cheers! English people always say cheers! Cheers again! Papa: Real men don't drink pimms.) and educating us plebians on London culture turned out to be just too much for papa, i'm afraid. I don't think Discovery Travel and Living will get another hit from us for the next three decades or so.

I have finished saving the background of my painting exploit and it's full steam ahead - or whatever successful artists say! Huzzah!