Cotton labels arrived! Had to hand sew them onto the Painter's Organiser prototypes and share new pictures with you. This batch of labels didn't arrive the way I wanted (all edges sealed) so I have to FrayBlock raw edges to prevent fraying! Adding this to the handmade quality. ;)

Here's a look at the current two fabric offerings for the Painter's Organiser. I have black and dark red drill cotton variations waiting to be sewn up, but here's a look at my grey one with M Graham's name filled in with a 0.3 Copic Multiliner pigment ink that's water proof!

Waiting for my order of gold heart-shaped jewellery tags to arrive + many more materials for jewellery making! This year I'll do my best to go all out and create everything I ever thought of and put it all out there. Materials have been sitting around for ages without being utilised and I hope this year, they will be happily put together into beautiful and useful items.

Here is shipment 1 of 2 of my Amazon M Graham oil paint order! I initially had just this set in my shopping cart but read elsewhere about other colours I ought to have as a starter palette so I added more paints into my cart (and I forgot and ordered a 150ml tube of Titanium White as well! Oops white overdose... Guess I can do more pastel works!)...

Here's the sturdy box my set came in. It was nicely padded. I ordered from the M Graham store on Amazon.

And a look at the front and back of the box in relation to my hand. I wonder when I'll be comfortable testing these paints out. D:

Went fabric sourcing and picked up three other colours I was thinking of working on for various combinations. I am so in love with the above grey fabric! It's a beautiful middle weight cotton canvas made in Japan that feels expensive and not too stiff. <3 I went to get the brown leather strap to match this grey, too! Now to figure out whether I should paint the wooden dowel a champagne gold colour so it may look nicer? (psst, shipment one of my M Graham paint order arrived! Suuuper delicious set of 5 oil paint colours with little bottle of walnut oil and alkyd medium. <3 *hoards*)


The maroon red and black fabric in the picture above are thinner cotton canvas drill also from Japan. I wish I could find the other colours to the grey equivalent. ;__; It's perfection!

Above was a work in progress shot the night before. Such a beautiful fabric! It would make a wonderful tote bag, too! Let's hope the shop still stocks more of this fabric, though I heard there may not be much of it left. :(

Happy lunar new year to everyone! It's the 9th day of the Lunar New Year season of 15 days in total and here I am chugging at my sewing machine the night before so I could realise a creation I had been thinking about since Friday night. :) It was so bad I woke up at 6am and started drafting the design and sizes.

This all started when I recently decided to treat myself to an order of M Graham oil paints from Amazon. I was elated that they offered shipping to Singapore and orders are also eligible for free shipping. I know I am still a new learner in oils, but I was curious to see how better quality artist paints would differ from the student grade paints I'm currently using (see above picture showing my Winsor and Newton Winton oil paints).

I also read about the qualities of M Graham oil paints: they use walnut oils and their oil paints are all solvent free. So no toxic smells when used indoors. They also ranked pretty well amongst other artist quality paints and affordable. I was contemplating getting Gamblin artist oil paints (because amazing artist Cuong Nguyen recommended them in his oil painting ebook) but I would need to order them through an agent from US e-stores, which I found troublesome in the end.

*whispers* I was also so tempted to get M Graham's watercolours and gouache paints because they use HONEY in their formula... But alas, I need to first handle oils well before all else!

So then I started searching around on the Internet on how other people store their paints and found the wall hanging pocket organiser to be a perfect way for me to store these beautiful oil paints that are on their way to me! :D Seeing how I couldn't purchase anything ready made, I thought why not make one customised to my own wall space and collection?

I can't wait to embroider/write in Van Gogh's quote onto the brush holder pocket (or top of the organiser):

"The only time I feel alive is when I'm painting."

<3 So I've put this up as a listing on Etsy and I can customise it to fit YOUR wall space and collection. :D I think I'll need to go source for other types of fabric and colours and try out various combinations to show how customisable this Painter's Organiser can be! Thanks to this I went to grab a few more bottles of Martha Stewart's Metallic acrylic craft paints to paint the wooden dowel for more variations.

I imagine these could house various brands of paints for painters who love collecting. :B What a sweet way to house these lovely paints! I also learnt that storing them cap down is the best as oils tend to float and pigments sink to the bottom. So having them downwards leave the pigments right at the opening for richest paints and less runniness.

Today’s ‘daily’ painting is one of an apple done on a Phoenix brand canvas panel picked up at Art Friend. It’s incredibly cheap at S$1 for an 8x8" square, perfect for guilt-free amateur paintings. It tends to ‘flake’ when rubbed with fabric (during the underpainting process), though. Decided to give panels a try to see how different it is compared to painting on stretched canvas. What I know is I will definitely need to make a panel holder like everyone else because it’s not going to stay on my easel for edge painting very easily. Another plus for a person living in a small apartment, panels save me quite a lot of storage space!

 

I also picked up two Daler Rowney Graduate series white goat’s hair oval wash brushes to try out ‘blending’ like how Gary Jenkins did on his Farbi Flora Painting series. Saw his ‘blending mop’ was made from white goat’s hair and grabbed a similar. I used the 1/2 sized one on this apple and found it blends very smoothly when there is a lot of paint on the surface. Quite a fun experiment since these brushes are originally made for watercolours. Definitely no need to dip this in turpentine because it would also make for an efficient paint wiper right off your canvas… ^^; I don’t know what I was thinking. These are just like blending brushes for makeup and we don’t apply anything onto it before blending! Similar concept…

About this painting, I think it’s rather flat… I used French Ultramarine for my underpainting (another experiment to see how final product will look compared to the usual burnt umber), mixed it with Alizarin Crimson for shadows, and dabbed on some Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Reds to add some spice, but think overall it’s still a flat piece. Oops… Hopefully through more practising and getting used to handling oil paints, some results will show…

I shall start document my learnings and share my new ventures in fine art and illustration here on the blog. I am hoping this year I will be more motivated and get back into the arting groove. I have tried back in 2013 but it died off again. Here’s hoping that I grow more disciplined once again.

This year I’ve signed up for an oil painting course with a local private artist studio called Artis. I have since attended two lessons and I welcome the in-depth teaching that my teacher goes through.

Learning foundations was what I was after because another oil painting course I attended last year at a local institution was a little too quick for my liking. I also didn’t overcome the fear of painting on my own at home because I just didn’t know where to start and how.

From these two lessons I’ve learnt how to tone my canvas and mark out objects based on their tones and key vertical lines. My teacher instructs that the eyes recognise light and shadow more than outlines + the importance of trusting our instincts.

Aside from learning oil painting through a strict course set by my teacher, I’ve decided to also try out stylised paintings at home. Basically experimenting and imitating other artists.

I’ve recently borrowed this wonderful book titled [DAILY PAINTING: Paint Small and Often to Become a More Creative, Productive, and Successful Artist] by Carol Marine. I wanted to get over my inertia/fear of making art at home. I can easily reach for a sketchbook to do gesture drawings, but setting up and painting was always tougher.

So I went out and got myself some 6x6" cotton canvases (only S$4.90 for 2 at Krafer’s Paradise) and bought some Colorpro Stifflon synthetic flat brushes from Straits Art Commercial to try. The right side popsicle is my embarrassing first attempt done last evening under an hour with a photo reference. I’m currently waiting for the paint to dry so I may attempt to salvage it.

I love how the Colorpro Stifflon synthetic brushes apply paint! So smooth and delicious! I imagine the Silver brand Bristlon’s I read about from the US has a comparable feel. I am using Winsor and Newton Winton paints here (nothing to shout about apparently, as it’s a student brand and filled with fillers and few pigments).

From this painting I learnt that I should daringly plot out my darks first before laying over lighter paints. You can see I lacked shadows under the melting white ice cream portion in the middle. Plus I didn’t make an effort to paint the dripping portions well. :p I’m now waiting for the paint to dry to see if I can salvage it by adding darks around the melted portions…

It was a pretty fun experience! I am now tempted to order some Ampersand gessobords to try but they are more for professional artists who are already painting very well… ;_; They ARE after all museum archival quality. And if I DO get those I will want to purchase some Rembrandt or Artist paints to paint with to make things worthwhile. Ahh… I’ve got a list of materials seated in my DickBlick shopping cart thanks to Dreama Tolle Perry’s workshop list. I was hoping to join her upcoming France Provence online course but found my finances to be wanting. :( It would quite an adventure learning her style of alla prima painting as well!

*edited: Left 12x12 as I do not think I will be able to cope. :( Will focus mostly on painting and drawing this year and see if I can move on to writing next year.