Happy B'day Aunty...

Every 19 March, aunty completes and starts a new cycle of life. Yesterday, she turned 65!!!...but she can easily pass off as a lady many years her junior..... *sigh* (of envy...hahaha)... Aunty, how do you ever manage to keep looking THAT good...very good! I think...I can count more wrinkles on my face than on hers...*sigh* and double *sigh*

Aunty Faridah is my most senior student...but this grand matriach is the most active,diligent and adventurous of the lot. She hardly misses her weekly classes...and she's game to try anything new. Her projects are quite diverse...consisting of various styles,techniques and media. She too...will paint on anything that does not move..hahaha...but hey...I am her teacher...am I not??? Muahahahaha.... Anyway, her favourite quote of the day would be..."What is there to worry? Nora is here!" hahahaha...I love this woman...hehehe. She's so full of live, not a minute spent with her is dull!

She's been with me since 3 years ago... and she's painted quite a fair bit, she's so full of ideas that it's a challenge to produce what she has in mind sometimes haha. I'm dedicating this post to her...feast your eyes on her painted pieces ya. The 2 projects on the right are her earlier pieces....simple lacework with daisies on a cake stand and a monotone medley of sceneries on a wall plaque. We had fun creating a story to the sceneries. Aunty loves sceneries, esp in the colours of autumn. She's painted more sceneries than stroke flowers...why? because she says...ummm...errr...can't remember what she said la...hahaha...




Aunty hates to see an empty space. Where possible she'll point it out to me and say..."hmm...let's see...now what can we have here in this corner, huh Nora?" And Nora would go...uh-oh...the brain's working on maximum gear again!!! Anyway... there's a book box that she had painted on both sides of the top cover...and if I'd not put my foot down she would have painted even the inside of base of the box...yup!yup!yup! That box is now on display perpetually ajar... just to show off the painting done on the inside too...hahaha






More scenery projects here...one done on canvas and the other on a 2-piece welcome plaque (that still needs to be hung..haha). Aunty has many many more pieces to show. I'm actually in the middle of compiling my students' works and will have them all displayed in an album....god willing...somewhere in the near (??) future...hehe.
To this... I wish Aunty a long and prosperous life filled with love and happiness and great health. May we have many more years together. I love you, Aunty Faridah....

Gosh...am I that old???

Guess what? Me thinks...age is catching up...really really really fast...*sigh* and **double sigh** Why??

Well... once upon a time not so long ago, I could work really really late into the wee hours of the morn, have a couple hours of sleep and be up again before dawn and start the day off almost immediately!! But now lately...though I still wake up before dawn... I do need to sign off rather early. Must have at least 6 hrs sleep and still feel like... hey, where's the night gone huh??

I also remember that I used to have a certain spring in my steps as I go about the day... but now?... I think even the tortoise can catch up with me haha. Whoa!!! I can't be THAT old can I?...50 won't be here but next year... but why oh why the lethargy, huh??? But hey...who says 50 is old anyway???duhhh...

Hehe... oh well...life has to go on...and so it does. I've been busy painting lately. Completed the main body...but somehow I still feel the paintings can be enhanced further. Again it lacks the oomph and I have to put it aside...them rather...and get back to complete them later when the inspiration comes. I think...age has taken its toll on my lack of creative juices oozing out of my being...muahahaha...anyway...have a look-see below ya...

Here are 2 Tea-pot kitchen towel holders. I thought I'd try a pen-and-wash technique...that's the one shown on the first piece here. Easy but tedious as every detail has to be drawn in with pigment ink.

These 2 are painted onto a wall-hung kitchen towel holder. The tuscany grapes design I copied from a kitchen towel I borrowed from Aunty Faridah hehe... The veggies I borrowed from a calender by Susan Winget.

The one with the bottle I enjoy doing the most...though it still lacks the final details, I find this piece very fulfilling. The one with the flowers I finished 2 weeks ago...together with the tea cups on the shelf shown in my previous post. Well Nani... these are all for your shop...I've 2 more tea-pot kitchen towel holders to do. (Fyi...Nani is the owner of "The English Cottage" in Sg Petani, Kedah and these are commissioned jobs for her)

The Awesome Foursome

My life is blessed with great wonderful people around me. I look forward to Thursday afternoons when the four of us will meet and just do nothing but eat, chat, chat, eat, eat, chat, paint, chat, chat...usually in that order hahaha. We take turns to host...the last one being at Datin Roses's house.

It was initially an afternoon meant for us to gather and try to complete our UFOs...yup! we ALL have UFOs hahaha...but usually we end up doing more talking and eating than painting!!! But then again...what better excuse than a UFO to get us meeting again...right???

The lady above?...she's Rose, the hostess for the day ... painting away in her beautiful kitchen with us, the awesome foursome...yup!yup!yup!muahahaha. Her current project? To paint her house number plaque ...a long overdue project...hehehe come to think of it...I'd not painted mine either!!! Yikes!

Meet Christine and Zaiyan too...so focussed in their work that they didn't even realise I was ready to shoot them haha. Christine's passion is lacework She has such steady hands that the lines on her lace work are so fine. Makes her lacework a marvel to look at...don't you agree?

Zaiyan on the other hand is still at the preparation stage of her project...applying the gesso on the wood surface! So nothing to show yet so far haha.

It's a very relaxed afternoon. No rush to finish off anything...doing things at our own pace. When the mood to paint is not there... we would just sit and chat and chat and chat...and eat eat eat haha... until it's time to leave and get back to routine life....*sigh* what a life...