20 Friday Jan 2017
Posted in Illustration, Singapore
Tags
#illustration, drawing, eduardogaleano, firstkiss, firstlove, kiss, love, singaporeartist, teenager
“We are all mortal until the first kiss and the second glass of wine”.
I drew this rough and quick in 2014. Never published it because I didn’t think it deserved to be seen. But, what the hell…
14 Saturday Jan 2017
Posted in Illustration, watercolor
Happy New Year, everyone! And thank you for staying with me all this time.
I have said it before and I will say it again – this blog, your friendship and encouragement have saved me in every way a girl can be saved.
I update my artwork on Instagram more than here nowadays. It’s just easier to snap and post over there.
May 2017 be the bomb for all you lovely people.
02 Sunday Oct 2016
Posted in Art, Asia, Illustration
Life is better on the island (the island being Singapore).
17 Saturday Sep 2016
Posted in Art, Illustration, Singapore
Tags
#illustration, #singapore, #sketches #sketchbook #illustrations #expatliving, fashionfail, feeling, OOTD, outfitgoals, singaporeartist, watercolor, zigkuretake
When you think you are looking fly and your outfit is rocking but it isn’t.
If anything, your outfit is very grandma.
13 Saturday Aug 2016
Posted in Art, Illustration, Love
Tags
#illustration, dowhatyoulove, Floral, flowers, typography, wreaths
Unfortunately, not all of us can do what we love for a living. We still need jobs that pay the rent. But it’s a good idea to try to have that one thing that nourishes your soul. For me, art is a little oasis I retrear to when I am stressed. It’s an escape into a calm, happy place where I feel entirely at peace for a little while.
05 Friday Aug 2016
Posted in Art, Illustration
Tags
#greatexpectations #fitzgerald #art #illustrations #dreams #selfesteem #beliefs, #illustration, charcoalcrayon, graphicnovel, selfacceptance, suicide
In August 2014, I lost a dear friend to suicide. He seemed to have been doing well – handling his depression, making amends for past behaviors. But over the university break, he decided to end his life, reportedly over his long-term girlfriend leaving him. He was visiting his parents home in India and sometime around dawn one morning, he jumped from the 4th-floor terrace. It was over before they found him.
I took this quite hard – despite our many differences over the years, we had been friends since our teenage and I deeply cared for him. A week or so before this happened, he had called to get me to “forgive” him for his selfish behavior in the past ( we were not talking at this point). And I did.
Many people thought of him as brilliant, some thought he was eccentric and yet others felt that he was just another arrogant asshole. But he used to tell me things, allowing me a little peep into his life – both past and present.
I believe the whole problem in his drug-addled, mad, pretentious and brilliant mind, actually came from a deep lack of self-esteem. The locus of his esteem was always external. He liked himself when people liked him. He liked himself if people saw that he was with the “right crowd”. He liked himself if a girl he liked, not only like him back but had a fan-like admiration for him.
I have noticed that whenever this is the case, people lose sight of who they really are. Every time they look at themselves or think about themselves, it is through the prism of other people’s opinion.
In life, all of us are bullied some time or another. Sometimes by our classmates, sometimes by a parent, sometimes a spouse, a boss, a friend. At times this on purpose, but there are also times when people do this unknowingly. It’s important to know that whatever or whoever may be taking away your humanity from you, can’t affect you so deeply if the locus of your self-esteem is internal – as it should be.
Self-esteem is not swayed by other people’s opinion of you. It’s not swayed by how poorly you did in a test or whether people are calling you ugly. It’s not broken by being jobless or buoyed by being successful – that’s confidence, not esteem. Because self-esteem is the mettle you’re made of. It’s your very fabric. Whenever you see or hear people trying to poke holes in it, I hope there’s someone in your life who tells you : Don’t see yourself through their eyes.
23 Saturday Jul 2016
Posted in Art, Illustration, Singapore
Tags
#art, #illustration, #singapore, flowers, flowershop, watercolor
Before we moved to Singapore, we always had fresh seasonal flowers at home. Something about them really elevates my mood after a long day at work.
After we moved here, for the first few months I tried to keep this up. But fresh flowers in Singapore are hella expensive! They’re mostly hothouse type flowers, which aren’t particularly fragrant. Also, having been in a fridge for days before they actually hit the shops, they die rather quickly after you bring them home.
So, that’s something I miss, apart from having four seasons, winter clothes, and parties by the bonfire.
18 Monday Jul 2016
Posted in aceo, Art, Illustration
Once when I was running,
from all that haunted me;
to the dark I was succumbing –
to what hurt unbearably.
Searching for the one thing,
that would set my sad soul free.
In time I stumbled upon it,
an inner calm and peace;
and now I am beginning,
to see and to believe,
into who I am becoming –
and all I’ve yet to be.
-Lang Leav
05 Tuesday Jul 2016
Posted in Art, Illustration
Tags
#illustration, #singapore, art, singaporeartist, sketchbook, springsummer, tropicalpalms, watercolor
“I stepped from plank to plank
so slow and cautiously;
the stars about my head I felt,
about my feet the sea.”
— Emily Dickinson
03 Friday Jun 2016
Posted in Illustration
23 Monday May 2016
Posted in Art, Illustration
Tags
#illustration, assinjeans, chelsea, denim, fineassgirls, newyork
I was in New York recently, and somewhere on Chelsea a man looked at me and muttered “You a fine ass woman”.
Oddly, I kind of liked it. Because in Singapore no one, absolutely no one makes lewd remarks at women (or maybe just me). And because in India, when men cat call it’s usually accompanied by rape-y vibes.
30 Saturday Apr 2016
Posted in Illustration
If you’re blue, just drape a warm and fuzzy animal on your person. One of two things will happen: said animal will ignore you, then scratch you real hard if they don’t want to be used as a scarf.Or, said animal will lick your face and give you affection if they don’t mind being used as a scarf.
Either way, you will be distracted from your blueness and feel much better.
22 Friday Apr 2016
Posted in aceo, Illustration
Tags
#illustration, exoticgarden, Floral, flowers, ink, micador, purpleflowers, singaporeartist, sketchbook, spring
My mum-in-law came to visit us and gave me a small set of six aqua painter pens by Micador. The description says they have the texture and opacity of acrylic ink (true) and can be diluted to get transparency like watercolor (not true). Anyhoo, I’ve been experimenting with them on my little Japanese moleskine and they’re quite wonderful. I just doodled these flowers freehand and then went over some bits with the black hightech-point V7. I love how bright and crazy they turned out, like some exotic greenhouse which exists only in my imagination.
16 Saturday Apr 2016
Posted in Asia, Illustration
Tags
#illustration, #singapore, fashionillustration, mensfashion, mensscarves, orchardroad, singaporeartist, singaporestreetstle, streetfashion, streetstyle, watercolor
Singapore men’s street fashion usually comprises shorts and a tshirt, though not many shy away from color. Or, sports wear.
On the other end of the spectrum are men like these two dapper gentlemen seen on Orchard Road, the fashion mecca of our little island. A bit weather inappropriate, but I am sure they were indoors where the air conditioning was super strong. And that amount of gel in hair conveys a serious dedication to looking good.
They did look good, like they had stepped out of a fashion magazine, or were hipsters who had very rich parents.. Like they were super into themselves.
29 Tuesday Mar 2016
Posted in aceo, Art, Illustration, Singapore, watercolor
Tags
#illustration, #tropical, foliage, leaves, palmleaves, singaporeartist, sketchbook, summer, watercolor
Yes, it’s as boring as it sounds.
Literally, a few leaves. My body is so tired I cannot think straight, let alone paint. All the weekends are flying by, the work week is hectic, every other week family is coming over from India to stay with us (not that I don’t enjoy this) and I have started taking some fitness classes. So this kind of uninspiring practice type work, sans stories, is all I have for now.
