My birthday

On the 7th of January, 1981.

And as you get older, the birthday presents that you receive will somehow be more meaningful or "connected" to you. One of the birthday presents that I got this year is an oil painting starter kit. It's from my workmates.

It's my first time to use oils as a medium and I must say the experience is way different than acrylic, crayons and watercolours;


It's still a WIP. I hope I'd be able to define the objects better to finish it.

Paintings Batch 002

It's Friday. And about time for me to update my playground.

Some paintings which I've done so far from the last batch...

Adam & Eve (Acrylic, oil pastels) - June/July 2009
My bedroom feature wall is just too empty and cold; and so I thought it could use a little bit of colours. Hence, Adam & Eve.

***I actually called my sister up to ask "who actually ate the apple?" LOL.


Twisted (Acrylic, oil pastels) - Aug 2009
Came up with this one just after I woke up from my usual Sunday nap some time back in early Aug (or end of July?). The colourful swirls show how my mind was twisted over things. Pleasant things that is ;) I still remember when Twisted was still a WIP, most of the peeps who came over to my place gave few comments like; are those lollipops? or the colours look alive, what did you use? or even, can I have this? ;)


Passion (Water colour, oil pastels) - Sept 2009
Inspired by my boyfriend (yes, boyfriend). He loves running---or anything that has got to do with it. He's setting up his own running portal now, fyi. Yea to that extend. Hence, Passion.

I wanted to show a little bit of movement; speed. But yea, maybe I could add more stuff in this.


***It's good to be in love***

;)))

Last Saturday

Did you know that they have a (super) mini zoo in Subang? Well yea, I didn't know until last Saturday afternoon when I dropped by at Kompleks 3C for a friend's event (Skool of Rap). If you don't already know, Kompleks 3C (owned by MPSJ) is located somewhere near the Subang/Sunway roundabout. The building is so colourful and there is no way you can missed it. So we were taken for a tour around the place and I was surprised with the kinda stuff that they have inside; activity centres for kids, camp site, activity rooms (standard classroom size), auditoriums, libraries and even an art gallery! Oh and of course, that (super) mini zoo that I mentioned about earlier. It's just too bad that the place has not been fully utilised (I went there on a Saturday, and the place was dead). Perhaps the building could use some maintenance work and a new paint job as well just to make it more enticing to the public around that vicinity. Well, I would definitely go back for the batik painting classes though ;)

Straight after Subang, my friend and I decided to go for a road trip out from the city---I wanted to see fireflies (somewhere in Kuala Selangor) and my friend wanted to check out this place called Sekeping Serendah (somewhere in Hulu Selangor). I seriously had no idea on how to get to any of the places (just so lucky I was not driving ;p). We reached Serendah in about an hour drive from PJ (thanks to his GPS although we did missed few turns here and there). So when I saw the place, I gotta say my first impression was "this place reminded me of my dad's kampung back home, except of course for the artistic landscapes and the glass houses". It's a calm place really. It's a good place for retreats and meditation. But I'm not really sure whether I could sleep in that kinda environment (with what the see-through glass panels or what not) since I'm not really an outdoorsy person.

Just a few kilometres away before Sekeping Serendah, we found a family park---with a waterfall! A mini one that is. We could've walked up further to see more of that waterfall, but it was almost dark and I was already thinking about the fireflies.

The trip to Kuala Selangor (or Kg. Kuantan to be precised) took about an hour from Serendah. When we reached there (it was already around 9ishpm), the place was packed with tourists/foreigners/school students. Yea, the price per sampan is RM40 and it's for four persons per sampan. Maybe we're not interesting-looking enough, no one wanted to share the sampan with us. So heck, we had the sampan all to ourselves. Our boater was this nice old makcik which I was having a slight trouble in understanding her slang. But she's nice otherwise. Although the ride was only for about 10 mins (or maybe less), but the fireflies are just so beautiful. They look like thousands of glowing colourlights on Christmas trees at night ;) Sigh. Too bad I don't have a good camera with me. Oh and one of them fell into our sampan too! (at least the fireflies thought we're interesting and actually joined our boat!). It was fun. My friend told me the fireflies viewing experience in Cherating is different from this one. So I guess, that's going to be our next trip ;)

So yea, here are some of the pics taken from my last Saturday.
















It was a tiring weekend indeed. But we ended the day with pizzas and beers and a re-run of Flight of the Conchords! So I can't really complain ;)

Bonze

I had lunch at Uncle CK's again today (actually the name of the shop is Tasty but since my colleagues and I go there almost everyday for lunch, so we address the shop by the name of the owner-it's comfortable that way). So yea, next to Uncle CK's or probably two to three shops away, is a designers' furniture studio. And always, like always, there's this one fancy, artsy piece of furniture displayed in the shop that caught my attention. It's artistic (although one of my colleagues thinks its somewhat silly---coming from a Creative Director himself. Perhaps it's because of the price). For the past one week, I've been eyeing on that art piece.

Today, I decided to go into the shop to just get closer to that particular piece. And of course, I was also curious about the other stuff that the shop has inside. I took a sneak peek (more like a tour *grins*). So here it is...

The name is Bonze. It's by Philippe Starck. The piece that caught my eyes like over and over again. According to its artistic description, this is a face of a Buddha, a portrait of Lorenzo de' Medici, a watcher in the night, awoken double of the Sleeping Muse by Brancusi---a stool as well as a coffee table. Bonze comes in other colours as well. I'm really inspired by this piece---maybe because I have this thing with Buddha Stucco. Yea anyways, Bonze is worth RM6k+++.

Some other stuff that they have in the shop...

























I like 'em all! Hmmmmmmmppphh!

All pictures are courtesy of New Convox/Convox Furniture. Oh and btw, the name of the shop is Jia Studio.

Paintings Batch 001

Yea I do paint. But not professionally, really. My paintings are based on my mood. And since I was small, I’m never really good with colours. I always envied my older sisters since they’re very good mixing colours. But nonetheless, there’s nothing wrong from trying right? So here goes…

First Mandala (Oil pastels, crayons)

I was into Mandala in September 2008, just when I realized that I will never get back with my ex-boyfriend (someone whom I thought I was going to say “I do” to). Wholeness was all I ever wanted at the point of time. One can easily gets hooked in Mandala because of its flexibility.

Just a little definition on Mandala: Mandala represents wholeness which also can be seen as a cosmic diagram that reminds us of our relation to the infinite, the world that extends both beyond and within our bodies and minds.

Complete (Acrylic)

I made this in November 2008, when that someone completed me. And so I thought.

Tyra & Me (Pencils 2B)

This one is my favourite and it is very recent as well. It was in May 2009 (yea, this year) when I eyed a black-coloured guitar in one of the music shops in Bukit Bintang. I so thought I was going to get her hence I named her Tyra straightaway. However, after getting feedbacks from my cousin and my brother, I decided to get a different model of guitar. I got myself a Yamaha F310P and she’s beige in colour, and so I named her Lola ;) Loving her to bits!

Unduk Ngadau 2004 (Acrylic)

My first painting in mid 2008. This one was really a trying-out painting, so you can see the colours are not properly mixed and blended. I actually copied the drawing from an actual photo of mine.

Unduk Ngadau is a beauty pageant held during the Harvest Festival in Sabah, Malaysia. The word comes from ‘Runduk Tadau’ which literally means ‘the girl crowned by sunlight’.

And this is the actual photo:

Just for the benefits of your doubt, yea, I won the crown ;)

Okay, more paintings to come in Paintings Batch 002!