Mermaid Art

Jo and I painted mermaids together. She painted the little child while I painted the mum. Painting was given to a lovely lady who loves mermaids too.

A big achievement for me, to have knitted my first doll. Not perfect, and I did it without following a pattern. Was just knit along and see what happens! I'm glad it came out quite well!

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2018

~Jo bakes and crafts

You've been fattening me up with quite a few good bakes! Not good for my tummy Jo!!

Like this  super delicious Chocolate Torte that was devoured in two days...

And this beautiful cake that you baked for yourself. You had K over, and together you did the decorations together. What a beautiful cake!!! Love it that you're now independent enough to make your own!

You've also been crafty and doing a lot of art. Here's something you did for Doodle for Google. Yours wasn't selected, but I think it's still beautiful and unique. Keep going in your art, you're getting better and so good at it!

And one last picture, you asked me to purchase you a glue gun, and the first thing you made was this beautiful waterfall piece for me.

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@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2017

Art from Dec.

Charcoal drawing of a wild flower. Another art piece after a long break.  I wish to do more frequent art, but I never have the mental energy to do so after the hectic week. Thankful for a little extra time in December.

Jodie picked a watercolour book at the book sale. As we were on limited budget, she insisted it was a book she really wanted. And true to her word, at home, she immediately got all the tools and said, "Mum today I'm going to learn watercolour using the tutorial in this book."  And she did, she sat for half a day and followed instructions and learnt the art of watercolour. Where there's a will, there's a way. We've learnt, you can pretty much learn anything you want to when theres a real desire.

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016

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Some recent art

Some recent random art work\

Painting with only three colours. Yellow, Blue and Brown. The 
three shades create quite a spooky effect. Jo thinks this looks like a female
version of SLAPPY!!!

I painted this picture to accompany and inspire Jo to get back to some art work. (watercolour)

Jo's art work. Acrylic.

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016

Painting Murals

We were invited recently to help out with a green project at our community. It involved painting mural for a recycling center. We always jump at the chance to do art, any sort of art!! Most of the painting was done at night and we really had fun doing it.

Nel painting a deer

Jo's Fairy bird

Surprise surprise, I found out that hubby can paint!!!!

I thought I'd add a hornbill

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016
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More art work

Mine merging batik pieces and acrylic with some broken shells

Jo's a mermaid face t o face with a turtle

Nel's stack of hand made cards

Jo wondering how it feels like to move like a turtle :p

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016

Some random art from this year so far

Most art here...will be mine and Jo's. Nel doesn't really do art, although she will occasionally doodle and design.

Hand painted an old brown chair. Scraped and polished and painted it. Good as new now. :)

 A wooden bench made by Jo with a little help from her dad and Nel. Mostly done by Jo.

I dreamt a strange dream. Bout old friends...sharing conversation..laughing at their wrinkles, allowing their white hair and wrinkles to blend in with a checkered quilt. Let's hope I age as gracefully as the ladies in my dream did. :)

At the request of Prof Chan, we met up with her and did a few pieces of Batik Collage to help raise funds for the Turtle Conservation Society.

Nel made a card....picture of work in progress.

Jo's of course, always has a mermaid in it.

On a tired day...I decided to try painting a 3D garlic for fun...with watercolour. Not bad for a first try??

Nel tried placing a real garlic on my pencil sketch. Cool effect. :)

Couldn't resist a bit more fun.

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2016

Some random art

 This is still incomplete. We were reviewing what we learnt in  Bali. Balinese Art. 

1)Draw picture, include lots of lines. Outline lines with darker pen.

2) Paint first layer with Chinese Ink. Include shading. Before starting dilute Chinese ink into different levels of black.

3) When done, add some colour (not done yet).

 After a long time of not painting, it was hard getting reacquainted with water colour. First attempt after a long long time. (Painting based on picture of a calendar given my friend.)

 Trying charcoal again after several years...(You can tell....I've not been doing much art.) Well...I was working on this halfway, when I woke the morning, I found that someone had added the picture on the left together with the words! hmmm....:)

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2015

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Making Mobiles (Workshop) in Janda Baik

What a lovely day at Janda Baik. We were invited for a children's art workshop conducted by Carolyn J Lau on making mobiles...not mobile phone, but hanging mobiles. We love doing art, but art in the outdoors is best of all.

The workshop was conducted here in Tanahrimba, in a really lovely house. 

Carolyn talking about mobiles. Jo paid close attention, while Nel preferred exploring the area and playing with the lovely Retriever there.

The children on a walk looking for nature items to hang on their mobiles.

Jo decided to make her mobile out of branches found on the walk. At first she found it difficult carving the bark off the branch but soon got very used to it and actually enjoyed it. She thinks she'll love whittling, so would like a whittling knife.

My dear cousin and twins came along with us, and that was nice so I had company throughout the drive and through the day. :) 

Very focused on whittling. 

For lunch, the children had delicious Carbonara, while we adults feasted on Curry chicken and ulam/vegetables spiced up with delicious dried shrimp sambal, all lovingly prepared by Latiffah. Dessert was Lat's moist Lemon Drizzle Cake. She takes orders for her cake, and you can pm her on her facebook page here -->Latiffah LH

A friendly visitor, a very very plump leech, dropped off in the middle of the workshop to visit (it dropped off the friendly Golden Retriever's leg) which distracted the children for a while. 

Jo's mobile, halfway done, made out of branches, bark, recycled tin cans and marbles. 

Another child's hanging mobile. Children had to find the
balancing point before tying parts together with nylon string. We were reminded
 to always start the mobile from the bottom up.

A really lovely and memorable day indeed.

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2015

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Art- Sculpting horse with Paper clay

Happy Cap Goh Mei, and Happy Valentines Day!!

We spent our morning creating fun art which the children really enjoyed. When the kids begged to do art, I thought, it'd be nice to do something about horses, since according to the Lunar Calendar, it is the year of the Horse!

Well upon googling, I stumbled upon the works of Deborah Butterfield, who is famous for her sculptures of horses made out of wood and metal. Since that might prove a little too difficult for us, I thought paper marche and twigs would be nice.

So we googled for a recipe, and found a really great recipe for Paper marche clay meant for sculpting here.  (I'd advice adult supervision if younger children are making the clay as it has contents like wall filler/ putty, and PVA glue, and make sure to wear gloves when making it.)

Based on the recipe, we made our own clay out of tissue paper, wall putty, PVA glue, flour and oil. To add texture, we added sand, twigs, dried grass etc to into our homemade clay.

Our clay all ready!

The children then drew a picture of a horse on their paper, painted the background, then began filling up the horse area with clay.

Nel sculpted her clay with her hand and the back of a brush.

My work in progress

Jo just couldn't work with gloves and decided to work with both hands. She used the blade on a pair scissors to help her get fine lines. (I made sure she washed her hands thoroughly after!)

To finish of the art, we gathered more dried stuff from the garden and decorated the background/horse with it. Our final product.

My completed work.

Nel's. Simple and beautiful..gives me the feeling of a horse on a hill on a windy day.

 Jo's (pic a little blur.)....a flying unicorn of course! :)

 Happy Year of the Horse and may the year be a great one for you!

@poundthegarlic.blogspot.com 2014

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