Happy Mid-Autumn Festival!

I had a lovely morning today. Because of my HK Park series, I usually painted, alone, at a corner of the studio, and I can take months to finish one painting. Today, I painted with two other classmates and the task was to finish this "Mid-autumn Festival set" in two hours. So, we painted, we rushed, we laughed and we rushed again. When we were doing our final touches, two little girls stood behind us, quietly, eyeing on the starfruit lantern. Their teacher came and asked if they wanted the starfruit lantern. They remained silent. One of us told them we were done and they could take the lantern. The two lovely girl then happily took away the starfruit lantern for their festive master pieces.


What a good start for the weekend.


P.S. Hope you can recognize these items :)

Hong Kong Park (8)

The path towards the bridge to Citibank Tower, but this faces the opposite direction.

麵包超人個 friend -- 奶油麵包小弟, again

This time with charcoal on colour paper and is a quick sketch.

Hong Kong Park (6)

The bridge in the back of L16. [L16 is the windows in the middle of the left hand side. The Queensway Government Offices is replaced by the blue sky as the composition is already too crowded; while the roof top of the green house is kept in the middle of the trees in the top right hand corner to give it more layers.]

Not bad

I have to say this one is not too bad, because:

1) This is only half as big as I usually draw. Everything becomes easier.
2) I chose the "shaded" side. This is also easier than the light side.
3) I chose the side view. It's easier to capture the outline of the face than a front view.

我未能忘掉你 盧冠廷

漆黑將不再面對

張雨生 - 沒有菸抽的日子

Heritage Museum; oil on canvas

Remark: There's way too much room for improvement.

八九六四 -- 五月的陽光 (慢版)

《你還可愛麼》香港愛我

有人要求喺屋企步行範圍內先做

文中的僱主說應徵者：「有人要求喺屋企步行範圍內先做。」

記得當年在中途宿舍實習要跟進一個個案，服務使用者希望找一份活動助理的工作，自力更生，不需繼續領取綜援。可是，她對工作的地點卻很揀擇，遠一點的，連申請的意慾也沒有。當時我簡直暴跳如雷：「又話自力更生？左揀加揀，世界邊有咁美好？」

見過幾次面之後，我開始明白她的想法：一個活動助理月薪$5,000；外出工作要在外面午膳（中途宿舍包三餐，但沒有人會包起飯菜「帶飯」返工）；多轉幾次車交通費便更昂（當時宿舍的地點有點不方便）；中途宿舍也要交租…，其實薪金已所剩無幾，難免要斤斤計較。

在最後一次的 supervision，我把自己的想法告訴 supervisor（宿舍的主任）。記得她當時微笑者對我說：「你終於也學懂與服務使用者同步，只有這樣才可以做一個好社工。」

小老闆咆哮：請李卓人收口

http://hk.apple.nextmedia.com/template/apple/art_main.php?iss_id=20110420&sec_id=4104&subsec_id=11867&art_id=15184591

謝安琪 - 女人KING 第六集 - 絨裡手套 (ATV 10/4)

05 女人KING - 高跟鞋.mpg

謝安琪 - 女人KING 第四集 - 孭帶 (ATV 27/3)

I have a love-hate relationship with these plaster figures

HK Scenery (1)

Let's walk away from HK Park and oil painting for a while.  This is the Heritage Museum with colour pencils and pastel.

HK Park (5)

Yes, I know the windows at Murray Building are way bigger than real.

Yes, I know I paint the HK Park as if it's a forest.

謝安琪 - 女人KING 第三集 - 朱古力 (ATV 20/3)

謝安琪 - 女人KING 第二集 - 雞毛掃 (ATV 11/3)

謝安琪 - 女人KING 第一集 - 衣車 (ATV 6/3)

Hong Kong Park (4)

The "artificial lake" in HK Park. That's Murray Building in the back.

Before I started, the teacher asked, "Are you going to remove the building and draw a sky instead?"

I said, "No, the building is the focus too."

Teacher said again, "How can the building, the trees in the centre and the person in the front all be the focus?"

I thought, "Only you said ther person is the focus. She's only a 'side-kick' for me".

Westlife - You Raise Me Up

A two-hour sketch, obviously not my expertise

Hong Kong Park (3)

The path from to the bridge to Citibank Tower, where I walk through every morning.

Every week at drawing class, some classmates would come and say "嘩！好靚呀...張相。" (Wow! It's beautiful...I mean the photograph.) [I took lots of pictures of HK Park for this painting project.]

失業綜援碩士生 VS 納稅人

這兩天因為「失業綜援碩士生」的報導，我聽了幾次「我都有份納稅，佢唔係咁洗我D錢嘛？」

自 問只是普通人家，又無樓，不用（直接）交差餉。雖然每年要交兩個月人工的稅，但我相信仍然不足以支付我每天使用的道路的維修和清潔費；街燈和紅綠燈的電 費；每天上班時經過的香港公園的保養費；花了$200買了一個全家全年入場證便經常參觀的康文署博物館的策展及保養費；當我懷疑鄰居發生家暴事件後報警， 前來調查的兩個警員的人工...還未計算偶然仍然會使用的公共醫療，甚至兒時的免費教育、學童保健、交通津貼...

有時，我也會認為自己交的稅款比我的負擔能力高。只是，我亦不認為交了稅的人就一定比沒有資格交的人強。

一個紀錄 (P.S. 陸永好好多)

"Constance" and her pet

... walked from my old phone to the new one.

Happy New Year, Happy New Year!

A new eraser for a brand new year, and bye bye to an old pencil.

This one...

isn't quite done yet, but I give up.

All drawing classes will break till 2011. Finally have my Saturdays back for other purposes.

Hong Kong Park (2)

This is the oil painting of the previous pencil sketch. I think it looks more like a forest than a park.

Today's World Aids Day

對抗愛滋﹕抗戰廿五年

http://hk.news.yahoo.com/article/101127/4/lhcx.html

Hong Kong Park

I walk through the Hong Kong Park every morning to work. It gives me the strength and energy to start off the day. As we are going to relocate in about half a year, I start off this project of painting the Hong Kong Park.


This is a sketch for the oil painting next week. The area is opposite to the bridge to Citibank Tower.

Landscape (1)

I have to confess that I only painted the bottom layers, while the highlights were done by the teacher.  I couldn't really do the trees in the front.

My little exhibition at home

They are there cause the paint isn't quite dry yet.

士多啤梨蘋果橙 and friends 系列 (2)

This one is far from done, but I was so bored that the teacher gave me something very different to do this week.

A story distantly related to Liu Xiaobo

Someone I know is working in Beijing and most of her colleagues are local.

In the morning when Liu Xiaobo was put on "trial" on suspicion of "inciting subversion of state power", one of her local colleagues was listening to RTHK morning news via the internet.  (The word "trial" has to be put inside a quotation mark cause that's not a fair one, and that office uses HK internet service.  Otherwise, RTHK website is blocked in Mainland China as in Facebook, Youtube, and many others.)  That was the first time that colleague heard about Liu's name (and not to mention the "trial"), so she "Baidu" the name.  (Baidu is a popular search engine in Mainland China.)  Baidu told her that her search result contained illegal content and therefore were not displayed.  Being a local, this certainly rang her bell.  She then switched to HK internet service and "Google" the name again.  She was surprised that so much was written about Liu but she was aware of none.

She then asked her HK colleague if she had ever heard about Liu Xiaobo.  The latter said yes and went on and on about details of Liu.  The Beijing girl was totally amazed.

Today, Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China", while he himself and many other Chinese prisoners of conscious are in jail.  At the same time, quite some Mainland Chinese haven't even had a chance to hear about their names.

Next time when a Chinese wins a Nobel Peace Prize, I certainly do hope s/he is fighting for some international peace mission, not something only on Chinese soil.

Release Liu Xiaobo.  Release prisoners of conscious.

Nobel Peace Prize 2010 goes to Liu Xiaobo

Chinese dissident Liu Xiaobo was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize 2010 "for his long and non-violent struggle for fundamental human rights in China". Liu is currently serving his 11-year imprisonment due to "inciting subversion of state power".

http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/laureates/2010/press.html

Another term gone

This is not as nice as I expected.

A 2-hr sketch to fill the last class of the term. Also a good time to review the column (the mug) and the ball (the orange). Pencil drawing class will break for 3 weeks till end of October.

士多啤梨蘋果橙 and friends 系列 (1)

I suppose this means another stage of my oil painting.

演戲家族《一屋寶貝》主題曲

第二次睇《一屋寶貝》，依然喊足三小時。2nd run 的場地是荃灣大會堂，居然全場爆滿，等開場時有點熱血沸騰。可惡的是今天我睇尾場，sound track 竟然賣哂！

A skull

This is the 2nd one I did. The first one got so much retouching from the teacher that I gave it up and started another one.

Toys of an artist

Mini-plaster casts from 扭蛋機. They are very small. I don't think one can really draw from them though, but still, I want to collect them all!

For all those with brothers and sisters and bunch of cousins

士多啤梨蘋果橙系列 (10)

Bye-bye my pals

Finally done with these red pepper, papaya and egg. The last one under the green light.


***** *****


士多啤梨蘋果橙系列 (9)

Say no to racism

After reading all those frustrating racist posts / comments, I thought of this book I read and this post I wrote.

http://idatse.blogspot.com/2008/05/identity-and-violence.html

A hand

No doubt about it.

士多啤梨蘋果橙系列 (8)

My best friends, again, under the red light this time.  There are still green light, blue light and yellow light!!!!!

Never ending story

The same set of red pepper, papaya and egg but this time without light. The papaya is obviously smaller than real.

P.S. Still a long time till I "officially" done with these fruits and veggies.

士多啤梨蘋果橙系列 (六)

This red pepper, papaya and egg should be with me for a while, changing different colours of light or no light at all each time. But since I changed my class schedule, I may need to change the set later to be in a group with another girl. (Really a little girl. She comes to painting class with her mom.)

New Kids on the Sketch Book

My new project -- children sketches.

Used Chloe as the first experiment. It doesn't look like her of course but not so bad for the first trial.

BTW, raise your hands now if you don't want me to sketch your kids!

麵包超人個 friend -- 奶油麵包小弟

自由花-毋忘六四 ( Flower of Freedom-Never Forget June 4 )

去維園前做好準備

1 款藥水、7 種藥丸，希望極速止咳，為星期五晚做好準備。

拒絕遺忘

「六四」是怎樣一回事?

士多啤梨蘋果橙系列

Another apple and orange. Learning objective -- paint the colours as close to real as possible. However, the teacher didn't tell me the learning objective in advance so I painted some other colours for the background at first and he started yelling at me!!!!!

With some retouching from the teacher. Not much but essential.

This is done in 2 hours. I think this pace fits me better. Can't do any better even if I spend more time.

For the teacher, this isn't done yet but I gave up.

最後果個妹妹簡直無得頂

老媽

老媽書讀得不多，是非黑白倒分得很清。

小時候放學剛好是《十八樓C座》播放的時間，老媽就告訴我們林彬是怎麼死的，為甚麼會有《十八樓C座》。幾十年來，少說也聽了這段事跡幾百次。

老媽自從香港有代議政制開始，每次都會投票。有次爸問為甚麼她支持的候選人落選了，老媽就說：「又不是買六合彩，我是投我喜歡的，不是買會中的。」偶然，她會因為沒有機會投長毛一票而感到可惜。

1991年香港第一次立法局地區選舉，老媽到現在還會說她當天投了「雙華」。雖然，她也是近幾年才知道華叔旁邊那個肥仔（佬）叫李華明。

1995年，老媽因為「新九組」而手擁兩張選票。她感到很高興。

老媽曾經因為貪小便宜的緣故，一度成為工聯會的會員。2003年，老媽因為葉劉一句「30萬工聯會會員都支持23條立法」而憤而退會，並且興奮地參加7.1遊行。

老媽不喜歡曾鈺成和曾德成兩兄弟（近年應該包括曾蔭權，因為每次電視新聞有曾蔭權，她都會第一時間轉台，打擊我的新聞資訊自由）。每次民建聯支持《公安條例》，老媽就會 說：「搵人問下曾鈺成，問下佢佢細老當年係點解坐監嘅。」

今天之前，老媽不斷問我那日投票？有甚麼候選人？為甚麼還沒有收到投票通知書？

今天，老媽準備在出街 wet 之前投下她從不間斷的一票；並且一如既往，只求參與，不問結果。

五一六。最後召集

《一些關於時間的思考》 - Kai Chi Leung

南韓地方選舉宣傳歌

歌曲好不好聽不是重點，我喜歡這幾句歌詞----「有件事不能夠再拖延了，現在就要做。拋棄『我微不足道』這種想法，更好的世界就會來臨了。

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep0ydwy4cxo

追擊十八仝人愛落區

五月的陽光

I saved the penguins!

Mural painting @ the Pamela Youde Nethersole Eastern Hospital this afternoon. We didn't paint much as it's only a three-hour session. However, I saved these penguins by drawing their black skins and eyes (free hands!). They were ruined by another volunteer yesterday.

8 hours VS 10 minutes

After all the plaster casts, this set of things is actually quite easy.



Not done yet, of course. It's only a 10-minute sketch, but for some unknown reason, I like it.

My first ever coloured oil painting

Interestingly, this is better than the 2nd one I did this week.

Semi-finished

This one isn't quite finished but I don't want to continue any more.

In support of HK brands (not Brand HK)

Finally had a chance to visit the Design Gallery for leisure.  I was determined to get something before I even went close.

Another 10 hours of effort

I have to say this is much better than the mouth at the beginning.

Two steps forward

The 2nd class should be a ball, but the teacher added an apple as well. (This one has some "retouching" from the teacher though. I still don't know how to blend the colours together.)

Doublespeak

新盛世主義的十項國策獻言:

* 一黨領導的民主專政

* 穩定第一的依法治國

* 執政為民的威權政府

* 國家調控的市埸經濟

* 央企主導的公平競爭

* 中國特色的科學發展

* 以我為主的和諧外交

* 單民族主權的多族群共和

* 後西方後普世的主體思想

* 中華文明舉世無雙的民族復興

-- 陳冠中《盛世》

美術之正宗

豐子愷說，習畫要先學素描，畫好素描之後再學油畫，此乃美術之正宗，其他如粉彩或水彩都只是旁門。















Back to square one -- I started oil painting class after CNY. Everything has to start all over again.

Nice weekend

Going to galleries, shopping, reading, watching TV ... well, a little bit of work too ... What a nice way to spend my time.

Will start oil painting classes on Wednesday, a two-solid-day workshop on arts for disabled over the next weekend, long working days expected for the next two weeks at least.

Tough time ahead.

林阿P - 給金鐘地鐵站車廂內的人

Oh...

... I marked the wrong date on the picture.

《麥兜．在濕地上》

Not very successful either

消失

可能近來多讀歷史書，有點覺得我城地標逐一消失，比所謂「借來的城市」時更加無根。未能立足過去與現在，又怎可能有未來？