Tote bags

Upon finding that my fabric/textile markers had dried up, I experimented with textile paint instead and that proved successful on first try. It first started out with random patterns, and then, I wanted to have a personalised M for one of my friends and it turned out well, especially since it was done freehand, then I worked on another S for another friend and I wanted to do an ampersand but I couldn't decide on the style and so I went with another alphabet and only when I had hung them up to dry, did I realise they spelt SAM.

This is way too fun.

Set your sights high

My fave poster by far. Text wise. You can have this on your wall, once you purchase it from here.

Create Yourself // Let Your Heart Lead You // The Definition of Hope is You Still Believe even when its hard

All these posters are sold here. 

white ink on black posters

All these posters are sold here.

dream big and go for it / be the light

you can purchase the above poster here

and the poster below here.

stop denying yourself happiness

Commissioned work completed.

How my commmissioned work looks like completed. It now resides on a bedroom wall somewhere in the south of singapore. It really is tough bringing it up on buses and having to try to avoid jostling with the rush hour crowd.

Make Yourself Happy / Blow out the candle, I will burn again tomorrow / Let's Go Explore

I was on a roll. I did three drawings on the couch with HBO on. Caught a new series or two on On Demand. Girls, which I thought was the most, for lack of a better word; "real" show I've seen about girls making a living in NewYork. No glamour, no rich bitches. Just plain old...well, realistic girls. Although, I do think it involves the appearance of hipsters though and I'm thinking emo kids of the late 90s to 2003/2004 have evolved into being called hipsters. I'm pretty sure they have grown up by now, but I'm just saying that I think hipsters are the new emo kids, except that they're not emo. Oh wait, anyway, when I say "Emo", I'm refering to the genre of music and the kids(including me) that listened to that back then. Post hardcore, post punk stuff and not any of that eyeliner wielding stuff. 

Anyhoo, these drawings are on sale in my etsy store. The second drawing in orange is actually a line from Feist's Inside and Out song and it is also in A3. The other two are A4.

Sometimes you feel the need to be somewhere else

Did this last night while watching The Fighter and then Tangled. I know. Yes. Tangled. I needed something to ease off the drama from The Fighter. I thought Amy Adams was brilliant in that one. But maybe cos she was a tough chick. And Mark Wahlberg? Is it just me, or does he always get cast as a bad ass softie? The tough guy with alot of heart? Or maybe it's that voice. 

Can you feel it? 

Good vibrations. Sweet...sen..sa..tion. 

At the Railway.

Commissioned work

Am currently working on a 36" by 28" inch fabric piece on commission. I am using 100% pure organic wool which i ordered from here. If you've worked with felt before, you'd know that they only sell Acrylic or wool blended felt in Singapore. I had asked a couple of other shops and they all say because of the high cost of wool felt, they don't bring them in.  Jennifer of Wool Finch Studio, makes her own felt and hand dyes them into all these pretty colors that you don't find in Spotlight, Daiso or Art Friend and it's really soft compared to the acrylic ones. 

Anyhoo, I underestimated the time it would take to work on this piece, thinking I could complete it in 2 days. I was wrong. I'm only about 60-70% done and its back to the office tomorrow. I hope I get to complete it over the next 2 nights. Its been awhile since I had blistered fingers from hand sewing. I swear it's cathartic.

The past 4 days have been really productive and I feel like I've found my joy and peace, out of the love of doing what I do. It'll be another 3 and a half weeks of ad agency life before I resign and go back to working as a freelance designer at home and focusing more on my personal art projects. It's quite sad though, cos I really love my colleagues and I'm gonna miss the lunches and laughter and jokes with them. But I'm doing this for me. I can't wait!!

Have a good week ahead!

2 Drawings added to my Etsy Store.

I just put up these two drawings for sale on my Etsy store.

You will pull through & Cheer up emo kid.

Two drawings done today. You will pull thru in cyan ink and will be put on sale in my Etsy shop. The below drawing will be hung in my friend's living room.

Try Hard Everyday & Majulah Yourself

It's the nation's birthday. I watched the parade on tv and cringed when the commentator said his congratulatories to the olympic medal winners of Singapore. Firstly, I don't pay much attention to the Olympics. Secondly, the players were China born. I have nothing against the Chinese really, but when you regard a win like this; a nation's pride, it's just sad. Regardless, whether or not, he or she is a citizen. Cos in my opinion, whether whoever reading this, likes it or not, you ought to be a pure born and bred singaporean. But oh well...

We just have to keep trying hard everyday to prove not to everyone but to ourselves that we are as great and worthy to be on this earth and to be in this fast paced country. 

We are great, because we try. Hard every single day. 

I'll be putting this up for sale on my Etsy really soon. It's in A3 size.

Another drawing I did today. Majulah means onward and I took it from the national anthem Majulah Singapura(Onward Singapore). But really, onward yourself. 

Tumblr

I placed all my past work into a Tumblr as an archive or portfolio of sorts. I was told when I was interviewed for Streething that my site was hard to navigate, when collating my personal works. And so this should help. You can click on the image to go to the site. 

Believe without doubt.

You know, I was just getting into the groove of things. I did this just few hours after I was done with the first(previous entry). It's just really therapeutic. Almost mindless but not. 

Eversince the year started, the one resolution I made was to MAKE MORE ART. And I stand attest to that. I have been. I try with my busy schedule. In recent weeks, it's almost become an anxiety. A need to do something when I get home from work. I should be sleeping. The spark is there and I should take action. I used to always say that "I don't have the time etc, etc" and my conscience replies "Make Time." I just have to keep moving to keep this flow going. Hard work always pays off eventually, right?

Stop thinking too much.

So my earlier sketches have evolved into this. This was done while having a corned beef sandwich in the other hand and being mindful not to drop any bits unto the paper. I believe this has become the new "pattern" or style(maybe) to work with. It's been a gradual move from the triangular patterns that I had been working with for the past two years. This has more fluidity and movement and works well with the cursive type. I've likened to calling this my "hand cramp" (proper grammar would have it be "cramped hand" but I'm Singaporean, so it works better this way) series. 

Kult Magazine #9 : Animals

Received the new issue of Kult Magazine. My stencil work was featured in it and this issue explores the theme on animals. I was given a fact to work with.

"Millions of trees are accidentally planted by squirrels who bury nuts and then forget where they hid them."

Doodley googley

It started out with this one.A few curves that turned into lines and into a bunch of lines and it started to form. And I worked with it for two other sketches below. And that's pretty much all I had time for this week.

*I need a better camera. I promise to get one soon!!