A Painting a day...

I am proud to say I did quite a bit of writing last week! I don’t usually have time to because I work full time but I made the most out of the Easter holiday. I started reviewing shows at the Melbourne International Comedy Festival and you can read my reviews of Jennifer Wong’s show and Ronny Chieng’s show on artshub. I’ve also got a review of Liberal Arts pending. For fun (and to keep myself writing), I’m thinking about reviewing the new Justin Timberblake album. It's a very interesting album and I'm still undecided about it. Have you guys listened to it?

I met up with my friend Susie and she told me she’s going to write 1000 words a day. She suggested I do the same with my painting, which I think is an excellent idea. I’ve been feeling a bit down about my painting abilities this week, only because I suck at painting food! Like I mentioned in my previous post, I really want to create an illustrated dessert cookbook and the food I painted just isn't turning out right. I know I just need to keep persevering with it. I spoke with my partner's sister who is an art teacher and she gave me some handy tips so I'm gonna incorporate that into my paintings. Susie suggested I go suss out the NGV for some inspiration, which is a great idea.

I was telling a few people about the dessert cookbook idea and I’ve been told by two people to look at Dawn Tan’s art. I did a browse today and I just love of her work! Her paintings are so fun and colourful with an endearing quality to it. Dawn's art is a great example of how art doesn't always need to look real.

I was also reading a blog post from Pikaland about how there are ways for us to make money so we pay our bills AND do our creative projects. It's just a matter of not wasting your time and doing it. If you're spending your time whining about having no time to 'create' while watching reruns of Big Bang Theory (which was what I was doing last year), then you really need to assess how to use your time more effectively.

Anyway, I felt pretty inspired by those two blogs so I painted a portrait of a goofy Great Dane. I'm very pleased with how it turned out!

Do a lot of work

Last week’s been a really good week for me, creative productivity-wise. I haven't reviewed anything in months so I'm proud to say I've submitted a review for Liberal Arts to arts hub. I’ve avoided writing reviews for performance shows because the turn around is crazy and I work full time, so there’s very little time to write a good review. When DVD reviews were up for grabs, I dived for them. It was hard starting them but once I started to concentrate more, everything flowed really well, which I'm pleased about. Watch out for my review of Liberal Arts soon! 

I've also just locked off the script to my first short film! I revisited it tonight after a 2-month break from it. I've made some changes, which I think makes it stronger. I’ve started contacting a few people who I’ve had in mind for certain roles and hopefully that will get things rolling. I’m still unsure if I should get a producer or not. Some people say yes, some say no. I guess I’ll just have to see how I go. I'll definitely need a production manager though.

A few weeks ago I made some amazing little cupcakes for my friend Al's 30th birthday party and I wanted to write a blog post about the recipes. This is what they look like. I was pretty freaking proud of how they turned out:

Then I had this great idea: Why don't I illustrate the cupcakes instead of taking photos of them? Then it lead to an even bigger idea: I should totes make a dessert cookbook featuring illustrations instead of photos. I started painting food this week and I've realised food is really damn hard to paint in watercolour!

Either you create something washed out like this:

Or you oversimplify to this:

I obviously feel really disappointed that I can't paint food very well. I guess I’m still trying to figure out my “style”. Once I know this, it will dictate how this cookbook will turn out. My problem is I try too hard trying to paint things realistically. I always have to remind myself it’s OK if something doesn’t look real. Somethings are more endearing when they look a little different.

Speaking of food painting, I found Heegyum Kim’s blog yesterday. She illustrates her recipes and the food she eats. It’s absolutely stunning and I’m studying some of her work to see how she does it. She doesn’t fixate of realism, but has fun with the colours and shapes. While I don’t think my painting style is like hers, it’s a great point of reference for me. I haven’t found many food illustrators so if you do know of any, please share in the comments!

I also found this quote from Ira Glass on Heegyum’s blog that I want to share with y’all. I guess it’s a reminder of whatever artform you pursue, it’s all about practicing a lot and learning through doing. I think TV and film have created this idea that if you are gifted, you don’t need to train. This quote by Ira Glass is great because it shows you just how much effort goes into perfecting your chosen art form. Think about our most esteemed athletes and musicians: they do so much training to perfect their talents. It’s a great reminder for those days when I feel dejected because I’m not drawing/writing/painting at the level I want to.

Art Attack!

A few weeks ago, I did a watercolour painting course at CAE. It was great. If anyone is considering taking it up, I strongly recommend doing an introductory course because watercolour painting can be a little technical. I'd strongly recommend the course at CAE. The teachers are great and it's good fun.

Before the course, most of the things I painted were landscapes, and I'm not very good at that. After the course, I had a look at some watercolour artists. Most of them paint landscapes but there are a few like Emil Nolde who also paint portraits and flowers. Nolde's work is very gestural and vibrant, very different to what we associate watercolour with.



Anyway, I've started to paint more animals now. It's much more fun and you can be a bit more detailed with it. I'm not great at it but I'm getting better, I reckon. I would ideally like to paint something more colourful.

Here are some paintings I've done after my painting course:

We played with the paints at CAE, trying to make the paints melt into each other. It looks very cool!

We learned to use salt in our paintings. The salt soaks up the paint, creating a cool effect like stars in the sky or give the effect it's snowing. The effect varies depending on the colour of the paint and how dry/wet it is on paper. For this one, my paint was a bit thicker and dryer so the snowing effect wasn't as obvious.

I was given a cretionist brochure one morning and it had some great images in it. I ended up painting these giraffes. I think it turned out really well. It's not perfecting but it's still kind of cute.

This one was a bit disappointing. I found this really cool photo of an own but I just couldn't do it justice.

I read article about award-winning hens and there was this photo of a stunning white rooster. I had to paint him. Again, I couldn't do it justice. It was also trickier than other animal portraits because he's white and in watercolour painting, you don't have a white paint option – it's whatever colour your paper is.

I painted this guy today. It turned out all right. I'm pretty happy with it although I wish I could paint his skin folds better.

During high school I was really interested in using biro to create the illusion of texture. I decided to play with biro and watercolour. I'm pretty happy with how it turned out. I might do more of these later.

If anyone has any recommendation of things I can paint, please let me know! And you can follow me on instagram if you wish: instagram.com/chouxchoux