My 2010 in Summary

Published by simon on December 30, 2010

So 2010 is coming to an end tomorrow (which by the way is also a holiday, thanks to the awesome Malaysian football team). Its time for me to look back to the year (for past years see 2009 and 2008). This has been a very busy and eventful year to say the least, so summarizing this to 8 or 9 points was a little difficult so here goes.

Bali

As always, spending quality with family is my priority, and this year we did quite a few short holidays. But this was the major family outing, and it was thoroughly enjoyable. Good food, fantastic sights, cheap shopping, hot weather.

(Travelogue can be read starting here)

Eyjafjallajökull

Spent quite a few months worrying about this Icelandic volcano (had to look up wikipedia to get the spelling right). Whole of Europe air travel was pretty much turned upside down, how come, you ask, it affected me? see next entry…

London / Paris

… coz i was waiting anxiously that my flight to Europe will NOT be cancelled. But it all turned out well, a great holiday. After years of talking about it and almost 9 months of planning, Pat, MY, WY and I finally did it. So Pat, when are we going again?

(My travelogue can be seen starting here)

Reading and Writing

As with the past few years, I kept up with the reading. I also took up a resolution to start writing my first great Malaysian novel, starting with a writing class back in January. I’ve kind of stopped with the reading in the past few months, and the writing dream has died off a bit, maybe the new year will start me off again.

Project Timothy and ACT-Asia

Very busy year for Academy of Christian Thought Asia (ACT-Asia). Dr. Ron Choong came back twice, and we finally published his book in Malaysia. Pic above shows the committee with Ron and his books and CDs at SIB and also him preaching in the Dream Centre back in January.

As for Project Timothy (PT), finally concluded the 3 year course this month. So what to do next? Start the 3 years again!

2010 World Cup

Everyone was into it for a month, was mostly a neutral audience throughout. Good for Spain to win though.

Returning to Watercolours

After a 16-year break, back to watercolours. Mostly a very fun hobby, although very frustrating at times.

Promotion

Well, took a lot of work in the past few months on my part, but I finally got my promotion letter yesterday. I had wanted to leave the company back in May, I guess things started to change for the better in October.

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And so we come to the new decade. Happy New Year everyone!

My Christmas Present

Published by simon on December 23, 2010

Merry Christmas, everyone!

Hope this year has been good for you as it has been for me. Overall, its been a long and hectic December, both at work and at home, but i’ve finally taken 2 days off today and tomorrow.

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Spent an hour in MidValley Megamall looking for a parking spot. I was there at 11am! Now I’m thinking twice of going out of the house tomorrow and Sat. Once we got a parking spot (had to do some waiting and stalking), we made the most of it, staying up until 7pm.

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Got myself a Christmas present. RM55 worth of art supplies from Art Friend.

The two tubes on the left and centre are Daler-Rowney Aquafine watercolours – Alizarin Crimson and Payne’s Grey (RM8.90 each for an 8ml tube) The most important colour that i REALLY wanted was Burnt Sienna, but they were OUT OF STOCK! After deliberating it for like 10 minutes, I decided to get the Professional Series A 5ml tube, costing me RM16.50. Probably the most expensive tube of watercolour I’ll ever own.

I had wanted to get Raw Umber, Permanent Rose and a few more colours, but with limited cash i had to settle for these 3 tubes.

In the background is 2 art blocks I bought for RM10.80 each.

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Saturday morning being Christmas day will be the day everyone in the family gets to open their presents. Hope my wife and kids love what i got them.

Titi Kwok, Master Artist

Published by simon on December 10, 2010

Went down to my hometown Muar last Friday, the plan was to have 6 days of uninterrupted holiday – sleeping, reading books, eating, jogging and going to the monkey park in the evenings. Meanwhile my 2 kids can terrorize my parents and drown their plants by watering them every hour.

Unfortunately, on the second day (Saturday), my daughter’s earache got worse and i sent her to a doctor, to cut the long story short, she spent the remaining 5 days on IV drip in Pantai Hospital Melaka. So instead of staying in Muar, we spent almost the entire holidays in Melaka, staying with Auntie Rosemary (her house is less than 5 minutes away from the hospital). Anyways one good thing from this trip was Auntie Rosemary bringing me to meet an artist friend of hers, Titi Kwok.

Auntie Rosemary owns many oil and acrylic paintings by him, including a huge one of koi fish commissioned specially for her. She also owns a few prints done by Titi’s father, who was very famous in Macau.

Titi’s studio is in Jalan Tokong, next to Jonker Walk in Melaka. I think i’ve probably walked past his gallery many times in the past, but probably never stepped in. The shop itself is pretty nondescript. But inside, you can see his wonderful works of art.

He mainly does mixed media (oils and acrylic) on canvas, but he also does watercolour on rice paper. His distinct style is quite easy to appreciate, and it doesn’t cost as much as you think it would.

Here’s the master himself, with some of his paintings. You can see the two at the far end wall are watercolour pieces.

He’s a really nice guy, giving me some tips on his oil painting. I ended buying a small painting from his ‘Kelong’ series.

The other highlight of the trip was dog in Auntie Rosemary’s house – Maya – the friendliest dog in the world.

Capturing Life in Soft Colours

Published by simon on December 2, 2010

Been busy re-learning water colours these past few months. Most of you have have seen most of my progressive work on FB, all i can say its been a fascinating (and sometimes frustrating) journey to re-discover this art form after more than 20 years away from the brush.

I did a piece of a rural country scene recently, my wife had this idea to frame it and give (with some reluctance on my part) as a farewell gift to some close friends migrating to Australia.

Anyways they seemed to love it very much (actually i beginner only, leh!) so i decided to paint something for my dad’s birthday coming up next month. Not that my art is any good, his eyesight isn’t fantastic up close so he can’t really tell, hahah.

It’s a painting of a landmark from his beloved hometown. No prizes for guessing where.

Hopes he likes it, spent RM30 to frame it up yesterday.