Water Adrenaline

“It is the greatest shot of adrenaline to be doing what you have wanted to do so badly. You almost feel like you could fly without the plane.”

–Charles Lindbergh

Went to the Singapore Waterfest  Festival last Saturday with Jean and Fergus and took some shots. We came rather late but good thing I still managed to capture some action photos. More of the Waterfest Photos HERE.

15- minute sketch 1: Portrait of a hand

 The title is of course, politically incorrect. since portraiture mostly refers to faces and mugshots, and this sketch doesn't really sport anything with a grinning face on it. 

anyway, this is the first of a series which I'm naming "15- Minute Sketches". It's a no-brainer really, since the title is mainly the time description of the sketch, which are all done within, well, 15 minutes or less.

 The first sketch is a tribute to the part of my body who has done most of the work for me, not including my brain. it is of course my twin assets– er… My hands (In this case, a hand).

  Other parts of the body assist the speaker, but these(hands) speak themselves. By them we ask, we promise, we invoke, we dismiss, we threaten, we entreat, we deprecate; we express fear, joy, grief, our doubts, our assent, our penitence; we show moderation, profusion; we mark number and time.
      - Quintilian (Marcus Fabius Quintilianus)

Done on sketch pad, direct 0.2 filt-tip drawing pen, copic markers and an orange crayon & scanned. 

The Wonders of Life

An old Chinese proverb said that the miracle of life is not to fly on air or to breath on water, but to walk on earth.

And maybe it's true. some may brand it cliche' but have you thought how wonderful life is? How much of a miracle is it to live everday? sure there are pressure at work and more often than not, we get frustrated of things not going our way. So instead of counting sheep or sulk, why not think of the better things in life?

Like having  a clear blue sky above you…

To be able to witness a glorious sunset… 

 To be able to get by with what little means you have…

To be able to materialize imagination through the tip of a pencil and make them come to life…

…and to be able to feel home, wherever you are in the world. 

 More often than not, things around us, including our lives are wonderful…

…We just have to look CLOSER.

All about Work

It does not seem to be true that work necessarily needs to be unpleasant. It may always have to be hard, or at least harder than doing nothing at all. But there is ample evidence that work can be enjoyable, and that indeed, it is often the most enjoyable part of life.

 

–Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi

 

A series of images which peek into things usually seen on an architectural/ design office. In this case, mine.

 

The Concept Factory. All my works and ideas are processed here.

 

Technical Back-up. Materials and supplier's catalogue. 

 

The Forgotten. Beaten hard copies which has seen better days. 

 

Cold companions. Rolled and foldered drawings.

 

Best friend. Hard hats are the best you got for protection during site visits. 

 

Colours of Imagination. Stacks of drawing markers.  

 

The Grandmother. This behemoth HP plotter is the best equipment a design office can have. It prints great images on the fly and can plot plans and presentation boards up to 1189mm x 841mm paper (A0 size). 

A Thought About Women

Women. How can we ever understand these specie who was said to came from Venus? You either loathe or love them. They either complete you or break you. They have mood swings that change faster than an automatic gearshift. They make our lives miserable yet life is dull without these colorful creatures. Their soft hearts melt you yet on the other hand, their unending mouth chat makes you crazy. They lament on equality yet they cry foul when not given special care. They alone can launch a thousand ships, inspire heroes to war and tame Greek gods. We treat them as trophies, a symbol of stature and success—for it’s always the most successful man who gets the hottest babe. A king’s ransom, as one would say. 

But what has plagued me for years about women is their psyche. I have decided that it was time for me to stop thinking like every hot-blooded male around and try to get into a woman’s head for a change than always aiming to get into their pants. How does really a woman’s brain work? Does it involved psychomotor theories? Or does it involve deeper psychoanalytic definitions the way Sigmund Freud’s theory conveys? No simple non- psychologist chap can answer that, I guess. It’s a league of its own. It’s not as straightforward as analyzing a football game, nor as infinitesimally amalgamated as Einstein’s atomic relativity. Its just women. Plain and simple. Yet intricately, densely complicated. Fire yet water. Yin and Yang at the same time. Alpha and Omega emerging at both sense. It’s confusing, I know. Maybe it’s easier to get Theseus out of the Minotaur’s labyrinth than trying to comprehend these dames. There are countless theories and unsolicited opinions you can read in magazines and  digest books. Varying ideas that sometimes even contradict with one another. What is it really about women that we can’t understand them? If you think asking them for help, don’t even count on it. Even they themselves are clueless on how their head works—though they always seem to pan the topic (even branding you rude). 

When you asked questions, you expect to find answers. In this case, I don’t seem to find a concrete one who can satisfy the weight of my query (well, not counting Freud’s Penis- envy hypothesis). So I decided to find the truth (or the facts?) my way—my style—the normal way… As what Sherlock Holmes would always say, "It is an old maxim that when you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth." 

As I tried to understand women, I observed a lot of things. Things that you don’t normally sensed when all you think was impressing the gentler gender. 

Being in a group of women is like being in Normandy on D- Day. A warzone, to say the least (for a man, that is) especially if you’re the only gentleman alone in a group of gozziping dames (Of course, that won’t count if you have a heart which has an inclination to the fairer sex, if you know what I’m trying to say). I mean, they mock and laugh at their boyfriends like it’s an ordinary thing. And it petrified me to realize that in one time or another I did suffer the same dealing from my formers without me even knowing it.

Yet, at the end of the line, we guys were still more than thankful for women’s existence. Without them, we don’t have our loving mothers and our ever- caring wives or girlfriends. And we won’t have an excuse to look good so we can impress a girl down the street. Even in Genesis itself, a woman was created to ease the loneliness of the first man. God’s last creation and the most perfect symbol of a living art. The true embodiment of something that a man is not. Maybe like life, men are not really destined to understand these fine creatures. For like life, they’re not a puzzle to solve but a mystery you live. Come to think of it, maybe it’s that unpredictable nature that made them irresistible in the first place—you know, that quality that continually fascinates men. However we may try to understand women, the bottom line is—we Love them. In fact we adored them so much we can’t take them out of our minds. That’s why we make complicated writings such as this one just to mask our feelings that we do. Sure they drove us mad as hell sometimes, but that’s a small price to pay for the gift of their existence in our lives. More so for bringing us joy and bearing us children. Now, that is happiness.

Welcome to my New Home!

"You can learn new things at any time in your life if you're willing to be a beginner. If you actually learn to like being a beginner, the whole world opens up to you."

So says Barbara Sher. As for me, This is the beginning of a new start. A new footstep. A breath of fresh air and a new blueprint for another long journey. I have been tinkering for a while to have a new blog that will cater things that blogger cannot give me and after some long deep thoughts, I finally did it. I was thinking of switching to wordpress at first, since everyone says its a very powerful blog host, and most of bloggers I knew switched to it. But I discovered i.ph and liked how easy it is to use, and the templates are more art-friendly.

I have been with Blogger for around two years now and I won't be totally abandoning it since I will use it as an avenue to post my comics things.

So fellow bloggers, ladies and gents, friends, visitors and curious stalkers, welcome to my new home. Welcome to my life.

Anyway, below is a photo (not related to the post whatsoever) I took on my favourite subject: My son.

The Fullerton

Built between 1924 and 1928, the Fullerton Building was named after Robert Fullerton, the first Governor of the Straits Settlements, and was opened on 27 June 1928. Its first tenants included the General Post Office, the Singapore Club and several government departments.

In 2001, the building was re-opened as a high-end five star hotel. It was totally refurbished on the inside but its original exterior has been preserved.

The Fullerton Hotel Singapore has 400 rooms and suites which either overlook the atrium courtyard, or face downtown Singapore's skyline, the Singapore River promenade or the Marina Bay. The hotel's 199-square metre Presidential Suite even has its own elevator, and a glass-enclosed veranda.

Designed with the business and leisure traveller in mind, The Fullerton Hotel has a 24-hour financial centre with the Bloomberg Professional service that provides financial reports and world news, and 15 meeting rooms equipped with conference facilities.

The hotel has a 25-metre outdoor infinity swimming pool, fitness centre and a luxury spa. The hotel has five food and beverage outlets, which include Jade, a restaurant serving modern Chinese cuisine; Town Restaurant, an all-day international dining restaurant; The Courtyard, which offers afternoon tea and lunch choices at the hotel's atrium; San Marco at The Lighthouse serving modern Italian cuisine on the top floor of the hotel; and the stylish Post Bar which serves a wide range of signature cocktails and wine. Ballroom and conference facilities are located at the basement.

The Fullerton Hotel has won major travel and architectural awards such as the Condé Nast Traveler Gold List award and the Architectural Heritage Award from Singapore's Urban Redevelopment Authority.

More images HERE.

Beauty in Split of a Second

We all know the value of time. Even a factor of a minute is gold especially if like me, you commute by bus or train. And it's frustrating to see your bus or train went off just before you reach the loading platform. Time is free, but it's priceless. You can't own it, but you can use it. You can't keep it, but you can spend it. Once you've lost it you can never get it back.

Beauty is relative with time. The finest wines are getting better as they age, while women are at their loveliest at youth. Flowers bloom with seasons, and trees shed at fall.

Sometimes though, beauty come and go without us noticing it, within our everyday lives. It happens in a split of a second, and then its gone. Beauty that dies as soon as it bore life. Thanks to imaging, we can freeze time and capture moments.

More of this set of images HERE.