Guggenheim at Bilbao

I feel like getting back to watercolor again. And I had a dream of going to great art museums. So I am inspired to paint from a photo of Guggenheim at Bilbao by Oty in WC reference image library. I wish I get to see many great art museums in my life. The work is 5x7 inch watercolor postcard. I did use only 4 colors: WN permanent rose, WN cobalt blue, WN Payne's gray, and M.Graham Quinacridone Violet. M.Graham was given to me by my Wetcanvas friend in Australia, JJ or Judy Bevin. So thanks Judy, I put it to good use.

Baby Sketch#2

I tried this yesterday. It seems improve a little from a day before. Anyway I enjoy making it so much and decide to put some Conte Crayon on the sketch. Her body still looks off proportion here and there but that is OK. I will try some more.
6x15 inch Conte Crayons.

Baby sketch#1

Well this Sat. we did not have a baby sitter. So I cannot paint much. But the good thing was that I got to sketch my baby when she was sleeping. My daughter loves to be naked at home. The first two sketches I missed the head part entirely. The third one, is a complete body sketch but I think it looks more like an alien for me so I did not post it. I will keep trying and hopefully I will improve, at least good enough not to make Iris look like an alien baby. The black ink was done with Micron pen, the other are colorpencils drawing.

Sculpture naming

Well after that special busy daywork, I went to a sculpture show. The works belong to my sculpture teacher and his parents. That is right; my teacher grows up in a sculpture artist family, just like Andrew Wyeth in the US. modern art circle. My teacher's father Chumreung Vichienket received the Thai national artist in sculpture sometime ago. My teacher's mother was also an art professor in sculpture. My teacher is Yanpol Vichienket, one of the Thai modern sculptors. My school had commissiond him and his dad to do a sculpture installed in front of our faculty lawn. So five years ago I took a short sculpture workshop on the weekend at his home studio. I enjoyed it so much but later I was busy teaching on the weekend and ended up did not get to continue work in sculpture.

However, my teacher had asked me to name several of his works in English and also sometimes in Thai. The first big piece I named was a big horse sculpture called "Auspicious" as seen in the pic. My teacher liked that English name so much that he used it to name his modern horse series works. He told me that the name I gave him help him make good sales. I think having read lots of English magazines and books when I was young, loving art, knowing the Thai people, and spending quite some years in the US.; so those all help me to come up with the good English sculpture names for Thai buyers. A lot of his art clients are the Thai high-profile people. The following year I named another piece of his master piece,"Soulmate", which was a work of a unity of a spoon and fork. This year his mother had asked me to name a mother-child sculptures for her. She knows that I have already have a child on my own. So I will understand her works. Some of the names I gave was "Endless Love", "Dilemma of Life", "My Tender Heart", "You are the love of my life", "Devotion", "Mommy Mommy". So that night I was thrilled to get invite to see all the works that I named. I also reunited with one of my workshop friend. She did the cat sculpture in one of the pic. Later that night, though unprepared I had to help my teacher to do an ad-hoc charity sculpture auction at the show. He asked me to translate the scripts into English for prospective English speaking buyers. The proceed of this auction went to Breast Cancer foundation of Chula Hospital. I was having fun that night and felt so good to unexpectedly help Breast Cancer cause.

So eventhough I might not get to be a professional artist at least I can say that I am a professional sculpture naming expert.

All in a day's work.

Well, I am working as an assistant professor in computer science at one of state universities in Bangkok. Six months ago I was nominated by my colleagues to become the BSc.(Computer Science -- English Program) Chairperson. So now my day job besides teaching, I also have to run the BSc. program which has about 300 young Thai teenager students. It is not so easy. I do love to work my heart out to make sure the students have good learning experiences, graduate well, and get great job in Thai IT sector. However, I am not a manager type person; I am more of an artist, passionate and very emotional (at times). It is a challenging job for me to try to motivate the students. I told them many time "Motivation is not available for sales; you have to find it yourself". Some students are highly motivated but a lot of them also low-motivates and sometimes get in trouble of failing a class or the worst, on the verge of probation. There are a lot of good moments in my career. Following pictures show one of my artificial intelligence class, which they make computer games and compete with other groups in class. We all do have fun for that day. I also let the class critiques each group graphic user interface. So they gets the feedback from their peers about their design. I also get to use my art skills to comments on their game user interface design too, as you shall see in one of the pic.

The same day we had game competition, in the afternoon, I invited our successful alumnis to give a career prep. talk to the current students. But that very same day, at half day I got a STUPID letter from other lecturer of other school sending to my dean commenting on how bad of the "dress-code" that some of my CS students had violate.... Yes, "dress-code"!!! Excuse me !!! I am trying to make sure they are motivated to learn and graduate well; and someone actually pettition a formal letter to my dean to subotage my program for a few students dress-code violation... This really hurt my feeling. However, thanks goodness that at the end of the day, I could get over this annoying letter with the help of talking to my good students. What a day !!

Happy b-day...art girl

Well tomorrow is my b-day. In one way I am getting so close to 40. I have a few years to spare. In another way, this year I feel great, with the exception of minor minor bugs on my wrist and eyes but other than that I feel super and I am well. Unlike the past two years, which I had always been sick like a dog on my previous b-days. So therefore, this year I feel "SUPER" despite a little bigger number. I pray the Lord let me live happily and healthy to do tons more paintings.

Well I got myself a TREK 4300 Lady mountainbike yesterday as my b-day gift. Tone was there at Probike too to help me listen to the instruction how to lock and unlock the wheels and etc. If one said that you should think through a couple of months before making a big purchase, then I must be too conservative about this purchase. I had waited for 7 years to get it. I bought the helmet, the gloves, the lady contour seat, the bike tools, the MTB (Mountainbike) resource book the last month before I packed my stuff back to Thailand from the US after my graduation in Dec 2001. I did not buy the bike and ship it back to Thailand then because I did not know how. I was afraid it will get damaged during shipping. And once I was back to Thailand, I was too busy working and did not have time to go biking. Well I am still busy but my knee doctor used to say that biking is good for you. No joint pressure. So I will use it as often as I can, at least around our neighborhood.


On the way back to home from the bike shop, Tone and I decided to stop at the Secret Garden restaurant and cafe to pick up some cake to take home. Tone surprised me by asking me to stop there for lunch before getting the cake. It was such a nice place, my kind of place, happy garden style, a little bit too elegance for me but I can happily take it. I felt like sitting in a room, which come out of Laura Ashley catalog. As you will see in one of the picture below. Another picture shows me and my artwork 1 day before my 3? birthday. When I got home, my Grade1 friend called me to say Happy Birthday. We have been friends for 30 years now. So I could not ask God for more of my quiet but precious birthday celebration.

Happy wheel...

This is a postcard of Conte Crayon for Wetcanvas so Thankful for. Yesterday we drove by a new car-wash plus cafe establishment in our neighborhood. There is a giant white pin-wheel in front of the place, about 4 feet diameter and 15 feet tall. I had to stop and took several pictures of it. Today I got a chance to do this outside the house in our little garden. I did not want any chalk dust in the house. I must feel very happy when I paint so I add in several colors. Pardon my almost symmetrical composition, just move your eyes to the side a little and I hope it wont bother you too much.